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Students at Pine Elementary School in Omaha’s Little Italy area react to hearing they will be in the news for artwork they made as part of a cultural exchange program with Carlentini, Italy, a sister city of Omaha. Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. Some of the art will be added to murals at schools in Carlentini. (Anna Reed, Omaha Public Schools)
OMAHA — A local artist key to the creation of Omaha’s popular Little Italy mural has launched another art project to strengthen the bridge between Nebraska’s biggest city and a small Sicilian town from where many of the state’s early Italians emigrated.
This latest venture will be told through the eyes of children.
Called “Little Hearts — Big Roots,” the binational initiative centers on students at Pine Elementary in Omaha’s Little Italy neighborhood and partner schools in Carlentini, one of Omaha’s official sister cities.
The local students were invited to create artwork related to a “My World, Your World” theme that reflects their everyday Nebraska lives with family, food, traditions, neighborhoods and other cultural identity.
Winning entries will be used as the foundation for mural workshops in Carlentini, where Sicilian children and artists will come up with their own creations. The results will be installed as murals stretching through the halls of Carlentini schools: Pirandello Elementary and Carlos V Elementary.
De la Guardia says the effort stands out for its kid-centric, ancestry-driven flair.
“It helps them connect with their roots,” she said. “They get to share a part of their world — which will be shown in another part of the world.”
Mixture of cultures
Monday, about 25 students from Pine Elementary presented their art pieces to de la Guardia, who will leave later this week for Carlentini to work on the venture from that end. Monday’s batch joins another 20 or so already submitted. Entries will be accepted through Feb. 10.
Many of the youths share Italian roots, but have never visited the country of their ancestors. Others may be of another heritage, but are growing up with influences of the Little Italy area.
One third-grader painted a Dia de Los Muertos image, representing the Day of the Dead celebrated especially in Mexico, and said it reminded her of her grandma.
The student’s description brought de la Guardia to tears.
“That’s her culture. I wanted them to share their world,” de la Guardia said. “We come from many different cultures, and descend from immigrants all over the world,” she said, noting that Omaha’s Little Italy neighborhood has evolved into a mixture of cultures and backgrounds.
The names of Omaha students will appear in the final murals alongside their art — adding another lasting memento of the sister city partnership that became official in 2024, following a “friendship” pact.
Longtime bond
A park named Omaha, on Italian island of Sicily, signals revived partnership
To be sure, the bond began more than a century ago, when an emigration wave sent nearly half the population of Carlentini — about 3,500 people — across the Atlantic Ocean to America to work, with the biggest share settling in Omaha.
Omaha’s Little Italy neighborhood has existed since those early days, but the sister city connection ramped up in recent years, fueled by younger generations’ thirst to better know their motherland.
De la Guardia, whose Omaha mom was born in Carlentini and who retains close ties there, has encouraged ongoing ties, with projects including a podcast and the mural she helped paint and organize on a wall of Little Italy icon Orsi’s Bakery and Pizzeria.
She said the latest children-focused mural project is designed as the first phase of a multi-year effort called “United in Our Roots: A Tale of Two Cities.”
That larger venture aims for six install sites across Carlentini, featuring murals, mosaics and public art created via a cultural exchange to be led by de la Guardia and a team of about eight American and Sicilian professional artists.
Underlying the project is years of community-based work in Omaha’s Little Italy and a desire to preserve and activate cultural identity through art while creating tangible connections for local families, said de la Guardia.
Another goal: ‘creative district’
De la Guardia said the youth project also will help the Omaha Little Italy artist guild, which she founded, build the case for establishing a “creative district” in Little Italy, a designation by the Nebraska Arts Council.
Such districts have been named across the state and, for example, in Omaha’s Benson and historic Dundee neighborhoods. Key benefits include access to dedicated development grants, official state branding and could trigger increased economic activity through perhaps art galleries and events.
Once winning Omaha youth art submissions are selected, workshops are to be held in Carlentini. De la Guardia also is seeking sponsorships to help with materials, workshops and costs of mural installation in Carlentini. She said the budget for that first-phase mural project is $15,000, about 25% of which is to go to help general operations at the Carlentini schools.
The remaining phases call for $385,000, for which de la Guardia said she is seeking grants and a grant administrator.
De la Guardia, a therapeutic art practitioner, says she’s motivated by pride and love for her heritage and wants others to enjoy connections to their ancestral roots as well.
“Everything I’m doing is from my soul,” she said. “And these kids put their hearts into their artwork. It really filled my heart.”
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