The line between festival and family reunion blurred Sunday at the Lodi Grape Festival Grounds.
Italian music carried across the warm afternoon, children danced near the Bambini Stage, visitors made their way toward wine tastings and food booths, and inside an exhibit hall, families paused in front of banners tracing Italian American stories rooted in Stockton, Linden and San Joaquin County’s agricultural past.
Presented by the Sambado family, Festa Italiana brought together Italian clubs, volunteers, vendors, performers and families for a daylong celebration of Italian American culture in San Joaquin County. The annual event filled the fairgrounds with music, food, cooking demonstrations, cultural exhibits and a sauce contest that invited attendees to judge one of Italian cooking’s most personal traditions.
For Adam Auerbach, a parent volunteer with the Girl Scouts, the festival is a place where visitors can experience Italian culture from several directions at once.
“I’d describe it as a family event where you get to experience the cultural diversity of Italy,” Auerbach said. “What I love about this event is you get people who can come in and are just here for the food, they pop in and pop out, and people who are here for the family celebrations.”
The day unfolded across several corners of the grounds. The main stage featured The Trucco Band, Pasquale Esposito and The Anthony “Nino” Lane Band. The Benvenuti Stage included performances by the Stockton Italian Combo, Bruno Cerri and the Nicolini Brothers. At the Bambini Stage, children’s entertainment, dancers and dance lessons kept younger festivalgoers moving.
Other attractions included chef demonstrations, wine and product tastings, flower petal art, Italian family history displays and the Boss of the Sauce contest, where attendees could pay to sample and judge sauces.
Behind the music and food lines was a volunteer effort months in the making, Auerbach said. The Girl Scouts helped staff concessions, sales booths and the entrance, while organizers coordinated vendors, performers and activities.
“It takes a lot of manpower,” Auerbach said. “There’s so many folks that want to get in here, so it takes a lot of months of preparation to get this going.”
The goal, he said, is for visitors to leave with more than a plate of food.
“I hope they get a real Italian experience,” Auerbach said, “and they get to hear some Italian spoken.”
That sense of culture being shared in public is what Bill Trezza said Festa Italiana was built to do.
Trezza said the festival is organized through collaboration among Italian clubs, including the Pacific Italian Alliance, the Italian Athletic Club, Liguri nel Mondo and the Waterloo Gun & Bocce Club. The clubs, he said, help bring out members, friends and sponsors, giving the event the broad support needed to fill a venue the size of the Lodi Grape Festival Grounds.
“This is an event that’s put on by Italian clubs who collaborate so that we can promote our Italian culture in a large venue with a lot of people, with a lot of experiences, whether it’s through food or culture or art or music, you name it,” Trezza said.
The festival has grown over the years, adding more vendors and new attractions while keeping some familiar features in place. The stilt walkers, Trezza said, remain one of the crowd favorites.
“People love it,” he said. “They’re very engaging.”
But some of the festival’s strongest connections to San Joaquin County were found indoors, away from the music and sauce lines.
Inside an exhibit hall, large displays told the stories of Italian American families whose work helped shape the region’s agricultural life. One display honored Dean “Dino” Cortopassi, who was born in Stockton to Italian immigrant parents, Amerigo and Teresa Cortopassi. The exhibit described Cortopassi as a businessman whose legacy included agriculture, philanthropy and conservation.
“Our father was a man of creativity, action and hard work,” read a quote from his son, Gino Cortopassi, printed on the display. “He created a legacy that has been passed down to his children and grandchildren.”
Nearby, another set of banners traced the story of the Sambado family. Alex Sambado and his brother, Aronne, immigrated from Italy in 1920 and first settled in San Francisco. Alex later moved his family to Linden after seeing opportunity in agriculture. The family eventually built A. Sambado Company, producing fruits including peaches, cherries and walnuts.
The displays gave the festival a local anchor. Festa Italiana was not only about celebrating Italy, but about recognizing Italian American families whose lives became part of Stockton, Linden, Lodi and the wider Central Valley.
That history is still present in San Joaquin County, where about 29,080 residents report Italian ancestry, or 3.7% of the county’s population, according to American Community Survey estimates. Stockton has the county’s largest Italian American population, with about 8,392 residents reporting Italian ancestry, followed by Tracy, Lodi and Manteca.
For Tom and Karen Migliori, both second-generation Italian Americans, the festival felt familiar in the way family traditions often do.
The couple belongs to the Pacific Italian Alliance, Karen Migliori said, and Tom Migliori said he has been a member of the Italian Athletic Club for more than 40 years. They have attended Festa Italiana over the years, returning for the food, the people and the chance to see parts of their heritage reflected back to them.
Karen Migliori said she especially enjoys the cultural displays inside the festival.
“I like seeing the displays inside, especially the cultural heritage displays that they have,” she said. “They usually feature something that we’re somewhat familiar with, and you get some more information about it.”
The Miglioris grew up in Stockton, but said the festival also shows how connected communities in the Central Valley can be, even with a little friendly rivalry.
“Lodi has always been one of our adversaries, football wise,” Tom Migliori joked. “But we have a lot of friends in Lodi and Stockton, so it’s all good. It’s part of a larger group, which is the Central Valley.”
Outside, one of the day’s most popular attractions turned family cooking into friendly competition.
The Boss of the Sauce contest invited attendees to become judges for $5, tasting sauces between 1 and 3 p.m. Auerbach called the contest a must-stop for anyone hoping to find “grandma’s best meat sauce.”
“If you don’t get there in time between 1 and 3, they’re going to run out of sauce,” Auerbach said. “I promise you.”
By afternoon, the festival had become a loop of small scenes: children dancing near one stage, families stopping in front of old photographs, visitors lining up for food, friends greeting one another and Italian music carrying over the fairgrounds.
For Trezza, that is the measure of a successful Festa Italiana. The event is not a major fundraiser, he said. It is something closer to a community offering — “a big event of heart, Italian culture, passion in the heart.”
Success, he said, is easy to spot.
“People keep smiling and telling me how much they’re enjoying being here and appreciate us putting this on and enjoying my antique truck in there,” Trezza said. “That’s what it’s all about, people coming out here and having a good time.”