Buon giorno! Welcome to WOPs Against ICE!
Grazie mille for joining us!
About Us
Buon giorno!
WOPs Against ICE / Columbus Is In The Bad Place is an art project & labour of love by me, Gina Stella dell'Assunta. I am an Italian-American writer & performance artist living on Ramaytush-Ohlone land (San Francisco, California, United States). I am a direct descendant of Calabrese anarcho-communists who immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s. I deeply love my Calabrese heritage. But I will never not be furious that my people decided to attach themselves to genocide, slave trade, rape, colonialism, and racism in a Devil’s Bargain for increased white and economic privilege and American citizenship.
I was inspired to create these pieces after learning about the existence of the annual San Francisco Italian Heritage Parade in 2020. This event is held over Indigenous Peoples' Day weekend every year in North Beach, San Francisco's Little Italy (and the neighbourhood in which I live). While Christopher Columbus' name was scrubbed from the official title of the event in the 1990s, there are absolutely still pro-Columbus elements to the Italian Heritage Parade, including floats representing Columbus' ships and so-called "discovery" of the Americas.
In 2021, I began to stand along the Italian Heritage Parade route with a simple hand-drawn sign, paraphrasing a line from one of my favourite television shows: "Columbus is in The Bad Place, due to all the raping, slave trade, and genocide!" People responded so positively to my signs from 2021-2025 that, in 2026, I decided to improve on the design a little and (finally!) launch this shop.
Anti-Columbus, anti-ICE, and anti-fascist prints will soon be available for purchase here. Your dollars directly support a queer disabled artist on a limited & fixed income.
Grazie mille for supporting the work!