growing up italian essay

Growing up Italian – American

As you most likely know, nowadays Americans of Italian ancestry are the nation’s fifth-largest ethnic group. So, to be growing up Italian – American is a curious experience filled with the unique Italian American culture and traditions.

Italian’s romance with food

For people of Italian origin, even if your family has been removed from the country for generations, Italian family culture follows through many areas in your life.

It is never boring when the whole family is together, and every time you try and tell someone how many cousins you have you must be forgetting at least one of them because they are too many to count.

One of the most striking differences between your American friends and you is the amount of food you eat as a family, especially on holidays. Your American friends only eat turkey on Thanksgiving or Christmas. And they eat turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

Now, Italians do eat these things, but among many other things like antipasto, soup, lasagna, meatballs, salad and whatever else grandma finds is appropriate for the particular holiday. The turkey is usually accompanied by a roast of some kind and is followed by a combo of fruits, nuts, pastries, cakes and homemade cookies. For the Italian – Americans a seven-course meal between noon and 4:00 p.m, is a common thing.

All meals are cooked with ingredients from someone’s home garden. Yes, you have a garden, or at least your grandparents have one. And not just flower gardens, but massive gardens where tomatoes are mainly grown. Of course, there are also peppers, basil, lettuce and squash in the gardens. Everybody has a grapevine and a fig tree, and in the fall all the Italians make homemade wine, lots of it.

Italian songs and movies

An essential part of the Italian American family culture is singing Italian songs together with your family, and sometimes even dancing to them.

Growing up Italian, you must know Toto Cutugno and the lyrics to “L’italiano” and “Ti Amo”. Also, no Christmas can go without the Christmas anthem “ Dominick the donkey “. And if your name is Dominick, you must have been teased with “Hey! Chingedy ching, (hee-haw, hee-haw) It’s Dominick the donkey!”, countless times!

If you are a girl of Italian descent, you should know the song “Volare” like the back of your hand, and you are likely to impress your American friends with reciting the entire Italian part within the song.

Religion as the center of Italian lifestyle

Your grandparents did their best to install religious beliefs in youngsters and they probably have succeeded. Passing on the spiritual code to new generations has always been such an integral part of Italian family values.

Speaking of values, you would probably agree with us that communion and confirmation are so much more than a sacrament. Receiving your First Holy Communion must have been quite an event for your family.

Events in the Italian way

Italian weddings are surreal! Be sure that when you go to an Italian wedding, 500 more people will be invited. However, the bride will most likely know only 30 to 50 of them. You will probably hear a lot of distant relatives saying to you “Oh, you got so big since I have last seen you!”. And the confusing thing is that you don’t remember most of these people.

The way Italians talk and live

What is common for Italian American men is the English – Italian language they invented for themselves. You never speak only one language, you mix English and Italian as you wish. You casually throw in Italian words in almost every sentence and everyone in your family has no trouble understanding you.

Also, for the Italians there is no such thing as merely talking. Most of the time, it‘s yelling. You probably yell when you tell a story, you yell when you fight, and you yell when you express your love to one another.  That is really a norm for the Italians.

When it comes to names, they repeat an awful lot, trust me. In a typical Italian family, you can find more than one “Angela’s”, “Lucia’s”, “Mario’s”, “Antonio’s”, “Dominick’s”, and a couple more “Salvatore’s”.

The traditional way of naming kids is for them to be named after someone. Usually that someone is a grandparent. And these grandparents are worth the confusion that comes with many same names in the family. They are a valuable part of every Italian family and are very much respected.

They are the ones to remind everyone in the family about Italian American history. They are here to tell stories about the period between 1880 and 1924 when more than four million Italians immigrated to the US. They came here in a search for a better life mainly from Southern Italy. And of course, they took whatever jobs were available, no matter how difficult the work or how low the pay, to fulfill their responsibility to their families.

The strong work ethic is among the typical Italian personality traits. Other than being loud, big foodies and immensely family-oriented.

As for other non-Italian people, they might not be completely aware of the Italian influence they probably have in their lives. Just think of this – the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the products you use, the celebrities you love and the co-workers you have. You could very well be surprised to realize that you too have been living under the influence of Italians your whole life.

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What Sets Italian Americans Off From Other Immigrants?

Family and work for starters, according to a new tv documentary..

Little Italy, New York City, 1950s.

—Everett Collection / Mondadori Portfolio

"And so you know the difficulty in becoming an American. It isn’t a sudden process. You get over it. But you don’t ever quite get over it. You carry it with you. That’s the great—and not so great—aspect of being or trying to be an assimilated American.” So says writer Gay Talese about his experience growing up Italian American in 1940s South Jersey. It is an introspective and angst-filled admission, somewhat unusual for Italian Americans, who tend to vacillate between voluble romanticism and hardheaded pragmatism. Yet his words are an important reminder that the process of assimilation is often, to borrow a phrase from Norman Podhoretz, a “brutal bargain.”

A 1942 photo of Italian Americans on MacDougal Street in Lower Manhattan.

—Marjory Collins / Library of Congress

Frank Sinatra in 1947.

—Gottlieb, William P., photographer. Portrait of Frank Sinatra, Liederkrantz Hall, New York, N.Y., ca. 1947, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Talese’s interview comes from a new documentary entitled  The Italian Americans , scheduled to air on PBS beginning in February. It is a stylish, engaging, and thoughtful documentary of nearly 150 years of history, chronicling the migration of a largely southern Italian population to America, beginning in the late 1800s and following its winding path toward the American mainstream. The documentary touches on the greatest hits of Italian-American life, from Fiorello La Guardia to Mario Cuomo, from Rudolph Valentino to Frank Sinatra, from Sacco and Vanzetti to Joe Valachi, and from Bank of America founder A. P. Giannini to Chef Boyardee.

We live in an era that is increasingly nervous about assimilation, finding it too coercive an idea to impose on new immigrants. A multicultural America seeks better analogies than the old “melting pot” and instead speaks of “salad bowls” and “gorgeous mosaics.” But  The Italian Americans  doesn’t shy away from the idea of assimilation, presenting episode titles like “Becoming Americans,” “Loyal Americans,” and “The American Dream.”

Yet this is no simple-minded tale or romanticized story of plucky immigrant success. It plumbs the complexities of immigrant assimilation and American ethnic identity in relatively sophisticated ways. In addition to the discussion of famous Italian Americans and the thoughts of academic talking heads, the documentary tries to include the perspectives of average Italian Americans. For this is their history, as much as it is the history of the wealthy and the successful.

Assimilation has never meant a “melting pot” where everyone “melted” into a homogenous “American” stew. As political scientist Peter Skerry writes, assimilation “has typically meant that immigrants have adapted and changed in disparate domains, rejecting their immigrant past in some ways (forgetting their parents’ mother tongue and speaking English, or learning to tolerate individuals with sharply different values) and holding on to other aspects of their heritage (ethnic cuisine, specific religious holidays, family traditions from the homeland).” It is a process that spans generations and involves a fair share of ambivalence. The loss of traditions and a psychic sense of displacement mix with the benefits of becoming a middle-class American. There are always two sides to every bargain.

Italian immigrants began arriving in large numbers in the late 1800s as relatively unskilled labor that helped fuel a booming industrial economy. These Italian workers seemed unlikely new Americans. Most of those early arrivals were young men leaving a semifeudal Italian South that held little in the way of opportunity.

Nearly half of Italian immigrants would eventually return to Italy, but today’s Italian-American community is descended from those who decided to remain in America. They brought over their families and created ethnic enclaves in Northern cities and small industrial towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Each immigrant group possesses its own strategies for survival and success. For Italians, theirs rested upon two pillars: work and family. Italian immigrants helped provide the labor for American factories and mines and helped build roads, dams, tunnels, and other infrastructure. Their work provided them a small economic foothold in American society and allowed them to provide for their families, which stood at the core of Italian-American life.

Another paradox is that although Italian Americans tend to respect authority, especially the authority of parents and elders, they also harbor a suspicion of broader authority figures, such as politicians and the Catholic hierarchy. This stems from the distrust of such authority in Italy. In America, the family stood as a bulwark against the larger, sometimes hostile, institutions. Respect for authority within the family; suspicion of authority outside of the community.

The downside was that Italians often chose to wait to become naturalized citizens, delaying their full inclusion in America’s political and civic life. One finds many Italians becoming naturalized in the years 1939 to 1941 as war erupted in Europe. The Second World War would find the United States in conflict with Italy, as non-naturalized Italian immigrants would find themselves briefly branded “enemy aliens.”

Yet the war would prove to be the third key foundation of Italian-American assimilation. The stereotypical Hollywood wartime platoon usually included the Italian American from Brooklyn. Over half a million Italian Americans served in the American military during World War Two. Soldiers like Congressional Medal of Honor winner John Basilone, one of thirteen Italian Americans to win the award, became national heroes. Italian Americans now achieved a place in the postwar world, sound track provided by Frank Sinatra.

Even in the 1950s and 1960s, however, Italians encountered prejudice and negative stereotypes. Much of that was related to the Mafia. Often victimized by organized crime, Italian Americans also found their collective reputation tarnished by organized crime, even as they climbed the socioeconomic ladder.

Then there is  The Godfather  paradox. Written by Mario Puzo, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, the first two Godfather films stand as two of the greatest American films of all time. The movies introduced famous lines into the American lexicon: “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse,” “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes,” as well as the ominous message behind a horse’s head in a bed.

The paradox is that one of the great triumphs of modern Italian-American culture has also reinforced many of the negative stereotypes that have long dogged Italian Americans. The book and the movie also provided a more unfortunate justification for organized crime: The business of Don Corleone and his family seemed to differ very little from the business of American capitalists. This dark lesson may have fit with the decade’s sense of corruption and disillusionment, but it also seemed to legitimize organized crime.

It has also spawned a whole genre of mob-related imitators, including Martin Scorsese’s  Goodfellas  and  The Sopranos , one of the best television shows of all time. There seems to be no end to mob-themed entertainment, yet there is no denying the greatness of some of the work or its popularity among Italian Americans, as well as the broader public. Mafia-related shows and movies, plus reality entertainment shows like Jersey Shore and  The Real Housewives of New Jersey , present a skewed version of Italian-American life.

The Italian Americans  condemns those cultural stereotypes that still permeate media depictions of Italian Americans before returning to Roseto, Pennsylvania, a small working-class town with a large Italian-American population. In the early 1960s, a medical survey found its residents had a lower-than-average incidence of heart disease. Researchers argued that the explanation lay in the social cohesion of a community centered on large Italian families, the local Catholic church, and ethnic associations.

When researchers returned to Roseto years later, however, they found that heart disease rates were no longer exceptionally low, but rather in keeping with other nearby towns. What happened? As the older generation aged, their local institutions weakened. The young generation grew up and moved out of their tight-knit ethnic enclaves, experiencing the benefits of upward mobility.

The Roseto story itself contains a bit of romanticizing. Anyone familiar with large Italian families knows that they can be a source of comfort and stability, but also a source of tension and stress. Nevertheless, the story of Roseto plays into a deep-seated nostalgia for the “old neighborhood.” The conflict between romanticism and pragmatism again raises its head; Italians long for the simpler past and old neighborhoods, but they have also been quick to leave those neighborhoods for greener pastures—and larger houses.

The documentary is ambivalent about these changes. It segues from Roseto to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, the site of a murder of a young black man by a mob of mostly Italian Americans in the late 1980s. The idea is that the isolation and insularity of the “old neighborhood” is also problematic. Assimilation means not just giving up the language of one’s ancestors, but also learning to live in a pluralistic society.

Finally, we are left with a third-generation Italian American who goes to Sicily in search of his family roots. In recent decades, geneaology has exploded among Americans. In the past, genealogy was mostly the preserve of old-stock Americans seeking to trace their family trees back to the Puritans and Pilgrims. Today, with the popularity of websites like Ancestry.com and easy access to immigrant ship manifests at the Ellis Island website, genealogy has exploded among Americans of a more recent vintage.

Some Italian Americans are researching their ancestors and turning to Italy to regain a kind of authenticity of experience they feel has been lost in the assimilation process. One reason why many of our ancestors did not spend time dwelling on the past was that they understood there was little future for them in Italy. The process of immigration thrust an insular people deeply rooted in family and place into the modern world. Once in America, that conflict between deeply rooted traditions and the possibilities of a new life grew. Their descendants have been dealing with that tension for generations.

As Italian Americans rediscover Italy and their immigrant ancestors, new immigrants from across the globe are continually arriving in America. They are making their own lives and navigating the complicated process of adapting to a new world while not completely surrendering the past.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, history doesn’t repeat itself. These new immigrants face their own unique challenges, different from those of Italian immigrants. It would be a mistake to say  The Italian Americans  represents a roadmap for assimilation. Instead, it is a useful reminder of the duality of immigrant life, of the strivings and contortions of those who live in the present while simultaneously facing both the past and the future.

Vincent J. Cannato teaches history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and is the author of The History of Ellis Island , which was written with the support of an NEH research fellowship.

Funding information

The Italian Americans  was supported with  $500,000 in funding  for development and production. It will air on February 17 and 24.

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Reflect & Refresh

Daily r&r for a healthy lifestyle.

• Posted on May 4, 2017 May 12, 2020
• by Sarina Tassone

The Joys of Growing Up In an Italian Family

Growing up in an Italian family is one of the things I am most grateful for in my life.

Between the large family dinners, endless amounts of food at holidays, and my screaming loud relatives, I can’t imagine growing up any other way.

I have compiled a list of some of the greatest joys I have had growing up in an Italian family.

1. The close relationships

  Growing up in an Italian family has made me close with everyone.

I’m not just talking about my mom, dad, sister and brother. I mean my zias (aunts), zios (uncles), cousins, my cousin’s cousins, grandparents, etc.

All my relatives and cousins are people I would call my best friends. They are who I grew up with and spent all my free time with.

They know me better than I know myself and we are constantly calling and texting each other now that we are older and all over the place.

2. Sunday dinners

Sunday dinners (or lunches I should say) are an activity that happens in every Italian family. It’s when your family, and extended family come together to eat delicious pasta meals every Sunday of the week.

They start between noon and include a solid eight hours of eating. Sunday dinners are something that has been so important to me growing up because they are a true bonding experience with your family.

For me, Sunday dinners were a chance for me to learn more about my grandparents growing up. Every Sunday, my grandmother never failed to tell us stories about her childhood and growing up in Italy.

I learned about all of her hardships and how she moved to America to make a better life for herself and her children. I will cherish these stories, and the memories with my family for the rest of my life.

3. The holidays

Everyone loves holidays but growing up in an Italian family has made me love them even more.

There’s a stereotype that Italians are loud, and honestly it’s so true. Holidays with Italian families consist of constant laughter, smiles, joking, and a whole lot of loud talking. It seems that even when we are eating we are still screaming and laughing at one another.

The second best part about the holidays and being Italian in general is obviously the food! I always like to tell people you truly haven’t eaten a lot of food until you’ve attended a holiday at an Italians house.

It starts with the appetizers and is followed by the pasta, the meats, the side dishes, the salads, the fruit, the desserts and finally the espresso. You basically leave the table twelve hours later and feeling 100 pounds heavier, and happier.

4. The traditions

Everything my family does has a story behind it. Italian families are all about the traditions and the back stories that go with them.

One of my family’s biggest traditions is making homemade tomato sauce at the end of August. It’s a tradition that has been passed down from my grandparent’s parents and it’s a day I can never miss.

5. The love

When it comes down to it, blood is thicker than water. Your relationship with your family is something that is important and unbreakable. I am so blessed to have grown up in my large, crazy, Italian family because there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel loved.

Image:  iStock

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Growing Up under the Influence of Italians

“Oh my goodness! It’s just a little sliver of a country! Where does all the nauseating Italian pride come from?!” my Anglo-Saxon wife of 30 years often expresses incredulously in our home. My children, although only 50 percent Italian, are fiercely loyal to and proud of their Italian heritage. They often remind my wife—invited or not—how she is the continual beneficiary of Italians: fine clothes, food, entertainment, furniture, lifestyle. Why, America itself owes its very name to an Italian, Amerigo Vespucci. My wife has now conceded to being an Italophile. (Yes, that is a real word. Ask Merriam-Webster!)

June 2 is a national holiday in Italy known as the Festival of the Republic (Festa della Repubblica). It commemorates the day in 1946 when Italians voted to do away with their monarchy. They exiled their royal family and became a republic. October is Italian Heritage Month in the United States.

I’ve grown up under the influence of Italians all my life. I’m a second-generation Italian American. That means my grandfathers immigrated. Both of my parents are 100 percent Italian. I not only have the DNA tests to prove it, but also one has only to give a quick glance at the first four generations of my family surnames (Pizzillo, Miceli, DiNauta, D’Ippolito, Sedita, Benvenga, Lombardi, Garone). I rest my case.

The funny thing is, you don’t have to be 100 percent Italian to be considered Italian. Heck, I’ve seen people with one percent or no percent Italian in their bloodlines who express love and pride for things Italian as if they were native Italian. Welcome to living under the influence of Italians and the love of all things Italy—Club Italophile.

My mother was Sicilian (Alese to be exact), and my father was Foggiano (Cagnese). Today, we bleed green, white, and red in our home, just the way I did growing up in Louisiana—a stronghold for Italians even today, thanks to the port of New Orleans. From the Italian flag in the corner next to the United States flag to the countless Italian bric-a-brac and heirlooms adorning shelves, nooks, and crannies, our home speaks, “We are proud ‘paesani.’”

Spurred by hard economic times in Italy and the irresistible allure of a life without limitations in America, my grandparents and great-grandparents on all branches of my tree migrated to the United States during the heyday of Italian immigration from 1880 to 1910. By 1924, over four million Italians had made the voyage to the United States. They boarded ships mostly in Palermo, Sardinia, and Naples, and spent weeks at sea before arriving in various ports in the United States, but mostly in New York and New Orleans.

I never look out over the ocean or the Gulf of Mexico but what I am compelled to envision what the hardships of those voyages must have been like and how I am the by-product of my ancestors’ zeal for a better life in America. Equipped only with determination, unfettered love of family, a few lira (the Italian currency at the time), a suitcase of clothes and a few family mementos, they were undaunted by the fact that they didn’t know the language in the United States, perhaps had no place to stay, and had no work lined up upon their arrival in their new world. They were Italian and knew they had the substance needed to make it.

This internal coding that “things will work out” is a deeply engrained element of Italian culture—don’t sweat the small stuff. Just give us the opportunity, and we’ll make something of it. Got fruit? Italians will make custom liquors or the most scrumptious jams. Milk? The finest cheeses. Animal hides? World famous shoes, handbags, and belts. (Think Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Prada, and Versace.) Meats? How about soppressata, salame, prosciutto, pepperoni, pancetta, and mortadella? Oh! And do I even have to mention Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini?!

Italian immigrants were mostly poor peasants and farm workers. My paternal grandfather, Antonio DiNauta, did own land with his family in Italy, but most immigrants had nothing to lose. America offered them what Italy could not at the time—hope and a fresh start. At one time, Italians made up as much as 80 percent of the population of the famous French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana.

So what does it mean to be fiercely Italian or to grow up under the influence of Italian culture? Well, it’s a way of life that, although a family may be generations removed from the old country, still permeates nearly every element of the family culture from generation to generation.

I asked my brother to share some of his thoughts and memories about our Italian childhood. We agree that food, faith, work ethic, music, gardening, home décor, lifestyle—all parts of the life of an Italian family—breathe and speak Italy.

Inscription from my mother, Anna Nauta, in a community fundraising cookbook that included some of her recipes.

Nothing brings more joy in an Italian home than traditional food influenced by the old country. In fact, who could argue that Italian food is not the most popular food and to many people the most delicious cuisine today? Italian recipes are proudly handed down through generations, and cookbooks from Italian matriarchs are some of the most strongly contested items upon the death of an Italian grandmother—all my siblings and I have these, and we cherish them, particularly if they include recipes from the family or handwritten notes from “Mamma.” In fact, we still criticize each other’s dishes and argue about who cooks the most authentic food according to “Mamma’s recipe.”

My Sicilian mother, Anna Michelli (Miceli), was a chef by trade. Managing the cafeteria at a large Catholic elementary school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she would continue her passion every day at home. I frankly rarely recall conversation that I had with her over the years that was conducted outside her kitchen. That’s where she performed her works of culinary art, told her jokes, chatted, made everyone feel like family, greeted everyone when they entered the house, and scolded us. In fact, when she ever did sit down on the couch for a respite, she would quickly fall asleep, exhausted. She always cooked for twice the size of our family, and, amazingly, unexpected daily visitors always seem to pop in about dinner time. And there was sufficient for all. She was always modifying recipes to share with local Catholic charity organizations for their cookbook fund drives, and she’d add her changes in writing in the margins for the next edition.

Mom’s famous homemade ragu recipe. I use pork sausage in lieu of the pork neck bones.

Holidays were just another excuse to eat in grand fashion. There would be all the staple Italian pasta and meat dishes, accented by countless Italian pastries and delicacies.

My mother and grandparents taught us children how to cook from a young age as well. Preparing meals would often be a family affair. Everyone had a task—and no one left the kitchen until the cleanup was done! On days she didn’t cook, she’d say, “If you don’t smell it cookin’, don’t bother lookin’.” That was not only a testament to her need for a rare break from the kitchen, but also an ode to the incredibly intoxicating smells of Italian food that were always permeating the air in our home.

Faith and Community

I don’t know that faith can be separated from society in an Italian community. In our home, we had a crucifix over every door and a rosary hanging on every bedpost. A statue of the Virgin Mary or some other saint usually adorned our yard, and statuettes and photos of the same and paintings of the Savior, if not of the Last Supper, were reverently displayed throughout our home.

We prayed and gave thanks over every meal and dropped on our knees morning and night to give proper thanks for the gift of a new day and being watched over through it.

Italian immigrants filled local labor shortages on farms, plantations, and production facilities. My grandpa Jack Michelli worked in the local pasta factory, and later delivered meats and produce to neighboring towns, which would lead to him opening his own mercantile (Michelli’s Grocery) on old North Street in downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In time, hardworking Italians strengthened the community, filling critical roles in the fire and police departments, medical care, education, and politics.

Italian immigrants were generous (and still are) in supporting local charities, building churches, schools, and facilities dedicated to promoting fine art. And they were fine additions to local athletics. My family served for generations in the local Catholic churches and supported fundraisers and service projects perennially.

Handcrafted Italian in-laid wood table from Sorrento, Italy.

Work Ethic and Self-Reliance

Italian immigrants were hardworking. My parents and grandparents had no patience for indolence. If they were working, the kids had better be doing something productive. My mother was first to rise in the morning and last to retire to bed at night. My grandparents next door were the first to rise and first to bed. They worked tirelessly and expected us to do the same. You had to “earn the right to play.” If we weren’t awake on the first morning call, my mother would pull us out of bed by our toes. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy pulling my children’s toes until they crack while they are lying on the floor or couch—very much to their dismay and horror.

We worked beside our family. We were not allowed to shy away from daunting or unfamiliar tasks. While we worked, our elders filled our minds and wove into our hearts countless rich stories of success, failure, triumph, endurance, and hope, inspired by the stories and memories of our ancestors. They wanted us to know the shoulders we stood upon, the substance we were made of, and how to provide for ourselves and our families against the ebbs and tides of hardships that would most certainly befall us throughout our lives. They expanded our skills by sharing with us their talents and the crafts, tricks, and tips of the family trades and by teaching us how to build and repair things. And if we couldn’t do it ourselves, we learned how to lean on the extended family and the Italian community network for the most reliable and inexpensive assistance—something my family and I still do today.

Grandma Angelina Pizzillo Michelli (1902-1975)

I owe my love of gardening to my maternal Italian grandparents, Jack Michelli and Angelina Pizzillo. Toiling by my side, they taught me the rudiments of fertilizer, sun, and water—the key elements to any successful garden. In the square feet of our shared garden, they taught me that hard work, diligence, and tending to the important things reaped great outputs. I also took great pride when my mother and grandparents taught me the intrinsic joy associated with taking portions of my produce to share with the less fortunate in the neighborhood and community—blessings I still enjoy carrying out today.

Perhaps you haven’t given it much thought, but look around your circle of friends and co-workers, businesses you frequent, clothes you wear, products you use, celebrities you favor, and places you like to frequent on vacation, and you could very well be pleasantly surprised to find that you too have been living under the influence of Italians throughout your life.

Note: You can build and share your family tree at FamilySearch.org and search millions of historical Italian records for free online in FamilySearch’s Italian collections and in the Italian National Archives . Millions more records are added yearly as part of a project to digitally preserve and increase access to Italy’s historical birth, marriage, and death records. See FamilySearch.org/Italian-ancestors .

Paul Nauta is a guest blogger at FamilySearch.org. He’s a family and family history enthusiast and loves just about everything Italian and outdoors. Follow on Twitter @nautapg or email at [email protected] .

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Echoes of Growing Up Italian

By Gina Valle

Echoes of Growing up Italian features accounts of the immigrant experience as told through the eyes of fifteen women from across North America. Some were born and raised in Italy while some have only been there on holidays. Some are mothers and grandmothers and some are single. Some only know a few words of Italian, while others are fluent. But they each have a discerning perspective on what it means to live with two cultures.

(Essential Essays)

9781771838689

200 pages | March 1, 2024

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The humanity that is present in each of these women writers’ pieces forces a reconsideration of Italian immigration to North America, as well as Italian Americans’ and Italian Canadians’ place in contemporary society.

Nancy Caronia, Teaching Associate Professor, West Virginia University

Gina Valle has collected stories in fact and fiction that are rich with the wisdom of old-world traditions, and sharp in their renderings of new-world ways.

Fred L. Gardarphé, Distinguished Professor of Italian American Studies, Queens College, CUNY

The contributors to Gina Valle’s Echoes of Growing Up Italian movingly evoke a lost world still vibrant in memory, where the reader imagines—and remembers—with them.

Edvige Giunta, Co-editor of Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire , and Professor of English, New Jersey City University

A heart-felt and brilliant collection. Here is the lift that only the conscious written word can bring to the ache we carry for the matriamia.

Annie Rachele Lanzillotto, author of Whaddyacall the Wind? and L is for Lion

Bravo, Gina Valle, for gathering together these welcome stories, and your own—so long overdue! You’ve given us far more than echoes. You’ve given us a full choir!

Darlene Madott, author of Making Olives and Other Family Secrets and Winners and Losers

About the author

Gina Valle’s parents were born in a small town in Calabria. Before they were 25 years of age, Domenico and Giuseppa moved to Canada and built a new life. Gina understood the responsibility that came with that decision. After completing her PhD at OISE (University of Toronto), Gina went on to found Diversity Matters where she focuses on making Canada a more equitable society for all. She is a writer, producer, editor, director and educator. She is a past board member of The Canadian Race Relations Foundation and the Advisory Council of OMNI-TV. She is a Director at Villa Charities, where she is Chair of Culture. In 2023-2024 Dr. Valle is a Goggia Fellow at the University of Toronto. In recognition of her work in diversity, Gina is the recipient of the Ordine al Merito, and the Queen‘s Diamond and Platinum Jubilee Medals from the federal government. Domenico and Giuseppa‘s legacies live on in Gina‘s children.

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9781771838689

Essential Essays Series

Guernica Editions

01 April 2024

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When I Am Italian

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Many Missing Stones What Does It Mean to Be Italian? Quando sono italiana : When I Am Italian Waterbury, Connecticut, My Ancestral Village

Up the Farm What Crawls around Inside Us Housing Memory Blue What We Remember Go Fish Food, Food, Food, and Hard Work

Creature Life My Mother's Letter to Her Sister Hard Work and Good Food Sunday on the Farm My Only Irish Aunt Minestra Means Soup Move to America Chiesta ca , or This One Here After Eden My First New York Story, 1965 200 Square Feet in the Village, or My Soluble Fortunes My Friend Elizabeth On Not Writing My Thesis Italia, sempre italia

Part I. Southern Italy The Stones of Dialect Siamo arrivati "That Winter Evening" My Neapolitan Wedding

Part II. The Opposite of Southern Italy After the Manner of Women The Grief Estate

Visiting Our Dead My Father's Bones Voglio bene Somewhere My Bill

Can a person born outside of Italy be considered Italian?

Description

"My ancestral Italian village in America was in Waterbury Connecticut. " In this sentence, Joanna Clapps Herman raises the central question of this book: To what extent can a person born outside of Italy be considered Italian? The granddaughter of Italian immigrants who arrived in the United States in the early 1900s, Herman takes a complicated and nuanced look at the question of to whom and to which culture she ultimately belongs. Sometimes the Italian part of her identity—her Italianità —feels so aboriginal as to be inchoate, inexpressible. Sometimes it finds its expression in the rhythms of daily life. Sometimes it is embraced and enhanced; at others, it feels attenuated. "If, like me," Herman writes, "you are from one of Italy's overseas colonies, at least some of this Italianità will be in your skin, bones, and heart: other pieces have to be understood, considered, called to ourselves through study, travel, reading. Some of it is just longing. How do we know which pieces are which?"

Joanna Clapps Herman is the author of The Anarchist Bastard: Growing Up Italian in America and No Longer and Not Yet: Stories , both published by SUNY Press. She is also the coeditor (with Carol Bonomo Albright) of Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana and (with Lee Gutkind) Our Roots Are Deep with Passion: Creative Nonfiction Collects New Essays by Italian-American Writers . She lives in New York City.

"In When I Am Italian , Joanna Clapps Herman asks, 'Can a person born outside of Italy be Italian?' In this collection of wonderfully evocative essays, Herman illuminates the complexities of identity as she takes the reader on her life's journey starting with her girlhood 'up the farm' in rural Connecticut with her extended Italian family. Stops in her ancestral home in Basilicata, and Turin—'the opposite of Southern Italy'—reveal that being an American of Italian descent in Italy poses its own challenges. " — Nancy Carnevale, author of A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890–1945 "A beautiful book. It takes us through the decades of the last century and into this one to ask what it means to be Italian long after one generation's arrival, and to consider how deep and elemental the facts of that are. This is a subtle, moving, and original piece of work—to read it is to see the world around us differently. " — Joan Silber, author of Improvement: A Novel " When I Am Italian , Joanna Clapps Herman's exquisite new memoir, begins with her rich, cocoonlike childhood inside an extended Italian American family in Waterbury, Connecticut. With its all-encompassing rituals of food, talk, and work, her family has transposed the rhythms of southern Italy to the new world. It's only when Herman leaves home—to escape the restrictions and claim her own life—that she realizes that this part of her identity does not necessarily reflect how the rest of America sees itself. With beauty and insight, When I Am Italian gives us Herman's fully lived understanding of the complex interweaving of culture and finding self. " — Lisa Wilde, author of Yo, Miss: A Graphic Look at High School Embroidered Stories: Interpreting Women's Domestic Needlework from the Italian Diaspora

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is an Italian-American blog covering Italian culture, news, recipes, and more! © 2024 Hardcore Italians. All rights reserved.

20 Signs You Grew Up Italian

It’s safe to say that growing up in an Italian household was rather unique and fairly different from the way your friends grew up. You didnt completly understand back then, but you are now grateful for all the life lessons it has taught you.

Let’s dive into the 20 Signs You Grew Up Italian:

1. You thought there was actually ice cream in these containers

Instead, Nonna would use these to store her tomato sauce.

2. You ran at the sight of a wooden spoon

Or a belt, slipper, or broom.

3. Someone in the family had plastic still on the chairs

No matter how hard you tried, you could never get comfortable on it.

4. You always left Nonna’s $20 richer

She would tell you to treat yourself to an ice cream but you knew you weren’t going to spend it on just ice cream.

5. You participated in the tomato sauce process

It was a great bonding experience with your Nonni even though they wouldn’t let you work too hard.

6. Your mother pinned a corno on you on your Baptism and Communion

To protect you from malocchio on your special day.

7. You found it weird that your non-Italian friends didn’t have 2 kitchens in their houses.

You had an outdated kitchen in the basement and another kitchen on the main floor for special occasions only.

8. Your Nonni gave you coffee at a young age.

And that’s where your coffee addiction started.

9. The cantina was always stocked with olive oil, wine, giardinara, and salami hanging from the ceiling.

Every now and then you would go in there and touch the salami to see if they felt ready to eat.

10. If your parents pissed you off you’d always call Nonna.

And she always took your side.

11. Salad was eaten after your meal, never before.

And your mother used oil, vinegar and salt to dress it. You never had the store-bought dressings.

12. You felt if you brought someone home that wasn’t Italian your family wouldn’t approve

Ma chi cazzo é Billy?!

13. Diets and calorie counting wasn’t a thing.

And if you were on a diet it usually didn’t last very long.

14. You understood the importance of freshly baked Italian bread

You didn’t have lunch or dinner without it.

15. You enjoy the old mafia movies

The Godfather is one of them.

16. If you were sick, pastina would fix everything

So would staying home with Nonna watching The Price is Right.

17. Your Nonno’s giardino is his pride and joy

God forbid you went anywhere near it without his supervision.

18. Your friends all think you’re yelling but that’s just your talking voice

You got this trait from your loud parents most likely.

19. No matter what other Italian food you ate, Nonna always made it better

You would say it out loud too.

20. You love to show off your Italian pride

Not just for the World Cup, but any chance you get. What are some things you remember growing up with? Let us know in the comments.

Main Photo by Eaters Collective   [Unsplash]

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Every time we said goodbye it took hours. We always went to family on Sunday and no matter where we went there was always food and you had to eat even if you just ate.

after supper the men would go to the club have drinks and play bucci ball all night

“MAA! eh MAA! ”

4 family members talking normally sounds like a room Full of people.

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Echoes of growing up Italian : women's stories from across North America

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Echoes of Growing Up Italian (84) (Essential Essays Series) Paperback – April 1, 2024

What you will find in Echoes of Growing up Italian are accounts of the immigrant experience as told through the eyes of women. The Italian diaspora is one of the most significant of the 20th century, with a far-reaching impact in the Americas, Australia and Northern Europe. The Italian immigration narrative is a universal one. The stories in this book of the Italian woman in North America and how she learned to survive as she lived with two cultures in her heart and home. This collection provides the reader with a candid glimpse into the lives of fifteen women from across North America: some were born and raised in Italy while some have only been there on holidays; some are mothers and grandmothers and some are single; some only know a few words of Italian, while others are fluent, but we all have a discerning perspective on what it means to live with two cultures.

• Print length 200 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Guernica Editions
• Publication date April 1, 2024
• Dimensions 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 177183868X
• ISBN-13 978-1771838689
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About the author.

Gina Valle’s parents were born in a small town in Calabria. Before they were 25 years of age, Domenico and Giuseppa moved to Canada and built a new life. Gina understood the responsibility that came with that decision. After completing her PhD at OISE (University of Toronto), Gina went on to found  Diversity Matters  where she focuses on making Canada a more equitable society for all. She is a writer, producer, editor, director and educator. She is a past board member of The Canadian Race Relations Foundation and the Advisory Council of OMNI-TV. She is a Director at Villa Charities, where she is Chair of Culture. In 2023-2024 Dr. Valle is a Goggia Fellow at the University of Toronto. In recognition of her work in diversity, Gina is the recipient of the Ordine al Merito, and the Queen‘s Diamond and Platinum Jubilee Medals from the federal government. Domenico and Giuseppa‘s legacies live on in Gina's children.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Guernica Editions (April 1, 2024)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 200 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 177183868X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1771838689
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
• #214 in Italian Literary Criticism (Books)

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What Was Special About Growing Up in an Italian American Home

By: Basil Russo,  ISDA President

Life in our country has changed so dramatically in recent years. Mass shootings have become an all-too-common story on our evening news shows. The threat of terrorist attacks are something we are forced to think about all too often. And the hostility extremist groups in our country exhibit toward one another is frightening.

We miss the security and stability we felt as children — children who were blessed to grow up in an Italian-American home.

Life was so much simpler and sweeter then. We had parents who loved us but weren’t afraid to discipline us. Our homes were filled with emotions, excitement and constant family interaction.

Let’s reminisce about what we can honestly say were “the good old days.”

Most of us grew up in neighborhoods that were either Italian American, or at least had a strong Italian-American influence. Our homes were simple and modest, but well cared for. The most important room in the home was the kitchen because of the significance the preparation and enjoyment of food had in our lives. The least used room in the house was the living room. The couch always had a plastic cover on it, and the room was only used when special guests visited.

The woman of the home, whether it was our nonna or our mother, spent nearly every hour of the day cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing. Their job was so much more difficult than any 40-hour-a-week job today. But they performed their work with love and a great sense of pride.

Sunday dinners were the most important event of the week in our home. The three to four hours needed to prepare the sauce (or gravy, or sugo, as different families chose to call it) began early in the morning to accommodate an early afternoon dinnertime. Meatballs and sausage were often cooked in the sauce, and often neck bones and pigs feet were used to add even more flavor to the sauce. If we were famished and pleaded our case, we often got a chunk of crusty Italian bread dipped in the sauce to hold us over until dinner. And dinners were the time to eat well and talk freely. Good conversation and good food were inseparable at the Sunday dinner table.

Holiday dinners also provided us with special family memories. Every good thing that occurred at Sunday dinner could be multiplied by 10 at a holiday dinner — more people, more food, more noise and more enjoyment.

To feed her family well was a nonna’s or mother’s way of expressing her love for her family. That is why so many of our wonderful childhood memories revolve around food. Italian-American mothers showered their families with love.

As a youngster, I also had vivid memories of my nonna cutting off the heads of chickens in our basement, and plucking and burning off the feathers to prepare a meal. I also remember helping my nonna can tomatoes. And when it came time to play, I would often run and hide between the flapping sheets and shirts hanging on the clotheslines in our yard.

Our nonnos and fathers worked hard as well. Aside from family, nothing was more important to Italian-American men than adhering to a strong work ethic. They well knew of their responsibility to be good providers to their families, and they would take whatever jobs were available, no matter how difficult the work or how meager the pay, to fulfill their responsibility to their wife and children.

Our nonnos and fathers also had certain responsibilities around the house. Many of us have memories of helping them make wine each year, as well as sausage or sopressata.

I can remember my nonno sending me down to the basement with an empty pitcher to be filled from the wine barrel. As he handed me the jug, he would smile and tell me to start whistling and not to stop until I brought the filled jug back to him. However at meals, he would pour me a small glass of wine and dilute it with some ginger ale.

Our backyard gardens were an essential part of every Italian-American home. My nonna would prune our rose bushes and flowers, while my nonno tended to the tomatoes, zucchini, grapevines and fig tree. I always enjoyed helping them look for the ripe tomatoes and figs that we would pick each week.

Some of our fondest childhood memories involve our family’s photo albums. Pictures were the primary means of documenting family history and important events. Looking through my family albums with my nonna often prodded her to relate many interesting family stories.

Family weddings also provided many wonderful memories. Receptions were held in old union or church halls. I remember sawdust being sprinkled on the floor to help the polka dancers whiz by. The Grand March was the highlight of the reception and was often conducted by one of the family elders. Later in the evening a huge circle would form on the dance floor, so that couples could jump into the circle to dance the tarantella When it came time to eat, sandwiches were passed around from a basket to guests sitting in folding chairs along the walls, which was followed by the passing of sugarcoated almonds. In later years, the sandwich basket was replaced by a buffet table. And everyone’s favorite drink was a highball, made with whiskey and ginger ale.

Many of us had the good fortune of attending Catholic grade schools. The nuns provided us with a good education and a strong dose of discipline. I can remember Sister walking up and down the aisle, tapping a ruler in her hand, as she slowly examined our work. It was not unusual to get a rap on the knuckles from the ruler, showing her displeasure. God forbid we ever got in trouble at school because our parents would double the punishment once we got home. I really believe we all tried to do as well as we were able in school, because we never wanted to embarrass or disappoint our parents.

Yes, life was special for us because we had the good fortune to be raised in Italian-American homes. Homes where family, love and loyalty were the most important elements of life. Homes where we felt safe and secure. Homes that provided us with strong values and a strong faith in God.

How wonderful it would be if our children and grandchildren could also experience such an upbringing.

Make the pledge and become a member of Italian Sons and Daughters of America today.

Basil M. Russo, ISDA President

• April 18, 2023

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What led to the bitter controversy over an Olympics boxing match?

A mighty punch by an algerian boxer has revived a politically charged dispute.

T HE BEST boxing matches often go to the final bell. But in the opening round of a women’s welterweight (66kg) contest at the Olympics, Angela Carini, an Italian boxer, abandoned her bout against Algeria’s Imane Khelif after taking a hard right hand to the head, just 46 seconds in. Ms Carini wept, refused to shake hands, said “it’s not right!” in the ring and said she believed her life was in danger, though the next day the Gazzetta dello Sport , an Italian paper, reported that she later apologised to Ms Khelif and said she would embrace her the next time she saw her.

The reason for the controversy was that Ms Khelif, and a Taiwanese boxer, Lin Yu-ting, had both been banned from competing as women by the International Boxing Association ( IBA ) after two tests of their eligibility in 2022 and 2023. (Ms Lin also won her first fight, on August 2nd.) Who sets the rules of such cases and how?

Many details are unknown. Ms Khelif has competed only as a female and has always lived as one. She took part in the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, where she lost in the quarter-finals. The IBA has not said what kind of tests it administered, citing privacy concerns, saying only that they did not include a testosterone examination but a “separate and recognised” test, and that Ms Khelif and Ms Lin had a “competitive advantage”. The head of the IBA , however, once told Russian media that the two had tested positive for XY—that is to say, male—chromosomes.

Some athletes in similarly controversial circumstances have “differences in sex development” ( DSD ), although no evidence has been presented that the two boxers have this condition. DSD is a range of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and the development of the sex organs and secondary characteristics in a variety of ways. Some such conditions are evident at birth; others can go undiscovered until puberty or adulthood. Some DSD s can confer the sporting advantages of undergoing male puberty. These can include higher bone density, larger hearts and lungs, and increased lean-muscle mass, including as a proportion of any given body-weight.

The most famous athlete with DSD is Caster Semenya , a South African middle-distance runner who won many sporting competitions before athletics rules covering eligibility to compete as women were changed. Along the way Ms Semenya was subjected to intense public scrutiny that revealed she has testosterone levels in the male range, and both internal testes and a vagina. World Athletics determined that her testosterone levels gave her an unfair advantage. To compete, she was told she had to take testosterone-suppression medication. (She believes this requirement was discriminatory and is suing the body at the European Court of Human Rights.) But suppressing testosterone does not eliminate some of the permanent physical changes resulting from male puberty.

The International Olympic Committee does not normally write eligibility rules for sports at the games, instead delegating to the governing bodies for each discipline. But boxing has been an unusual exception. In 2023 the IOC stripped the IBA of its authority to administer boxing at the Olympics: for years it had questioned the quality of the association’s governance and the integrity of its judges. That decision was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. In a statement on August 1st, the IOC called the tests that the IBA gave Ms Khelif and Ms Lin “sudden and arbitrary”. But its replacement criterion for boxing was merely what sex is listed in an athlete’s passport.

Delegating responsibility to each governing body is meant to ensure that those who know the sport best are the ones to decide how to balance inclusion, fairness and safety. The controversy over the Carini-Khelif bout has brought the last of these, safety, to the fore in a way that previous controversies, over sports like swimming and weightlifting, have not. The IOC says that it would be unjust to change criteria as the games continue. But a growing number of athletes are calling for more scrutiny of those competing in women’s sports. For them, relying on the assertion in a person’s passport is unlikely to be satisfactory. ■

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