Member-only story
I wish I’d learned the language.
Growing up I really wanted to learn Italian, but my grandmother and mother had both forgotten most of what they knew. My great grandmother primarily spoke Italian at home — and my mother and grandmother lived with her after losing my mother lost her father around the age of 3. Now it would be called an English as a Second Language home. This was during the time that Italians were looked upon with suspicion, right after the end of WWII.
Over time my grandmother did tell me a few words like mania and barba for aunt and uncle. I also have letters my great grandmother received from her nephew in Italy. My great grandmother immigrated to the US in the early 1900s with three young children and joined my great grandfather. After losing two children and having 10 children total (my grandmother being last), she lost my great grandfather to the flu of 1918. Years later she applied for and received citizenship, but she never went back to visit Italy.
Over the years at least one of my cousins had tried to get the letters translated, but even one Italian professor couldn’t translate them. Finally I had found someone from the Piedmont region that knew the dialect and was able to translate for me. I was still really wishing I knew the language, trying with Rosetta Stone and DuoLingo I’ve learned a little so far…
