Miscellanea - Rubrica d'attualita`

I write this article with a very sad heart because I have been blessed to be both an Italian, having to have been born in Italy and an American having been raised all my life in America. I am consequently torn between the Italian way of life and the American way of life. I have dual citizenship with a home in the town where I was born and a home here in Chicago. I look upon the “Italian Americans” not only as a different people but as a distinct culture separated from both Italy and America. As I have traveled through Italy and spoken to numerous Italians who totally enjoy the Soprano’s television program because of the true history of the Italian Americans in America. The Hollywood reliving of the members of the past mafia is a reality, but only a part of the reality. Al Capone was a real character, as was Joe Bonanno, John Gotti and numerous others who were associated with crime, brutality, drugs, prostitution and alcohol. This was a part of our history here in America.

We cannot hide it nor deny it as was mentioned by Dr. Monti in her article “Do the Soprano’s Give You Heartburn” in the November 2002 issue of “Neighbors”. Only a few of American Italians in the past really acted as depicted in this “Hollywood” representation of this television popular series. Have we lost the identification with these popular characters of the past? The word popular in the American Heritage Dictionary has various meanings: 1) Widely liked or appreciated. 2.) Liked by acquaintances. 3.) Of, representing or carried on by the people at large. 4.) Originating by the people at large. Have we now as a people lost this identification with these few Italian Americans from the past? The answer is yes, but NO!
As I speak to Italians in Italy they point out several facts which I as an Italian and an American take offense to, but must agree with because they are factually and intellectually correct in their findings. The enjoyment of the Italians as they are watching the Soprano’s and other Italian gangster movies is as though they were watching “The Ten Commandments” or other biblical movies, “Pearl Harbor” or other war movies, Lady Chatterley’s Lover or other sexual movies. The Soprano’s is a comical depiction of what they permit themselves to imagine that this is still the Italian American way of life . One of the Italian doctors that I spoke to didn’t bring his wife to a Medical Convention in Chicago because she thought that gangsters still run around with machine guns in Chicago. What is the reason for this type of mentality?

Why? Why? Why?

As Italian Americans, let me pose some questions to you. Please read this entire article before you put it down or ridicule it. However be honest with yourselves. Look into the mirror as you answer the questions! Look at your wives or look at your husbands Look at your children. Fathers, look at your sons. Mothers, look at your daughters then answer these questions!

1.) What do you know about Italy today? What do you know about its past? What do you know about its present day business? What is the lira worth as compared to the Euro? What do you know about its future? Does it make any difference to you? The answers are probably either nothing or no!

2.) How many of you at home speak Italian? How do you communicate with your spouse or your children? Do your children speak any Italian? Is there any form of dialect spoken? Or is it all English? Is Italian too difficult to learn? Is it too demeaning to ask your schools to teach Italian? When my father came to this country, he had to learn English to take a drivers license test! Seven years ago, when I returned to Chicago, they asked me if I wanted to take the test in English or Spanish? When you dial the telephone, they say press 1 for English, press 2 for Spanish. They don’t they say press 3 for Italian. Is this condition the Americans’ fault? No. It takes too much time, money and effort to expend some time for us to learn Italian. There is no pride for you to be able to speak Italian! Even at the numerous “Italian American” Associations and events, the spoken language is English. When I was part of the board in an Italian organization that gave scholarships to Italian-Americans, I asked that one of the prerequisites be that recipients should have some familiarity with the Italian language. I was outvoted! I am embarrassed when I sit at a table with Italians that, because one person doesn’t speak Italian, all of the Italians are forced to speak English. The Polish people teach their children to speak polish, as well as the Ukrainians and the Spanish population. The Italians in Italy speak English, they listen to American music, they eat at McDonalds and other American foods, and they wear blue jeans and play American rock music. They want to be Americans. Do we want to be Italian?

3.) When was the last time you were in Italy or took your children to Italy? Have you shown them the marvels of Venice, the art of Florence, the glory of Rome, the romantic Amalfi Coast and the luscious green island of Sicily? (Oh, yes you took a one week bus trip about five or ten years ago as the English translator told you about the sites you were about to see.) Did your children go with you? When was the last time you took your children or yourselves to an Italian opera or a movie in Italian? When was the last time you listened to an Italian radio program? When was the last time you heard Italian songs sung in Italian? Not Frank Sinatra singing “When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that’s amore” or listen to Vic Damone singing “Volare”! The Spanish population has at least three television news programs and at least three sitcoms on television. Are we two ignorant or lazy to have at least one Italian television news station in America! It would take funding by some wealthy Italian-Americans who I know to have sponsored American programs. Italian television programs exist in Canada. Are the Italian Canadians richer than Italian Americans in the United States?

4.) Are you really ITALIAN Americans who have maintained the Italian culture and traditions or just Americans who wish they were Italian Americans? We CANNOT be negative! The only way to attack the negativity is to be POSITIVE Italian Americans. We can’t scream out “Don’t watch the Soprano’s” but we can portray a very positive Italian-American image. The Jews maintain their culture with bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs and seder dinners. Every Polish neighborhood has a Polish video and music store. Where are the Italian video and music stores in the Italian neighborhoods? Or do you just go to Blockbusters or Hollywood Video? I am sure that you will point out the various Italian food stores that exist (perhaps the only part of our culture that we now are recognized for!) When a Miss Italia USA contestant was asked how she would further the Italian culture in America, her answer was along the line that she would teach everyone to cook Italian. Has our Italian Heritage gone from our brains to our stomachs and further below?

5.) With a deep admiration and respect for Mr. Don Fiore, President Pro tempore of the Italic Institute of America, I beg to disagree with his eloquent response to Dr. Monti
Mr. Fiore is perhaps so inspired by his Italian loyalty as to not accept the extent of love Americans and some of the Italian Americans have for the Soprano’s. Not because it captures every evil aspect of the recent past Mafiosi of the Italian Americans of the 1990’s. But because this drama is surrounded and embellished with our deep rooted cultural traditions of the family, love, loyalty, love for country, food, the arts, and science which emanated prior to inserted true gangster portrayal of life. I believe it is these aspects of the series, which have combined to grab the hearts of the Americans. We cannot deny the added villainy.

6.) As a heart surgeon, I would like to carefully dissect Mr. Fiore’s following statement and have you realize what we should do in a positive way to change our “image” in America. Mr. Fiore stated “ In reality, Italian Americans, being Euroethnic (and widely perceived to be socially conservative to boot) have never been afforded politically correct status by the academic and intellectual elite who created the very concept.” Please examine the statement with me. First of all the word is in reality divided into the prefix euro and the word ethnic. The American Heritage College Dictionary (3rd Edition) defines the word Euro as European (where our roots began) and the word ethnic as: Of relating to sizable groups of people with a common, distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage.

Let us begin the dissection with the word common.

a.) Are we really one common people as Italian Americans in America. How many of our organizations do not speak to each other? How many vie for positions in various parts of Chicago? How many arguments are fostered between these Italian organizations for them to stand out above the rest. Don’t we need another Garibaldi to bring harmony and peace among ourselves so as to stand as One?

b) When do we come together to celebrate Italian National events except for Columbus Day? Do we know of the Italian Independence Day or other national holidays that exist in Italy?

c.) Besides the numerous Feasts of our Catholic religion that we attend, where are the Italian-American churches where masses are celebrated in Italian as are the Spanish masses. Aside from the Shrine of Our Lady Of Pompeii and Villa Scalabrini, I know of few other truly Italian gathering places for the Italian-American people.

d.) Linguistic? I believe that subject has been amply covered. We don’t speak Italian. I might forgive our older leaders of the community who shied away from the language during World War Two. But that was fifty years ago. What about our children?

e.) Cultural Heritage? Did you or your children go to the recent exhibition of the works of Michelangelo? Did you attend the pictorial exhibit at the Mayor Daley Plaza depicting the flight of the first flight across the Atlantic by an Italian aviator by the name of Francesco DiPinedo? This was before the flight of Charles Lindbergh! The largest Mexican Museum outside of Mexico is in Chicago on 18th street. Where is our Italian Museum in Chicago, New York or San Francisco?

7.) Let us continue to dissect Mr. Fiore’s statement;” have never been afforded “ The dictionary defines the word “as to be made available or to be given the opportunity” When did we as Italian Americans wait to be given something? We will go out and search.. We will find! We will accomplish! We will work incessantly! My father came from Italy and we were poor. My mother was a seamstress. My father worked three jobs. He had no education in Italy. He taught me the building arts and I worked with him in rebuilding our homes. Nobody gave us anything except opportunity. It was not afforded to us! We worked for it! He sent me to college and medical school and I worked harder my American classmates! I worked for Professorships in Surgery and in Pediatrics. Nobody gave it to me. We were poor, therefore, I stayed in Chicago for my training, but my daughter went to Harvard and she worked hard. Nobody gave her anything except the Italian way of family love. She earned her scholarships. (She is now a lawyer who speaks Italian as well as my son who is an artist). This is America! This is where we can dream, and with hard work, those dreams can come through. This is the land of opportunity where we of Italian heritage should ask for nothing, but GIVE everything to accomplish. Mayor LaGuardia of New York asked for nothing, nor did Mayor Giuliani. Governor Cuomo, Mother Cabrini, Lee Iacocca, Ron Turano, Pat Arbor or Jasper Sanfilippo. There are too many others to mention who asked for nothing and but gave everything! You must look at your children. They are the Future Italian Americans who will either seize the moment to accomplish with their Italian Heritage or will sit down every week to watch the Soprano’s. You are their guiding lights. How bright can you shine their pathway?

8.) To continue with Mr. Fiore’s statement of Politically Correct which is defined in the dictionary as: Of, relating to, or supporting a program of broad social, political, and educational change, especially to address historical injustices. Can you not see that it is not the Americans that have done this to us? We are at fault. If we gave our children a true Italian social, economical and political education, there would be no continued injustice because we would be in command of our destiny. Look at recent events! Trent Lott lost his position in the Senate because of a racial statement against the African Americans! President Bush has filed briefs against an affirmative action case at the University of Michigan! The Chinese people are screaming at the comments that were made by Shaquille O’Neal’s calling the Chinese basketball player a “Ying-Yong”! Why aren’t we protesting against the gang like portrayal of Italian Americans?

9.) And finally the word elite, which in the dictionary is defined as: a group of people enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status or the best and skilled members of a group. Tell me where you would historically find a group of people other than the Italian nation of the pre-mafia era that would fit this description. WE MUST get it back. Where are our scientists of the past such as Galileo and Fermi? Where are our explorers of the past such as Colombo or Vespucci? Where are our musicians of the past such as Verdi, Puccini, and Toscanini? Where are our Sports hero’s of the past such Joe Di Maggio, Yogi Berra, and Rocky Marciano? . These are your children! Are they studying Art, Music, Science, or even sports? Or are they sitting in the Living room watching television, possibly the Soprano’s?

SHUT THE DAMNED TELEVISION AND TAKE THE CHILDREN TO ITALIAN LANGUAGE CLASSES. And maybe take some yourselves? .

Perhaps when we start speaking to each other in Italian, perhaps when we begin feeling Italian and perhaps when our hearts beat truly Italian, we can say “we don’t need to watch the Soprano’s” because they are really portraying outdated images of only a few of us? Perhaps we can say QUESTA GENTE IN TELEVISIONE NON SIAMO NOI!! NOI SIAMO ITALO-AMERICANI DEL PRESENTE E NON DEL PASSATO! …. BASTA .