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National and Global, United States

Saturday, April 30, 2011

That is Amore

I met Marie, my wife, when she was 18. A blond, blue-eyed and vibrant Italian lady, who spoke Italian fluently and was Italian before she was "americano". How things change.
40 years later, the Italian is gone. The pasta is not the same. The old Italians from the family are long gone. My wife speaks only English.
And here we are. Between a rock and that hard place. Our grandparents wanted so badly to be American. They wanted acceptance. Therefore, we could not speak "italian". Only English, my grandmother would say.
We became "americano" hoping and anticipating that acceptance of that life would raise us from the bedrock of Italian peasantry to the heights of American ingenuity. Some of us succeeded. Others made pizza or fixed roads. Or did nothing. My grandfather made wine,which he drank more then sold.Whatever.
The journey has been long and hard for all. I just hope, that after giving up our heritage and our cultural and our music and our wine...that there is actually something there in becoming 'americano'. I still sleep on it. For me, my wife, my children and their children. "The moon has hit my eye, and it is a big pizza-pie"...

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