Presenting: Lenny Lombardi from CHIN Radio – Pioneering Canada’s Multicultural Vision

As you know by now, www.travelandtransitions.com has dedicated itself to building bridges between people of different places and different backgrounds. There are many organizations and individuals out there who believe in the same cause, and none more so than Toronto’s legendary Lombardi family. Johnny Lombardi was a musician, WWII veteran, successful supermarket owner, impresario, entertainer and founder of Toronto’s CHIN radio station.

CHIN Radio is Ontario’s first multicultural and multilingual radio station and today broadcasts in the Toronto and Ottawa area. The programs are beamed out from Toronto on CHIN AM1540 and FM 100.7, and in the Ottawa/Gatineau region on 97.9 FM CJLL.

CHIN’s radio programs reach audiences in more than 30 languages and an even greater number of cultural communities. CHIN Radio is also available via satellite across North America on Anik F1, Ku-Band, Transponder 18, and world-wide listeners can tune in live on the Internet at www.chinradio.com.

In addition, CHIN also produces multicultural television programs for the Italian, Hindi, Indo-Caribbean, Iranian, Pakistani, Polish, Portuguese and Russian communities which are broadcast to a Toronto audience on Saturdays and Sundays.

The original person behind this multilingual communications empire is none other than Johnny Lombardi (1915 – 2002), a son of Italian immigrants who came to Canada in the early 1900s from the southern Italian region of Basilicata. I had the opportunity to talk to Johnny’s son, Lenny Lombardi, President of CHIN Radio, to find out more about his family’s commitment to multiculturalism.

Lenny Lombardi, President of CHIN Radio & Television

In his office in Toronto’s Little Italy I sat down comfortably with Lenny who struck me right away with his down-to-earth demeanour and razor-sharp intellect. It is quite obvious that Lenny’s outlook on life was shaped strongly by his father and he started to tell me some more personal information about Johnny Lombardi, a local legend and recipient of many Canadian awards and honours which include Broadcaster of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, the Order of Canada and many more.

Lenny shared with me that his father grew up in extremely poor conditions after his parents' arrival in Canada. I inquired why multiculturalism was such a driving force in Johnny’s life and Lenny explained that early on his father felt the sting of prejudice. However, he was a talented musician and at 17 years of age Johnny Lombardi founded his first band. With the young Johnny Lombardi at the helm, this musical group included many adult members that followed Johnny’s leadership. He was a real go-getter and eventually played the lead trumpet in the Benny Palmer Orchestra, second in stature only to Guy Lombardo. And along the way Johnny learned that music helped him integrate into mainstream Canadian society and gained him acceptance and respect. He was well on his way towards becoming a success story.

Two members of the Coro Italia choir sit down with Johnny Lombardi

Then World War II came, and Johnny Lombardi actually enlisted in the war rather than waiting to get drafted. He realized that this would give him access to more opportunities for advancement. During the war he was sent to Europe and fought in France, Germany and Holland, but fortunately he never had to fight in Italy, the country where his family had come from. Johnny was a decorated soldier and participated in D-Day to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Yet despite his dedication he felt a deep sense of alienation and aloneness. Lenny refers to it as a sense of disorientation due to missing his homeland, feelings that had a deep impact on Johnny.

When the war came to an end Johnny Lombardi began to entertain Canadian troops that were stuck in Holland, waiting to be discharged from the army. Being the bridge-builder that he was, Johnny started to organize dances, bringing together Canadian soldiers and local townspeople. And he brought in music from Canada, based on a keen understanding of how important familiar things are to all of us: music, language, food, traditions….

After the Second World War a huge wave of immigrants came to Canada from Italy, and Johnny, with his uncanny gift of psychological insight, realized that just as he had missed familiar Canadian things during his time in Europe, these Italian immigrants would certainly have to be missing their familiar foods, products and culture from Italy, the ever-important “creature comforts” that make us feel at home in a new place.

Images of Little Italy

So, drawing on his entrepreneurial talents, Johnny created a supermarket that was capable of supplying this new immigrant group with all the foods and tastes from home that they had been so sorely missing. His supermarket was located in the heart of Little Italy, originally a working class Toronto neighbourhood, that today has morphed into one of the most desirable residential and entertainment areas in Toronto. And it turned out to be a huge success, bringing people together from all across Toronto to celebrate Italian cuisine.

One day during the late 1940s, a sales representative for a local radio station was trying to sell Johnny some advertising. Johnny indicated he wasn’t interested in advertising, but he would buy air time on the station, and the “Johnny Lombardi Show”, a daily half hour show from Monday to Friday, was born. So in addition to the elements of food and language, Johnny added the elements of music and entertainment to his role as community bridge-builder.

At that time, Canadian broadcasting laws forbid any broadcasts in languages other than English and French, so Johnny’s show was broadcast in English, drawing on his roots as a musician, entertainer and communicator, traits he had already demonstrated very early in life. From that point forward Johnny never stopped broadcasting, he actually became a radio entrepreneur. Lenny informed me that his father always viewed radio as a primary form of entertainment and saw no limitations to this medium. He felt this concept of connecting people with their ancestral cultures could work for all immigrants and ethnic groups in Toronto to make them feel more at home in their new environments.

In 1966 finally Johnny’s dream became reality: he obtained a broadcast license for CHIN Radio. Johnny strongly felt that there was nothing unpatriotic about embracing your cultural heritage and that giving people a chance to connect with their roots would make their settlement process in Canada easier.

Images of Little Italy

Based on his own experience in his early years, Johnny Lombardi had always been fighting prejudice. With his radio programs he started to inspire tolerance, communication and understanding. Over the next few decades the Italian community in Toronto and in many other places became very successful, financially, socially and politically, and in some ways has acted as a positive role model for other immigrant groups that came later. Johnny was always aware of his humble roots and always made time for community endeavours. He was an active supporter and fundraiser for the Hospital for Sick Children and many other charitable organizations, hospitals and community awareness programs.

Until his passing in March of 2002 at 87 years of age, Johnny Lombardi dedicated himself to the cause of multiculturalism and the celebration of diversity. He was light years ahead of many with his early commitment to this cause, and always felt that Toronto and its wonderful ethnic mosaic had something special to share with and guide the world. Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was a good friend of Johnny’s, also a proud Liberal, and they had many discussions about multiculturalism. According to Lenny, his father had a significant influence on the former prime minister, who once stated “Canada is not a bilingual country, we are a multilingual country”.

Johnny’s pioneering spirit lives on in his son Lenny who is equally passionate about promoting and celebrating multiculturalism. Johnny’s oldest child and only son is the President of CHIN Radio, and Lenny’s younger sisters have also picked up the baton and are now running this family empire and continue to communicate the message of tolerance and understanding.

Images of Little Italy

Lenny adds that he works in an extremely culturally diverse environment and that he has never had any issues in this context. He feels all these diverse groups come together to make up something really special. The famous CHIN Picnic, held for the first time in 1966 and every year since then over the Canada Day Weekend, is one of Toronto’s largest and most popular festivals. It brings people together from all ethnic groups and denominations and was really Toronto's first multicultural festival.

In fact, CHIN’s philosophy of embracing our culturally diverse backgrounds is contagious: several former CHIN staff members came together in 1967 to found Caribana, today Toronto’s renowned festival of Caribbean culture. Lenny adds that many ethnic and mainstream broadcasters around Canada today have their roots at CHIN Radio.

Learning alongside his father ever since he was very young, Lenny himself fell in love with broadcasting and cultural diversity. He says he has always had a penchant for show business, but actually has never been an on-air personality. Instead he has always been a producer, so today he produces the CHIN Picnic, a variety of festivals and concerts, as well as the Taste of Little Italy, one of Toronto’s most popular street festivals.

But Lenny admits that his role as a multicultural broadcaster also comes with a huge responsibility. Lenny feels he has to lead the way and personally demonstrate that we can all communicate with one another, regardless of our ethnic heritage or religious affilication. Especially right now as conflict has broken out between Israel and Lebanon, he hears about the anguish among these groups through his managers and broadcasters. Lenny says “every time a bomb drops over there, we feel it here”. And he believes that multicultural broadcasting has a significant role in allowing voices from different communities to be heard, in creating dialogue. As long as we are talking we have a chance at preventing conflict, and that's where multicultural broadcasting comes in.

Images of Little Italy

I wholeheartedly agreed when Lenny commented that advocates of diversity and multicultural broadcasters can make a huge difference in building bridges between people from different backgrounds. He adds that some people mistrust the “multiculturals” since they have allegiances to more than one country or more than one culture. On the other hand, the champions of multiculturalism have a key role in bringing people together because they have an understanding of people from several different places. Multicultural broadcasters who have been in Toronto for a while have an important role in potentially de-radicalizing recent immigrants by exposing them to Toronto’s fascinating and diverse tapestry of ethnic groups and by injecting a voice of reason and tolerance into sometimes heated and emotional debates.

Lenny believes in small beginnings and says that small voices advocating diversity will become the dominant voice of reason. I sincerely hope that he is right. Through his programs over the last 40 years he has heard the anguish and fear of many groups whose home countries got entangled in bloodshed and conflict. He takes his responsibility immensely seriously, recognizes the implications of his role and feels it’s a privilege to dedicate himself to this cause.

He sums up his philosophy with two succinct statements: “understand and respect your neighbour”, and “Toronto is like one big minestrone, a mixture of all sorts of things that comes out perfect in the end.”

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