STAMFORD -- When Stamford-born Mickela Mallozzi recently traveled to Toronto, she liked that Canadians "describe their country not as a melting post, but a mosaic."

The result is that the third- or fourth-generation Italian-Canadians still speak fluent Italian, and that young couples getting married maintain wedding traditions still seen in the home country, Mallozzi said.

While Italian-Americans may not speak Italian fluently with the same frequency as Italian-Canadians, Stamford's Italian community showed Sunday that its culture did not melt away, but instead is part of the mosaic of the cultures in the United States. There was a Catholic Mass celebrated entirely in Italian Sunday morning at Sacred Heart Church, followed by a Columbus Day Parade and traditional music, dancing and food at Columbus Park.

Mallozzi, a first-generation Italian-American, said that the world's largest contingents of Italian descendants from Minturno, Italy, are in Stamford or in Canada. During the parade, Mallozzi and her mother carried a banner of Minturno's most iconic site: a castle from the 1100s. Minturno is on Italy's southwestern shore between Naples and Rome.

The Rev. Martin deMayo, the parochial vicar for the Sacred Heart Church, said that Columbus Day is a way to celebrate the positive contributions that Italians have made to civilization, instead of just stereotyping Italians as mafia.

It is important to have a day to recognize Italian culture for its true accomplishments, "when people always associate it with `The Sopranos' and the mob, or pizza and spaghetti," Mallozzi said. Or the Jersey shore, Mallozzi added.

Italian-Americans have made contributions such as painting the cupola in the U.S. Capitol and carving the faces of the presidents on Mount Rushmore, according to Giuseppe Pampena, who has been involved in the Columbus Day celebrations for over 30 years and this year as a member of the Knights of Columbus.

The food of Mallozzi's childhood is "literally peasant food," she said. Her parents grew up on a farm in Minturno.

Now all the food for the poor man -- broccoli rabe, fresh sardines, codfish and tripe -- is being explored by chefs in New York City, Mallozzi said. She grew up using every part of the animal and canning her own tomatoes.

While it's great that more people are seeking to be more sustainable in how they prepare and consume food, that was always how her own family has made their meals, Mallozzi said.

Celebrating Italian-American heritage is not the same thing as a celebrating all things about Christopher Columbus, more than one person said. At the same time as Christopher Columbus is celebrated as the preeminent Italian in history for leading voyages that led to Europeans learning of the Americas, that history is very controversial now, Mallozzi said.

"You have the whole history of Columbus enslaving the people of the islands and forcing Catholicism on them and raping their women," Mallozzi said. "It comes to this whole point of, where is the balance of celebrating our Italian culture when people aren't wanting to revere this person?"

DeMayo, who read up on the history of Columbus in preparation for the festivities Sunday, said that in one instance, Columbus brought back American Indians in chains to the royal court of Spain.

Spanish Queen Isabella, a "very strong-willed, upright woman, said to Columbus, `Who gave my admiral permission to treat my subjects this way?' " deMayo recounted.

While that was not a shining moment for Columbus and he had strong desire for wealth, Columbus also was a man of faith, deMayo said.

Italian Americans are very much a people of faith still, said deMayo, who is one-quarter Italian and whose grandfather changed the spelling of his surname upon arrival to the United States. Celebrating one's culture is reflecting that "God wants ... to be at the heart of our culture, to be the inspiration for whatever is true and good and beautiful in society," he said.

While Columbus sailed to find a water-based trade route to Asia, without Columbus coming to the Americas, Italian-Americans would not be here, Pampena said. "We're not only celebrating our Italian heritage. We're celebrating America," he said.

Pampena, who immigrated to the United States at age 17, said it's like having "two mothers. You have a foster mother and you have real mother. You love both the same way."