Italian Roots and Genealogy
The Melodic Chronicles of Family, Culture, and the Immigrant's Voyage The Best of 2023
It's always hard to condense 50 hours of interviews into one episode. But here is the Best of 2023.
Stepping into the past has never felt as intimate and revealing as when Mary Ann Maisano takes us through the winding roads of her father's taxi empire in Fort Lee. With a captivating blend of ingenuity and nostalgia, we learn how Joe's Taxi became the heartbeat of a community, all before the digital age. As we traverse these charming tales, you'll also find yourself amidst the laughter and unexpected insights from my own escapades in the world of wedding bands, where the music often tells its own untold stories.
Imagine packing up your life and setting sail for Italy with nothing but a suitcase and a dream — that's exactly the leap Paul Spadoni and his daughters took, and their tales of 'la dolce vita' with a twist will leave you in both stitches and awe. Adding more flavors to our cultural mosaic, Peter Francesi steps into the mix, painting a vivid picture of his family's Brooklyn grocery store and Italian-American life that bridges continents and generations. Their stories are rich, evocative, and a testament to the enduring spirit of those who chase the American dream, no matter where it may lead.
Wrapping up our journey, we honor the profound narratives of those who've navigated the turbulent seas of immigration and the shock of a new cultural landscape. We hear a soul-stirring account of a man's odyssey from a tiny Italian village to the vast expanses of the United States, his life interlaced with historical tapestries and the saving grace of American soldiers. And as we reflect on the power of language and identity, our guest recounts a childhood of multilingualism that weaves through the fabric of family, heritage, and the heartwarming community of an Italian restaurant. Join us for this heartfelt exploration into the stories that shape us, connect us, and sometimes, even save us.
The Best Italian TV on the Web.
Farmers and Nobles
Read about my research story and how to begin your family research.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
It's always hard to condense 50 hours of interviews into one episode. But here is the Best of 2023.
Stepping into the past has never felt as intimate and revealing as when Mary Ann Maisano takes us through the winding roads of her father's taxi empire in Fort Lee. With a captivating blend of ingenuity and nostalgia, we learn how Joe's Taxi became the heartbeat of a community, all before the digital age. As we traverse these charming tales, you'll also find yourself amidst the laughter and unexpected insights from my own escapades in the world of wedding bands, where the music often tells its own untold stories.
Imagine packing up your life and setting sail for Italy with nothing but a suitcase and a dream — that's exactly the leap Paul Spadoni and his daughters took, and their tales of 'la dolce vita' with a twist will leave you in both stitches and awe. Adding more flavors to our cultural mosaic, Peter Francesi steps into the mix, painting a vivid picture of his family's Brooklyn grocery store and Italian-American life that bridges continents and generations. Their stories are rich, evocative, and a testament to the enduring spirit of those who chase the American dream, no matter where it may lead.
Wrapping up our journey, we honor the profound narratives of those who've navigated the turbulent seas of immigration and the shock of a new cultural landscape. We hear a soul-stirring account of a man's odyssey from a tiny Italian village to the vast expanses of the United States, his life interlaced with historical tapestries and the saving grace of American soldiers. And as we reflect on the power of language and identity, our guest recounts a childhood of multilingualism that weaves through the fabric of family, heritage, and the heartwarming community of an Italian restaurant. Join us for this heartfelt exploration into the stories that shape us, connect us, and sometimes, even save us.
The Best Italian TV on the Web.
Farmers and Nobles
Read about my research story and how to begin your family research.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
And I'm here with Mary Ann Boom Boom, my son-o, star of stage screen, audio video, burlesque, I think a few other things. And she's also the writer and star of Ajita and the creator of the Italian chick. So now, so your dad, he did, he was amazing for a while and then he came back and is that when he got the cab? Is that when he started the cab?
Speaker 3:business Started the first cab business in Fort Lee and, interestingly enough, the second cab business was my father's cousin, babe Mazzano. So they had Babe's taxi and they had Joe's taxi. Now, the difference between the two and I didn't learn this until about eight years ago when I was having dinner in a restaurant and these lovely women all came over to me and we were talking about Fort Lee. I want to friend them on mention about my dad and Joe's taxi. They went, oh my God, everybody, like everybody, knew my father and my mother. They were like a staple. And it was interesting because they said we always used your father's company instead of Babe's because we knew with your father we were going to get your father, your brother or your cousins. With Babe's we were going to get carnival people that were coming in the town and we didn't want to put our kids in a car with carny people.
Speaker 3:And then there's one, probably the sweetest story, because you learn things, you know, as you grow up. You learn things that soften you more about what your childhood was like and it gets you to really settle in and understand it better. You know. And she said in the morning I'd give my kids money and say, okay, now when Joe picks you up, when he drops you off, you give him this money and they're all right. And she said, you know, when they get home from school they take their clothes off and I go through their clothes and empty their pockets. And they had, you know, they still had some money. And I was saying I called them in. I'm like what the hell didn't you give Joe any of the money? And they said yeah, but Joe said he only charges kids a dollar. So I mean it was very sweet to hear that, you know.
Speaker 3:So he started that company and the man couldn't read or write English, everything was phonetics. And then my mom stayed at home and had the taxi phone, so she was there, you know, taking all the messages for the calls. We didn't have CB radios or cell phones and it was like Madhouse because the phones were ringing. And then then he got a brilliant idea. I thought it was quite brilliant. He went to the lumber yard and he got an old telephone pole and he plowed it into the front of the ground in the house and he put a huge spotlight on top and he ran a wire through the yard into the house and anytime the phone rang, my mom would write down the call because he was parked right, right around the corner at the taxi stand by the bridge so he could see that spotlight from where he was sitting. So anytime my mom got a call and he wasn't there, she'd write it down, plug the spotlight in and then he'd come home and get the call.
Speaker 2:Tell the funniest I want you to tell because I know you played in rock bands and you played in wedding bands. I want you to tell the wedding band story about, because I have a story for you after you tell your story.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, so in the wedding bands it was kind of horrible, but you made a lot. You made way more money than you did in any bar, but so that's why you did them. So you know, the wedding band you'd go, and then the cocktail hour was the worst because nobody believed me and people didn't hear anything. You sang because they were too busy eating and talking and this and that. And I used to say to the guys in the band you don't listen to what we're saying, because nobody believed me. So the band, the guy who was calling out the tunes he goes to me, okay, calls out the tune. So he started doing this bossa nova, real sexy and soft, you know. And I figured I would screw them up a little bit and I'd change the words to the song, right, and I'm saying she was tall, she was 10, she was hot.
Speaker 1:she was tall, she was 10, she was hot and she walked on down from the aisle of. Ipanema with a big straw hat and a dildo named Sam.
Speaker 3:Wow, the guys were hysterical and everybody in the audience was fine. Like nothing was wrong in Ipanema. They just can't beat the shirt.
Speaker 2:And I'm here today with Paul Spadoni, the author of An American Family in Italy, and, I believe, without permission. Correct, right.
Speaker 5:We're living the Lagolce Vida without permission.
Speaker 2:So now I want to talk about you taking the sleep of faith with two teenage girls which I could just imagine I mean, the book really outlines it clearly and having to navigate around the language, the trains, the schools, the work. I mean, how did you, how did this all come together? And I know you have a couple of stories about it I think the train and I think one about going to get some paperwork done.
Speaker 5:Right, oh yeah, we tried to get our permissal of these to Giorno.
Speaker 6:Well, first of, all.
Speaker 4:I didn't actually have permission to work there.
Speaker 5:The headmaster of the school, he was a little bit loose on the regulations and he just needed to somebody for one year to fill in for a teacher who had quit suddenly. So he said well, really we should get the work permit. He says but that's, you know, that's so difficult. He said just tell them you're coming there for vacation. Now, this was pre 9-11. And so they weren't quite as checking things as much. So he said just come and tell them that you're a tourist there.
Speaker 5:And yes, now I know you can only stay for three months at a time, but I don't even know if they stamped our passports when we came in through Rome. Sometimes they didn't do that. At that time we had no problem staying for 10 months and he paid me cash. I had to come in at the end of the month and he'd open a drawer and take out a bunch of money and give him my pay. I always wondered you know he had like a gun on top of that water cash. He had his drawer, who knows? But I was able to work that way and he found me an apartment. So that part worked out amazingly. But again, there's no way I think my book, I say, is more of a how not to do book than a how to do book, because you can't repeat what I do and say, yeah, I'm going to do what Paul did. You know you can't stay for more than three months.
Speaker 5:You probably can't get a job the way I did and find an apartment, it just it would be you'd have to go through a lot more rent, hey. But we did try to get it from a sort of DiSidorno and we went six times to the questura and finally gave up because of the requirements they were trying to make us go through.
Speaker 5:But I realized later that if you just go to a different questura, you'd probably be okay, because we found so many times that we'd go to one official and say, oh no, no, that can't be done. And then you'd go to another one it could be in the same office and they'd say, oh yeah, no problem. What happened when Lucy tried to get her bus pass, or we're trying to get a monthly bus pass, and they went up and said, oh no, no, you can't get this without a permissive DiSidorno. And I already had mine because I've been there a week earlier. So I said look, there's another clerk, there's two lines there. We're just going to go through the other line and I'll get, I'll put the money out and then form out just like that.
Speaker 5:Hopefully the clerk was five feet away. It wasn't going to look over and say, hey, we just said you can't do that. But we ran into that kind of red tape we had. So we got our monthly bus passes. We had lots of misadventures on trains. One time we got on a train going the wrong direction, but another time one of my older daughter was going to come visit us and she was cutting in the middle of the night and we thought, well, what if she's asleep?
Speaker 4:So I got asked permission to the conductor and I just go through as like a little train with like a four cars.
Speaker 5:Can I just go through and see if my daughter's on there asleep? And he said, sure. So I ran through and look, no, she's not there. The next train pulled in and it was a little bit longer. So I got on and the train started up with me on it. So there I am going somewhere. No ticket, she's not on the train. And the train went for about 20 minutes before it stopped. I had to get off at this station at like four in the morning and was freezing to death because it was December. And then I had to get back on again and I'd hid in the bathroom so they wouldn't ask me if I took it. Come back to bottom. We did a lot of things wrong, but it was just unforgettable experience. It was a great time. We remember those. We'll remember those forever.
Speaker 2:And I'm here today with Peter Francesi, and he is the author of two great books Tales of a Brooklyn Grocer and Nettie, the Tales of a Brooklyn Nana. So welcome, Pete. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 7:Or even another story with the policeman that would come in and there were a bunch of these kind of stores.
Speaker 7:It was called the Franzisi Italian American grocery store, according to a picture I found, and there were like a bunch of little shops like this right in the area. So the cop my great grandfather would charge him, say, 15 cents for a ham and cheese sandwich, but he'd charge her about, say 25 cents I'm just giving an example and the cop came in and he says well, your father charges me 15 cents. He tells me the oldest sister, margie, and she said I'm not my father. If you want it for 15 cents, you can go down the store to one of the other places, and so you're just going to make the sandwich. So my grandfather laughed. He said that his sister, who was the oldest sister, although she had a high school education and wasn't allowed to go to college like her brothers, he said was a better business person than his brother or his father had ever been. So there was a lot of inspiration and inspiring characters that came through their life growing up in that little house.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you a funny bakery story about my uncle. My uncle worked for bakery in Corona, queens Leonard's, and they were connected and he was the baker. He had to be two o'clock in the morning or whatever, and I guess he would park in a certain spot and one day he comes out and there's a parking ticket on the car and he'd never gotten a parking ticket before. So he takes the parking ticket and he puts it up behind the counter and the sergeant comes in and orders his pastries or whatever. We're normally back then. We're talking the 50s. They didn't pay, and my uncle tells them $2, $3. What do you mean, $2, $3? You see the ticket. He says well, the ticket's paid off, you get it for free. Again, the sergeant made the policeman who gave him the ticket come in, give him the money for a ticket.
Speaker 7:Great See. I mean, it just shows you that back then people figured things out themselves. They didn't go to social media to fight it out. Instead of doing it, they just faced each other and they solved their problems and moved on, and that's what I think is part of the simplicity of life that was lost for my grandfather's generation to my own.
Speaker 7:Yeah, yeah, that's true, I think we'll never get it back, but it made me think about why my grandfather couldn't understand the complexities of life. At times, he was perplexed by how things happened with people or how we got so far into problems. He was somebody that was very much had a total recall of the past, but he was very interested in the current life that he was living and even though he was 92 when he died in December 2019, he had no interest in going. He was interested in living. Yeah, I'll never forget the last conversation with him. My grandfather had lost two wives and both were young when they passed, and I said to him are you going to be with your wives? He goes no, I want to stay with you. That's one of my favorite lines in our last conversation. I said why don't you stay?
Speaker 4:with you. My mother came as a child in 1914. She was a five-year-old child. My father came as a 27-year-old veteran of World War I from Kossily in Abruzzo.
Speaker 2:So what year was that?
Speaker 4:1925.
Speaker 2:So was that just before they put that? You know, with the restrictions on, or was he able to get in?
Speaker 4:Well, as a matter of fact he was after and as a matter of fact he was illegal. And in fact he was doubly illegal. He for some reason I haven't figured it out, I should, I, he was. I never asked, he never told but he went to Cuba first and stayed for a while it might have been a couple of years in Cuba, and then he took a ship from Cuba to New Orleans in August of 1935, 25. And he was. He was a clandestine, illegal stowaway and they caught him. And at first in my first research I thought they caught him and left, let him go. But now I found more information they actually deported him back to where he came from. Well, a couple of weeks later he came in on the same ship and I don't know how he did it, but they didn't catch him and he ended up in Chicago a little bit later and worked there for about seven or eight years before he married my mother in Chicago Heights.
Speaker 2:That's so interesting, that's that's funny. So so was he able to become a legal citizen, or it didn't matter.
Speaker 4:Oh well, it did matter. He married my mother. Maybe he married her for her citizenship. She gained citizenship, naturally, when she was born, because my grandfather was a citizen. But during the 1930s my father did apply for citizenship but they didn't let him have citizenship. He was studying for it, but when World War II broke out he was declared an enemy alien. And then I now have new records that have just come through of a number of hearings that took place in downtown Chicago to investigate his status. And since he was without papers he was they prevented him from getting it. They set up something for him to go to Canada and to apply for citizenship to the US Consul there, but somehow there was a problem with his employment and they did not certify it. So he did not get his citizenship until 1947. And we're pleased that it happened. But it was a big rigmarole and it was a big worry factor all during World War II.
Speaker 2:You you, you, you, you know how did you come about to write this story about the war of the vespers. You know, eight, nine, hundred years ago.
Speaker 6:Yeah, wow. I mean, where do I start by to unpack all this? So when I set out to write my first novel, I wanted to write a novel about sissily. I wanted to write something that had to do with my heritage. When I was looking around and especially growing up, the first thing I usually heard when I told people about my heritage was kind of a reference to that dreaded m word. You know, oh hey, like the mafia godfather, you know a like stuff like that. And there's this, I guess I want to say there's this stereotype of Sicilians and Sicilians as that mafia-centric place. I mean, that's pretty much what you hear gangsters, mobsters, stuff like that.
Speaker 6:And I grew up on epic stories, like you know, joan of Arc and Braveheart and Gladiator. So when I set out to tell a story about Sicily, I wanted to paint it in a more heroic light. I wanted to give it, I wanted to interpret it from a new lens, in a way that made Sicily seem like the grand kingdom that it once was. It was actually its own kingdom, you know, obviously, before it became part of Italy. It was and it was conquered by every civilization in the Mediterranean the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Normans. So Sicily has this long history that a lot of people don't really know about and I wanted to capture all of that through the lens of a historical epic in the style of Braveheart. So that kind of started me on my journey as I wrote this historical thriller, as I like to call it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, as you're researching this, how do you come up with? You know heroin and you know the villain and all of that kind of stuff. What's the process to pick as the heroin and make her the focal point of the novel?
Speaker 6:Yeah, so well, you, actually, you did ask this.
Speaker 6:So yes, so the book is based on an event, a true event called the Sicilian Vespers, and this event took place in Sicily, in Palermo, the capital of Palermo, in 1282.
Speaker 6:And what happened was on the night of Easter, the people of Palermo were coming together to celebrate and the French at that time occupied Sicily and they were known to be very abusive A lot of cases of rape and molestation.
Speaker 6:And what happened was, as the Sicilian people were coming together to celebrate Easter, at the Easter vigil, the French kind of showed up, crashed the party, they started groping the women, bullying the men and allegedly, as the legend goes, a woman took out her blade, she stabbed a French soldier and she cried Moranoli Francisi, which means death to the French or the death to the Angiomans, and that sparked this people's uprising in Palermo that eventually spread across the whole island, where the Sicilians essentially slaughtered 3,000 French soldiers, men, women, anybody who spoke French. Sicilian essentially puts the woman at the center of that story, and I gave her a name Etna Vespiri Etna named after the great volcano, of course. And so I kind of fictionalize the story and give it to this woman named Etna, and you see her as she goes on her journey, inspiring the people and fighting the French.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so neat. So now as I'm reading the book, I've delved way, way back into my ancestry, because my paternal grandmother comes from two noble families. I actually can trace back to both Roger and Charles I as direct descendant from them Wow. So it was very interesting that it's going through it. But I'm kind of wow, I'm on both sides of this conflict.
Speaker 6:Now, when you say Charles I, do you mean Ray Carleau, Charles I of the time of the Vespers? Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's all through. It's all through my paternal grandmother's mother, because she is I don't know if you ever heard the name Caracelo, but she is she was a Caracelo and they were, from 950 on, one of the most, and still today, one of the most, you know, known families in Naples, and I was also interested as I was going through with that. The Sicilians then petitioned the Spanish. Yes, and that was the point which was, I didn't know that part, that early on that they had petitioned the Spanish.
Speaker 6:Yes, so there's multiple. There are a few interpretations of how that worked. Some say the, the Teutonic Knights, betrayed the Sicilian people by by bringing the Spanish in and essentially the Spanish then came in and conquered. Others say that that was always part of the plan, that they were always kind of like fishing for a new leader, and that was that happened to be spate. So yes, in my book I like to. I won't give it all away, but I do pick one of those lanes and I go down one of those lanes.
Speaker 2:I think the both of us are trying to do the same thing. We're trying to give a window to the, to the Italian Americans, so that, so that they can be known and back to the history that we know, our history, and just you know, to digress a little bit, you also do another fascinating little bit where you do that Italian American moment I think you call it and you tell people not about you know the Joe DiMaggio's and and you know the Sylvester Stallone's and those people, but the people that really contributed a lot to our history in America that nobody ever heard of.
Speaker 8:Well, just recently. So for everyone, I do these videos, very short videos. I try not to go over a minute. Writing those is a different technique, because now you're trying to take this ton of information and condense it to one minute. It's just like giving people that little quick overview of this invention, accomplishment, story and hope said, hey, if they really enjoy this person or this subject, they'll research it a little more. So just recently I was. I was blown away.
Speaker 8:These two twin sisters that recently came to our Italian Cultural Center and started volunteering. They said, wow, you know, I told them about these Italian American moments and they go you should do one on Simon Rodia. I'm like, okay, who's Simon Rodia? So I look it up, bob, I was blown away. I was blown away. Never heard of this gentleman.
Speaker 8:The Watts Towers in California. I don't know if you're familiar with the story. I kind of think you are from your expression. I was blown away. What an incredible accomplishment. And I like was getting getting the info and writing this moment and then having patients waiting for my son to help me. Oh, it's, unfortunately, that's my. He's a great, great son and God bless him for helping me, but he does have a life as well. So I was waiting, waiting, waiting and we finally did it.
Speaker 8:I was just, I was like ecstatic to do it, and I mean real quick story, italian immigrants, not even five feet tall, the sites that start building on his property in Watts which I'm not real familiar with, california, but I think it's not like the greatest of areas and he starts building these towers out of materials he finds, out of garbage, and he was a tile setter. So I mean, he, you know, you knew what he was doing, obviously, and he would bend pipe and the railroad track. He had no ladder, he had no scaffolding, he had no power equipment. Okay, he had a bucket, a hammer, A shovel, a chisel and his hands. And this little man would build a section and then climb up it and build another section, and then climb up it and build another section, and the tallest one's a hundred feet high, did this by himself over 30 years, every day, and he left it, he just like donated it. He wanted to do something big and he looked up to fellow Italians like Michelangelo and Galileo, and he wanted to do something big and boy, he did it. And after he was gone, the city, they either wanted to move it or they wanted to destroy it, I'm not really sure. But they said, oh, it's not safe. So you know, we can't keep this here. And they brought like a crane and they tested it and son of a gun, the thing was built like Fort Knox from this little man and I mean, my God, it's a movie waiting to happen. It's a lot of things he was.
Speaker 8:He did have a little bit of publicity. He was on the cover of the Beatles album, the album cover, which you know today's youth wouldn't even know what I was talking about. But back in the day, when they had records, the cover, the album cover, was a big deal. The Beatles, sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, there's all these like famous people and there's a picture of him, Really yes. So I mean I have to go look at the album. Famous, but not you know what I mean. He was part of the pop culture thing. So I mean just stuff like that. I've done, I think, 103 of these Italian American moments and I'm very proud of those and I'm and you know if my goal is there a tool to learn for our people, that's it A tool to learn, to inspire, to give a little spark, for I want to know more. That's what I'm hoping for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know we don't get enough credit for these unsung heroes like that. Oh, it's okay.
Speaker 8:The people that built America and the things, yes, yes, no, no, there's so and, like you said, there's so many stories out there and you know me, you were, were, were reading about it. We're looking at things, we're researching things and then all of a sudden, you get this name and you look it up and go I never heard of this guy and I'm just, I'm blown away.
Speaker 4:I really was.
Speaker 8:It just shows you how much more is out there. And for people I think, like you and me, it's just thrilled to find out about it and we're just so happy to let everybody else know about it. I have such pride letting them know to say, hey, this is a good one, you want to see this one.
Speaker 2:Where's your family from in Italy?
Speaker 9:So I'm kind of I like to joke around and say I'm an Italian mutt, so I'm predominantly my dad's from Puglia and my mother is Sicilian, but then again, mom's grandmother was from up north. We thought it was Genoa but, like recently, we've been, I've been doing a little more like research and we're finding that that name is not from Genoa but possibly from Sardinia. So I'm in the process now digging a little deeper, which excites me very much because my son is one of my sons, is completely in love with Sardinia. So I'm like, okay, well, if we're from there, it's a good place to buy a house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I haven't been there, but I have Sardinian roots going back to like 1100 or some crazy thing like that and I'd love to go there. Well, I've had so many places that I'd like I want to visit but haven't been there. Like you go, you go to Italy all the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 9:I go well now a couple of times a year, but for extended periods of time. So I'm there like right now. This year I was there for a month now in April, and then I'm going back in a couple of weeks for the summer and I'm going to come home for a month and then go back again for the fall. So I'll be there like mid September till mid November.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of my dream. Yeah, that's great. So when did your, when did your grandparents come, and where did they settle?
Speaker 9:Well, so my dad. Actually I'm first generation on my dad came over in 1957 from Rosetta Valforte, which is in northern Puglia, in a little it's a little mountain village and that's actually where I take people, so we'll come back to that and he came here when he was 16, finished high school here and lived here the rest of his life. I mean, he's still he's 82. He still goes back and forth also with me, so it's always fun.
Speaker 2:So now was it? I have a friend that I just connected with, after not talking to my neighbor from around the corner and his wife who's she was born in Italy, and she said it was a real culture shock for her, coming from a small town in Italy, and I guess she came probably maybe around the same time. I mean, we're in our seventies, so you know, what does your dad say about that? I mean, what was his experience coming?
Speaker 9:Well, you know, when he told me, when he came here, he first of all, he came over on the Christopher Columbus ship. So I've got a cool picture of him with his friend who was had the same name as me His name was Dorino and he always used to tell me as a kid oh, you have a beautiful name. You know, always thought that was cool. But anyway, the two of them came over on the same ship and you know, he was, you know, high school age kid. But he said he truly thought that he was going to see streets paved in gold. So he was disappointed. And I guess, you know, when you're a kid from a peasant village it's, it's not hard to think that wow, there's something big out there. And you know, it doesn't seem unrealistic. It seems, you know, wow, that could be. You know, that's the story you hear and that's the story you believe.
Speaker 2:And so so, why did his? Why did his parents? Or did he come by himself?
Speaker 9:He came by himself. His mom died when he was, I think, 11 or 12. And his dad had just remarried over there, and so he decided that he should come here until he came and lived with my, his, his uncle, my great uncle, who was his mother's brother, who was already in the Washington DC area. So that's where he came.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's something that's that takes a lot of guts to come over at 16 years old.
Speaker 9:Yeah, and you know, my dad had an interesting story because he was born in 1941 and, you know, during the war, and he was actually born in Ethiopia, so even though and technically it was Italy, because it was a colony of Italy at the time, but it was, you know, but it was at the above Ethiopia and he was there until he was I think he said, almost two and then. But then the British came in and kicked the Italians out and so to speak. This is the story I got from my uncle who had gone to Venezuela and he I saw him in Italy one last time before, before he died. But my dad's older brother, he was about nine or 10. So he's telling me this story of their life in Exodus from Ethiopia from his 10, nine, 10 year old perspective. You know so he said, you know so the British came in, they all got put in camps and my dad actually caught malaria as a baby and he's on there on this ship that had to go around the southern tip of Africa to get back to Italy, because then, he said, the Italian ship came and brought us back to Italy and so, anyway, so my dad tells the story that you know, even in our little peasant village. The Germans had come through and the Americans had come through, but he claims that it was an American. There was somebody visiting from the States who spoke some English and my dad is a baby, had gotten back to Italy and has malaria, and he said that this, this American, rosenthal, went down to the camp, a campment of the American soldiers at the bottom of town, and he got the quinine from them, which is what saved my dad. So he says the Americans saved his life. So it was kind of one of those stories, you know.
Speaker 9:But it was a rough time, you know, and my grandfather was a prisoner of war in India. Then for, I think, for, for, I think four plus years. So I, but my dad sent my mom and me and my sister back when I was about four because he wanted us kids to learn Italian in the Italian way. So I went back just long enough. I mean I think we went back for like half a year, but I went to preschool there. So I went to preschool in the village and you know, I guess you know I learned how to speak Italian. My mom said I didn't speak English when I came home for a while and then all of a sudden she said I only spoke English and wouldn't go back to the Italian. But we kept going back and so I always spoke it and I've always, luckily, held on to it. You know, I studied it some in college.
Speaker 9:In high school I studied Spanish, so I'm fluent in both, just because they're so similar. And, of course, growing up, my dad had an Italian restaurant. After after the, after the dream of the barbershop, he wanted to have a restaurant named Rosetta after our town in Italy, down in Bethesda, maryland, in the 80s and 90s. So at work I got to practice my Spanish and my Italian, because half the employees were Italian, half were Hispanic. So I got to practice both and I came out of high school speaking, you know, a couple of languages, so it worked out pretty good for me.
Speaker 9:So anyway, and I do speak the dialect as well, which you know, speaking a dialect I just have to touch on this for a second. But speaking a dialect is like putting your pajamas on. It's comfortable, it's cozy, it's just, it's very personal. So like when I'm in the village I don't speak Italian. When I'm in the village I speak dialect because I don't you don't want to sound, you know, like somebody else told me that they had moved away and they speak. You know they have to work in business and they speak pure Italian. And he said but there's no way I can speak Italian in the village because then I'm above everybody. You know you got to, you got to be part of the part of the gang. You know you just got to get back into the, the local, and it is it's very, and there's certain words and certain things that they say that just have so much more meaning when you say them in dialect. It's so much more feel. It's like you're really getting into everything you know. So it's it's kind of cool.
