Essay
Friday, February 28, 2025
draft
It’s taken a long while, some 50 years, but it’s finally come – an understanding of living between two cultures.
…
Context – One
I was born in Aprigliano, a small hilltop town 16 kilometers south east of Cosenza. Today it’s considered a suburb; several of my relatives commute to Cosenza for work. I have many memories of my time in Aprigliano – my school, my First Communion, my Confirmation, Christmas, La Befana, cullurielli, pitta ‘mpigliata, funerals, trips to the sea-shore, the first snowfalls, scirubbetta. I can still bring up images of playing with my friends – Gabriele, Corrado and Franco; the afternoons we spent on the outside steps playing cards. It was a rich life, full of experiences that have shaped who I am. And I still keep in touch with my friends from that long ago; and I still keep in touch with my many relatives.
Context – Two
My family arrived in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario in May of 1957. I was 8 years old.
– For the next 6 years we lived with my maternal grandparents who had been our sponsors. Their house, on Henrietta Street, was home to 9 Calabrian immigrants – my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and their newborn child and my family of 4. (In the late 50s the area was a new subdivision full of English speaking families. My grandparents had moved there from the Italian ghetto on James Street.)
– In July of 1963, my family moved to the house on Turner Avenue. The above image is in that house.
– The photograph has three families – the Zingas, the Mussos and the Siriannis. The Zingas are represented by my dad on the left, my sister Jo’ being held by Renato Musso, and me on the far right. (I’m the tall kid.) Mr. and Mrs. Musso – Peppe and Saveria – were Jo’s godparents. Saveria Musso is the woman on my right and Frank Musso is in front of me. Behind my dad are Connie and Frank Sirianni – our next door neighbors.
Confusion
For the longest time, I believed that my confusion with identity was because of the prejudices of the dominant English culture to my being a dark-skinned, Southern-Italian immigrant. And in reaction, I came to loathe all things English and by association all things Canadian. Back then English and Canadian were synonymous. God Save the Queen was the Canadian National Anthem.
I hated:
– the English street names – Turner Avenue, Henrietta Street, Palace Drive, Prince Charles Crescent, Wellington Street, Queen Street.
– the Anglicized first and last names; I became ‘merry-oh’; Francesco became Frank; Salvatore became Sam; Capisciolto became Capy; Ó Muireagáin became Morgan.
– the diminishment of Italian foods; fave became horse-beans; Christmas pudding replaced pitta ‘mpigliata; Nutella lost to anything caramel; and vinegar soaked french-fries were deemed delicious.
– the most virulent of hates I saved for sports. Everything recreational had to do with sports. Hockey Night in Canada was a staple of Saturday night TV. I hated winter and I hated putting on skates and freezing my toes just to play hockey.
Displacements
I know now that hating all things English and hating the Canadian obsession with sports were distractions, displacements for what really confused me – my identity. When I lived in Canada, I had a foot in two camps – the Calabria of my youth and the Italian-Canadian immigrant community. Now as an American, I still have a foot in two camps – the Calabria of my youth and the America of my present. In the past, I didn’t know how to process and create an identity from these dualities; I didn’t know how to fit the two pieces together to form a whole.
Immigrant
The Italian community we found in Sault Ste Marie had its own rules, its own rhythms, its own definitions of what it meant to belong; of what it meant to be an Italian in this foreign land.
To be an Italian in the Canada of the 1950s and 1960s meant to:
– socialize within the immigrant community (Company came unannounced; they just knocked on the door and walked in and you were expected to drop everything and visit.)
– go to Catholic schools
– live with your parents until you married
– marry within the immigrant community; and marry a Catholic
– buy a house as soon as possible and build a cantina for your wine, your salami, your preserves
– plant and grow a garden; set aside space for a lawn
– make wine; make tomato sauce; cure olives; harvest and preserve eggplants, beans, peppers, mushrooms
– make sausage, prosciutto, soppressata in January
– cook and cook and cook and love cooking
– recognize that Christmas Eve was the real feast-day; December 25 was for the Canadians
– remember that all Americans were stupid – ciuoti Americani – and all Canadians were mangia-cakes
– take care of your parents when they got old even if it meant abandoning your own life, your own family. (During the last years of my dad’s life, several Italian-Canadians told me that I needed to come back to Sault Ste Marie and take care of my parents.)
But what if you don’t want to do any of these things? What if I want to spend my time reading and studying? What if I want to spend my time with other nerds rather than other immigrants? Even though I was born in Italy, came over when I was 8, spoke fluent Calabrian, spoke modern Italian; traveled all over Italy, I wasn’t sure I was Italian according to the definition of the immigrants of Sault Ste Marie.
Resolution and Integration
It has taken some 50 years to realize that my issue was never with the dominant group. I quickly learned, I quickly realized that I was smarter than most; I could speak English with no accent; I could speak Calabrese with no problem, and I quickly learned French. I could walk among the mangia-cakes and be welcomed; I could work with the mangia-cakes and be successful. No, my issue has always been the other Italian immigrants with their rules and regulations and with their insistence that nothing urban, intellectual or academic be included in their definition of Italian identity.
I know about Caesar and Marcus Aurelius, about Dante and Petrarch; I read Carlo Levi’s Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, Primo Levi’s Se questo è un uomo and Stefano Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy in the original; I love the symmetry of Andrea Palladio and the minimalism of Renzo Piano; I like Caravaggio’s darkness more than Michelangelo’s tortured self.
I know that Calabria was Hellenistic; and that I wouldn’t want to live there or anywhere else in Italy.
I know that I want nothing to do with the Catholic Church; I want nothing to do with all things English; and I want nothing to do with all things Italian-Canadian. That’s not a judgement, it’s a statement of limits and boundaries.
I’ve come to accept that my ancestors aren’t limited to the contadini of Southern Italy; my compatriots aren’t limited to the artisans of Aprigliano. I’ve come to accept a broader definition of what it means to be Italian. And that acceptance had given me permission to break from the strictures imposed by the immigrants of Sault Ste Marie and remember that among my ancestors and compatriots are Pythagoras and Archimedes, Guglielmo Marconi and Enrico Fermi, Aldo Moro and Giovanni Falcone, Anna Magnani and Federico Fellini, Miuccia Prada and Donatella Versace, Jannik Sinner and Jasmine Paolini.
I’m an Italian and I’m an American. And just as my parents and countless others reinvented themselves, I too chose to reinvent myself and live in the new reality. I may not have had access to this idea on a conscious level, but I certainly built a life based on this hidden choice.
And now that complex idea, that hidden volition has finally migrated from the unconscious to the conscious. That doesn’t mean that I’m anthropologically or psychologically cured. It just means that I’m no longer acting out from behaviors that are not consciously integrated; that I’m no longer operating in the dark; that I’m no longer operating without an emotional compass. It means that I can spend time with the duality of my identity.
So, like my immigrant parents, I too live in between. I too must flow between my experiences in Italy and Canada and my experiences in my adopted country.
On Being an Immigrant – A Reflection
Essay
Friday, February 28, 2025
draft
It’s taken a long while, some 50 years, but it’s finally come – an understanding of living between two cultures.
…
Context – One
I was born in Aprigliano, a small hilltop town 16 kilometers south east of Cosenza. Today it’s considered a suburb; several of my relatives commute to Cosenza for work. I have many memories of my time in Aprigliano – my school, my First Communion, my Confirmation, Christmas, La Befana, cullurielli, pitta ‘mpigliata, funerals, trips to the sea-shore, the first snowfalls, scirubbetta. I can still bring up images of playing with my friends – Gabriele, Corrado and Franco; the afternoons we spent on the outside steps playing cards. It was a rich life, full of experiences that have shaped who I am. And I still keep in touch with my friends from that long ago; and I still keep in touch with my many relatives.
Context – Two
My family arrived in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario in May of 1957. I was 8 years old.
– For the next 6 years we lived with my maternal grandparents who had been our sponsors. Their house, on Henrietta Street, was home to 9 Calabrian immigrants – my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and their newborn child and my family of 4. (In the late 50s the area was a new subdivision full of English speaking families. My grandparents had moved there from the Italian ghetto on James Street.)
– In July of 1963, my family moved to the house on Turner Avenue. The above image is in that house.
– The photograph has three families – the Zingas, the Mussos and the Siriannis. The Zingas are represented by my dad on the left, my sister Jo’ being held by Renato Musso, and me on the far right. (I’m the tall kid.) Mr. and Mrs. Musso – Peppe and Saveria – were Jo’s godparents. Saveria Musso is the woman on my right and Frank Musso is in front of me. Behind my dad are Connie and Frank Sirianni – our next door neighbors.
Confusion
For the longest time, I believed that my confusion with identity was because of the prejudices of the dominant English culture to my being a dark-skinned, Southern-Italian immigrant. And in reaction, I came to loathe all things English and by association all things Canadian. Back then English and Canadian were synonymous. God Save the Queen was the Canadian National Anthem.
I hated:
– the English street names – Turner Avenue, Henrietta Street, Palace Drive, Prince Charles Crescent, Wellington Street, Queen Street.
– the Anglicized first and last names; I became ‘merry-oh’; Francesco became Frank; Salvatore became Sam; Capisciolto became Capy; Ó Muireagáin became Morgan.
– the diminishment of Italian foods; fave became horse-beans; Christmas pudding replaced pitta ‘mpigliata; Nutella lost to anything caramel; and vinegar soaked french-fries were deemed delicious.
– the most virulent of hates I saved for sports. Everything recreational had to do with sports. Hockey Night in Canada was a staple of Saturday night TV. I hated winter and I hated putting on skates and freezing my toes just to play hockey.
Displacements
I know now that hating all things English and hating the Canadian obsession with sports were distractions, displacements for what really confused me – my identity. When I lived in Canada, I had a foot in two camps – the Calabria of my youth and the Italian-Canadian immigrant community. Now as an American, I still have a foot in two camps – the Calabria of my youth and the America of my present. In the past, I didn’t know how to process and create an identity from these dualities; I didn’t know how to fit the two pieces together to form a whole.
Immigrant
The Italian community we found in Sault Ste Marie had its own rules, its own rhythms, its own definitions of what it meant to belong; of what it meant to be an Italian in this foreign land.
To be an Italian in the Canada of the 1950s and 1960s meant to:
– socialize within the immigrant community (Company came unannounced; they just knocked on the door and walked in and you were expected to drop everything and visit.)
– go to Catholic schools
– live with your parents until you married
– marry within the immigrant community; and marry a Catholic
– buy a house as soon as possible and build a cantina for your wine, your salami, your preserves
– plant and grow a garden; set aside space for a lawn
– make wine; make tomato sauce; cure olives; harvest and preserve eggplants, beans, peppers, mushrooms
– make sausage, prosciutto, soppressata in January
– cook and cook and cook and love cooking
– recognize that Christmas Eve was the real feast-day; December 25 was for the Canadians
– remember that all Americans were stupid – ciuoti Americani – and all Canadians were mangia-cakes
– take care of your parents when they got old even if it meant abandoning your own life, your own family. (During the last years of my dad’s life, several Italian-Canadians told me that I needed to come back to Sault Ste Marie and take care of my parents.)
But what if you don’t want to do any of these things? What if I want to spend my time reading and studying? What if I want to spend my time with other nerds rather than other immigrants? Even though I was born in Italy, came over when I was 8, spoke fluent Calabrian, spoke modern Italian; traveled all over Italy, I wasn’t sure I was Italian according to the definition of the immigrants of Sault Ste Marie.
Resolution and Integration
It has taken some 50 years to realize that my issue was never with the dominant group. I quickly learned, I quickly realized that I was smarter than most; I could speak English with no accent; I could speak Calabrese with no problem, and I quickly learned French. I could walk among the mangia-cakes and be welcomed; I could work with the mangia-cakes and be successful. No, my issue has always been the other Italian immigrants with their rules and regulations and with their insistence that nothing urban, intellectual or academic be included in their definition of Italian identity.
I know about Caesar and Marcus Aurelius, about Dante and Petrarch; I read Carlo Levi’s Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, Primo Levi’s Se questo è un uomo and Stefano Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy in the original; I love the symmetry of Andrea Palladio and the minimalism of Renzo Piano; I like Caravaggio’s darkness more than Michelangelo’s tortured self.
I know that Calabria was Hellenistic; and that I wouldn’t want to live there or anywhere else in Italy.
I know that I want nothing to do with the Catholic Church; I want nothing to do with all things English; and I want nothing to do with all things Italian-Canadian. That’s not a judgement, it’s a statement of limits and boundaries.
I’ve come to accept that my ancestors aren’t limited to the contadini of Southern Italy; my compatriots aren’t limited to the artisans of Aprigliano. I’ve come to accept a broader definition of what it means to be Italian. And that acceptance had given me permission to break from the strictures imposed by the immigrants of Sault Ste Marie and remember that among my ancestors and compatriots are Pythagoras and Archimedes, Guglielmo Marconi and Enrico Fermi, Aldo Moro and Giovanni Falcone, Anna Magnani and Federico Fellini, Miuccia Prada and Donatella Versace, Jannik Sinner and Jasmine Paolini.
I’m an Italian and I’m an American. And just as my parents and countless others reinvented themselves, I too chose to reinvent myself and live in the new reality. I may not have had access to this idea on a conscious level, but I certainly built a life based on this hidden choice.
And now that complex idea, that hidden volition has finally migrated from the unconscious to the conscious. That doesn’t mean that I’m anthropologically or psychologically cured. It just means that I’m no longer acting out from behaviors that are not consciously integrated; that I’m no longer operating in the dark; that I’m no longer operating without an emotional compass. It means that I can spend time with the duality of my identity.
So, like my immigrant parents, I too live in between. I too must flow between my experiences in Italy and Canada and my experiences in my adopted country.
How Landscapes Shape the Way We Think