Not Italian, and Proud to be Italian-American

“I am Italian” (pronounced "aye-tal-yen"). The large majority of Italian-Americans have uttered this phrase at some point in their lives; it's everywhere, proudly proclaimed on the streets of the grand cities of New York, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, but also around the dinner tables and Christmas cookie platters of American small towns and communities. Members of this group are known for their strong Italian sentiment and affiliation; however, scant few speak a word of Italian. Even less could tell you who the famous pop stars are in Italy today...and even less could name the main political players and news events in the country they claim their own. Many Italians that I know from Italy are often stupefied by this group of people who walks into the country claiming to be native, demanding the non-existant fettucine alfredo and asking whey the pizzas are so thin on the streets of Rome. Italians today are driven to wonder if maybe there is another Italy that speaks another language (apparently English), hidden in another universe that others are unaware of (America)? They wonder, who are these people? Has an entire ethnic group of Americans gone insane?

My story begins here. My name is Martina (Marti, for short) and I am part of this seemingly paradoxical group, meaning that perhaps I, too, have gone crazy. My great-grandparents on my mother’s side were from Italy. On my father’s side, not even a drop of Italian blood. For some reason, though, the pride of being Italian was not lost with my great grandparents, as is the case for many Italian-Americans, and our stories can’t be too different. My ancestors came to America from the Piedmont and Veneto regions of northern Italy during the great Italian immigration in the early 1900’s, searching for success and the famed American dream. They were poor in Italy, and when they arrived they did not speak a world of English…actually, they didn’t even speak Italian, but only their local dialects. These hard-working immigrants began working as coal and steel minors in western Pennsylvania and were heavily discriminated against for being different. This discrimination forced them to live in small Italian communities, in which they spoke their language with friends and family. (My grandmother grew up in one of these communities and even though she was born in Pennsylvania, her first language was the Piemontese dialect.) My ancestors fought against discrimination with their pride of being Italian; they lived poor and disadvantaged during the Great Depression, but in the end prevailed and realized the American Dream. Every generation after has been more successful in level of education and in their careers, but the pride of being Italian has continued to be passed down from generation to generation. We have not forgotten our roots and the sacrifices of my great-grandparents. The language has long since been lost, but with the pride of being Italian, the food has also continued to be passed down, modified with fresh American ingredients to create a new category of ethnic food: “Italian-American.”

It is with this history in mind that I claim to be a new, beautiful category of ethnicity: “Italian-American.” See, after having grown up claiming to be Italian, I went to Italy, and I discovered that as much as I love the country, these people are not who I am. Let me explain. The strong connection with my roots compelled me to study Italian when I was studying my undergraduate degree at Notre Dame (I had already been studying German in high school because they did not offer Italian and I was not going to study French). I went abroad to live in Rome in the fall of 2006 and upon return from my first taste of Italy fell hopelessly in love with the culture. Coincidently, that year I started dating the son of two italians, who is both American and Italian, speaks both languages perfectly, and demonstrates many aspects of both cultures. My senior year of college was spent writing an honors anthropology thesis on Bolzano, a region in northwestern Italy that speaks both German and Italian, analyzing its cultural and linguistic tensions between  the two cultural linguistic groups. Since then I have never been able to satisfy my thirst to learn more about the culture, the language, and especially the cuisine. I bought the Italian version of The Joy of Cooking to practice my language and recipes, I read the newspaper and magazines, talking with friends, and listen to an Italian podcast, Decanter, that discusses food and wine. Basically I’m intersted in the culture. However, through this process, I learned that I am not Italian. At the beginning of my Italian adventures, I did not understand many habits and cultural aspects of the Italians that I knew and came in contact with. This especially included the culture of being direct, one which we Americans try to avoid if at all possible, preferring to highlight our respect for another’s right to have an opinion instead of whether we disagree or agree. This being said for Americans (me) and considering my having dating an Italian for 5 years, the beginning of our relationship held quite a few tears when he proudly declared his opposite opinion and I, unused to have anyone forcefully declare their disagreement with me, was left shocked at his bluntness. With year, I have become more able to without an intense discussion (and he more sensitive to my American sensitivity), but it took a while to get there. I also remember the first time I ever ate Italian pizza – I was unable to fathom that each Italian ordered his or her own pizza, and when the pizza arrived, it’s thinness was a turn-off, but I learned to see things through Italian lenses as well. Now, I still enjoy a good Papa John’s takeout, but I also order my own pizza and crave the soft, thin crusts of the pizzerias in Sicily. In tanto, I am Marti, and I am Italian-influenced Italian-American. I have realized I hold the pride and cultural aspects of the unique Italian-American culture in which I grew up, but I have also taken on cultural aspects and preferences of the Italians today. Whew. In addition to my Italian heritage, I’m from Georgia. Born and raised. And although my Pittsburghese parents and northern fellow Italian-Americans and Catholics were a large part of those who raised me, I have also soaked up and am extremely proud of the Southern culture.

In the following posts of this blog, I hope to share my love for culture, langauges, and cooking by posting recipes, experiences, and thoughts. I hope to also learn from and with anyone that reads it as we as Americans, barreling towards globaliation, discover more about the world, its people, its langauges, and its food.