prospect cemetery - the men

These are the Italians I grew up around. They are my cousins, my uncles, my parents' friends, my compari.

A friend once said that when he was in Italy he had finally found the place where he was like everyone else. In Canada we were foreigners, outsiders; people who did not speak English; people with dark skin, at least darker than the English skin that ruled. In Prospect cemetery, I found a place where everyone looked like me.

The three color photographs represent the assimilation that all foreigners were supposed to undergo. These are the men that became Canadians. In my family, they're my uncles who stopped speaking Italian, never went back to the old country, forgot friends left behind in Calabria. They are my uncles whose children do not speak Italian.

The black and white photographs are familiar, these are the men I hung out with and talked to. They were the ones who told me about the Italy they left; the Italy they missed. These are the men I spoke Italian with.
(The thumbnail points to the larger image.)