Our grandparents were constantly victimized, discriminated against by "True Americans"; they had tough, tough, lives. They sacrificed themselves for the American Dream. Not all realized this dream, but many did. Today, as a descendant of these pioneers who threw themselves into a foreign way of existence, I have to ask myself: Do we have what it takes to overcome adversity like they did? Do we remember what they did for us? Can't we do it too? Isn't that heroic DNA also flowing in our veins?

Today, more than ever, we need that spirit of our ancestors as we face these tough economic times. We need to reflect upon our roots and where we are today. What we have now, even in these "tough" times, is light years ahead of what they had. Many of us are educated. Many of our children and grandchildren are educated. American business, education, arts, sciences, mathematics, every industry is full of Italian and Sicilian Americans who have achieved success. This success was earned despite starting from nothing. Now I ask you . . . especially during Italian and Sicilian Cultural Heritage Month . . . has this spirit died? Has the sacrifice of millions of our ancestors been for nought?

No way. This country will recover. It will recover in part because of a spirit instilled in us by example, the spirit of hard work, sacrifice and that "never give up" attitude that our forefathers brought with them through Ellis Island. We have something that many are desirous of . . . our inbred spirit. We are survivors.

As I think of our grandfathers and grandmothers . . . all heroes to me . . . and the profound sacrifices that they made on my behalf, I can say proudly that I am an American, and I will not let them down . . . now or ever. Together, as Americans, proud Americans, we must do whatever we have to do to ensure that the success earned through their sacrifices made long ago will continue for generations to come.

This is what Italian and Sicilian Cultural Heritage Month means to me!

Ciao
Al

Call for stories
Many of our readers send me beautiful stories about Italy, Sicily, growing up in America, etc. If you are a writer (even if you are not) and have a story to share, please send it to: alfredmzappala@yahoo.com and we will print in our section by "guest columnists". So, what are you waiting for?

The first time I visited I was twenty. I had a fake ID, drank sea breezes with mandarin, and planned on spending my first NY New Year’s partying like… a twenty-one year old.  Jenny Greenfield was my travel companion and we stayed with her sister and her sister’s then-boyfriend (now husband) in their tiny apartment on the Lower East Side.  Houston and Eldridge, across from a noisy pet store (now, eight years later, an upscale hotel). Unlike strict Seattle where Jenny and I attended college, New York bars didn’t even card us.  Needless to say, we behaved excessively.  Drank until 4am, made out with strange boys, and sat on street corners eating pizza slices. My biggest regret:  when faced with the choice of spending New Year’s Eve dancing at the Limelight or seeing Patty Smith live at Bowery Ballroom, we chose the Limelight. 

We were so twenty.

On that virgin trip to New York I planned to do all the touristy things: see the Statue of Liberty, visit the Met, walk through Central Park.  The morning after we arrived, a blizzard hit.  We tromped through Central Park (smoking a joint while rolling a snowman); skipped the Met, and couldn’t manage the Statue of Liberty - everything was frozen.  And before long, the trip was over.  In the coming years, I visited regularity.  Friends moved there, I was involved with someone living there, and consequently,  I came to equate the city with a place to hang out, eat great food and see good shows.  The touristy stuff faded into the background.  I’ve probably been to New York twenty times since that fateful New Years, and this past trip I realized I’ve never visited the Statue of Liberty.

So I went.

It was a idyllic fall day: sunny, with a slight breeze; the kind of weather that gives the scarf a good name.  I waited in line for the ferry and listened to a street trumpeter play the Beatles’ Yesterday.  It was kind-of a Spalding Grey “perfect moment”. 

Until it wouldn’t end.

The wait in line for the ferry going to and coming Liberty Island was EPIC.  Consequently, seeing the Statue of Liberty provided the same gratification as going to Six Flags and waiting in line for three hours for a forty-five second roller coaster.  Worth it?  You decide.

Okay, okay, but, it WAS a magnificent forty-five seconds. The statue is breathtaking. Lady Liberty towers luminously from her pedestal. And, in true tourist fashion, I purchased the audio tour.  It was interesting learning the history of the statue, but the best part: recordings of emigrants describing the moment they first saw the statue from their boats. Their voices crack, they laugh, they are transported back to that moment.  Oh, those human interest stories get me every time!

ANYWAY, I just saw her from the outside, I didn’t have a monument pass so couldn’t go up.  I ate a hotdog instead.  And after waiting another hour plus for the ferry back, I just didn’t have it in me to visit Ellis Island.  None of my people came to the United States through New York so I figured what’s the point? It might be interesting, but not personally meaningful.

Back on the mainland I caught the 4 heading north and got stuck in a car where two men argued loudly.  A dread-locked African American man in Army fatigues yelled at a strung out white man, “we ARE living in la, la land buddy!  America is bombing people over there, men are marrying men, children are disrespecting their parents now more than ever before!”  His young child sat next to him.  The little boy, between four and five, was also army fatigues, as well as a little white cap and a colorful backpack illustrated with underwater cartoon animals. His father’s behavior didn’t phase him.  “These are times of destruction,” he carried on, “we got murder, rape, all on the TV, people getting on the train kicking, pushing, nobody says ‘excuse me’, there’s no manners, there’s no rules, there’s no loyalty among human beings today.  We’re in la la land, but my people are more in la la land than any people in this world and that is my concern.  My people are the only people that don’t got corporations, they don’t own shit in this country and we built this country on our hands, knees and backs.  Right?” This was a question for everyone on the train.  “Right?” He turned his gaze directly toward me. “I know you’re listening!”

I do this to myself.  See, I have this… thing… where I enjoy being around social drama.  Maybe enjoy is the wrong word – I find social drama exciting. Dangerous, but exciting.  I’ll be on the train in Chicago and I’ll purposely stay sitting next to the crazy person, OR, stupidly engage him in conversation because I’m fascinated by what will happen next. This time however, I was a little bit freaked.  This guy was being VERY aggressive.  “You’re listening right?”  Actually I was recording it all with my audio digital recorder, but who’s asking for specifics?

The brave man next to me, a football player in a business suit, intervened, asking in a thick New York accent:

“Who’s we?”

“Who’s we?” Fatigues responded. “I like that, I like that, ya know what I’m saying?  We try to act like we’re not intelligent. Like we don’t know the history of America.”

Well I for one don’t, I just skipped the Ellis Island tour.

Seriously though, this whole incident got me to thinking about the idea of ownership over history.  Depending on our backgrounds, we choose which parts of American history we want to claim as our own.  No Bordelons came through Ellis Island, so it’s not mine.  Maybe this guy’s great, great grandparents were slaves, so that part of American history is his.  And I didn’t want to answer his question because I felt like I was conceding something, that as a white woman I was admitting responsibility for the past. And I didn’t want to align myself with that ugly period in our history, just like I didn’t feel the need to take pride in the glory of Ellis Island. But really, as Americans, all of it: Ellis Island and slavery and World War I and II and Vietnam, etc. etc. it’s all ours.  We live with the legacy and repercussions of our nation’s past, and if we don’t personalize and claim all of our history, we risk not learning from it.

This is the eulogy I wrote for him and read at his funeral.

What is a life?  It’s not just an accumulation of seconds, hours, days, weeks, months and years but what we do with the time we’re given.  No one who knew my Grandfather could deny that he was a man who really lived.  He always grasped life with both hands and ran with it.

Joseph Harko was born around March 18, 1905 of Ukrainian descent in Austria.  He came to America through Ellis Island in steerage when he was less than a year old with his mother, a chair and a down pillow that served as his bed.  They joined his father in Carteret, NJ and the rest is literally history.

As a 10th grader he had to quit school to work to support his mother and two younger sisters when his father became ill.  He was a self taught drafting engineer, taking correspondence courses and classes at The Singer Sewing Company where he worked.  He was a tap dancer in the Vaudeville team ‘Hark and Bark’ with his good friend, Jerry Bartok.  They went to Ned Wayburn School of Dance on 59th Street at Colombus Circle in New York City for tap dance lessons, the same place Fred and his sister Estelle Astaire went.  He told me of the cattle call of mass auditions in New York City when performers would gather outside the theatres in Harlem and rehearse their acts on the street until they were called in to audition. 

He was a man who drove miles with his wind up Victrola, set of records and his roll out oak floor mat to give tap dance lessons to the privileged few 'rich kids' during the Depression to make a living.  He was man who lived tragedy when his father died then a week later his 32 year old wife Helen died leaving him and my Mother, Barbara who was then six. He remarried to Helen’s sister Babe, had Lynn and continued on to outlive his second wife, all of his generation, most of the next and even one great-grandchild, my daughter Alaina.  But for the most part, he lived a truly blessed if not a charmed life for 102 years and then died comfortably, peacefully while asleep with his family at his bedside.

He touched so many lives in so many ways.  To me, the family genealogist, collector of family objects and their stories, my grandfather was an endless source of information.  As a child I would sit enraptured for hours with him in his basement sharing with him his love of collecting.  He would show me his coins, post cards, books, photos and the stories that went with each one.  There is no one who grew up around him that didn’t have a quarter pulled out of their ear during one of his many magic tricks. And I believe he knew every word of every song ever written as music was always a part of life with Joe Harko.  He played drums and sang in a band from 1927 to the 1970’s.  At family gatherings as a child, I remember moving all the furniture in the recreation room against the wall, turning on the Hi-Fi and dancing the Mexican Hat Dance and the Beer Barrel Polka on the linoleum floor.

What was life for my grandfather?  He was born in a time we can now only see in movies or in books.  To give his life a little perspective; His life began a year before Cornflakes were invented and the year Einstein published his Theory of Relativity.  The Model T was first sold when he was 3, the first crossword puzzle invented when he was 8.  He was 15 when the Band-Aid was invented and 23 before he ever heard the words Penicillin or bubble gum.  Scotch tape didn’t exist until he was 25, the year he saw and heard Al Jolson’s somehow prophetic ‘You ain’t heard nothing yet’ -  and he hadn’t,  as he still had 77 more years to go.

He was a young man who walked four miles from Duffy Street in Carteret to Berry Street in Woodbridge on a Friday night to date my Grandmother Helen Habinak.  Groups of young people used to gather at my great-grandparent’s house, the main attractions being their four winsome daughters and a player piano. Then he would walk four miles back home.

I remember him telling me at Easter dinners that if I ate my kielbasa he would take me to the Ukraine.  I remember Jerry, his parakeet, sitting perched on his glasses.  And how he would take off his glasses to clean them, look around and say ‘Where did everybody go?’  Then put them on and say ‘Oh, there you are!’

Yes, he was a character too.  My sister and I went to rake huge amounts of leaves in my mom and stepdad’s yard while they were in Florida, our little ones jumping into the piles.  My grandfather said he would stop by later to help, but we left for lunch before he came, taking a much needed break.  When we returned less than an hour later, every leaf was raked into about 20 small neat piles.  The ‘Grandpop Elf’ had come.

He loved his garden and took endless slides of it in every season and could dig holes for plants and young trees faster with a shovel than any roto-tiller.

When his second wife, Babe died, my mom and Lynn encouraged him to get out and get involved in Sr. Citizen’s activities.  From 1988 to about 1999 he was so busy, we had to schedule visits with him on his calendar.  I would call to say hi and get his answering machine. My Aunt who lived with him said ‘I’d go to bed on Friday night and my father would be coming in after midnight.  Something’s wrong with this picture.’

He could be hard headed too, like wanting to walk without his walker.  One afternoon he fell in the kitchen, making a big hole in the kitchen wall with his head.  The only funny thing about it was that he was fine but the sheetrock and wallpaper had to be replaced.  My stepdad’s comment to him later was ‘Now that was using your head, Joe.”

He was always about ‘life'.  I never heard him even mention dying; I believe he thought himself immortal and we were beginning to think he was.  Then after his second stroke, he mentioned to his caretaker at the nursing home that he was going to die,  but that it was OK because all his affairs were in order.  He had his final stroke the next morning.

We are here today to honor and celebrate the life of my Grandfather as there is nothing to mourn but our own loss.  I told my mother, that although I was thankful his life ended as it did, I feel like the frame of reference has been removed from my life. 

For now we remain, blessed to have known him and richer for having had him in our lives.  He was loved and cherished by family and friends, well taken care of by his daughters and his son-in-law who was truly wonderful with him.  He left this world in peace and comfort, content with his family at his bedside, having known children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, to go to an eternity of joy with Christ and the family and friends he’d loved and lost.  What more could anyone ask for? 

Teddy

mc

My best friend Chris and his girlfriend, Despi, left around noon from Philadelphia to go to see Ellis Island.  I had already imposed on them during the weekend and I was a little worried I was dragging them along for a trip they didn’t want to make, but I was happy to have the company.

We arrived at around 4:00pm at Liberty State Park, which was just in time to catch the last ferry to Ellis Island.  Chris bought an audio tour pass that we all intended to share when Despi and myself purchased the regular adult tickets.  As the ferry arrived, I realized that the Statue of Liberty was on a smaller, separate island just as Despi had mentioned earlier.   Because the park was closing soon, we only had time to go to one site.  Since Chris had already paid extra for the audio tour, he wanted to visit the immigration center.  As I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty more, we decided to split up and meet up back at the car.  Little did I know that we wouldn’t see each other again.

I took in the sights of the Statue of Liberty against the backdrop of Manhatten.  I read each of the historical markers and felt a little since of history in knowing that very sight greeted my great, great grandparents when they made the journey here during the Irish Potato Famine.   Sure, I could have just looked at a picture of it, but the feelings of being there were unmatched.  The sun was beginning to slip towards the horizon signaling the need to return to the ferry.  I walked to the same dock that I had disembarked from and was rushed on the ferry by a host of impatient park workers.

We pulled out from the dock and started to turn in the bay.  We turned, and turned, and then stopped turning… something was wrong.  We hadn’t turned enough to head towards the New Jersey shore, we were going to New York.  I was a little disturbed that I would be a little late meeting back up with Chris but I didn’t think it would be a big deal.   I tried to call him: ring, ring… ring, ring… no answer.  My phone was almost dead and time was running out.

Once we got to shore, I asked when the next ferry would be to New Jersey.  The dockworker told me that the last one had already left for the day, oh shit!  I walked down the concourse and found a bright yellow port with a miniature ferry in it labeled “Water Taxi.”  Great, I thought, I’ll just hop on this thing.  We pulled out and turned, and turned, and turned, and… we turned too much this time.  This ferry wasn’t going to New Jersey, it was making stops around Manhatten.  What good is a ferry to take you back to the same place you already were!  A couple stops later, I got off where they had told me would be the closest walking distance to the train station.  I tried to call Chris again: ring, ring… ring, ring… no answer.   I didn’t have much juice left.

I wondered around Manhatten for about 15 minutes completely lost.  Every time I tried to get directions, I’d get someone telling me to go to take “the path” in a thick New York accent.  Yes, I know, I answered, but what is the path?  Down Wall  Street I walked, 10 minutes passed.  I turned onto another street, asked directions again, another 10 minutes passed.  Where am I?  I took another turn and there it was in big, bold letters- PATH.  Ok, I guess it was the destination not the direction.   I called Chris again: ring, ring… ring, ring… kid?  Omg, KID, you won’t believe where I’m at… I took the wrong ferry and I’m in New York.  Um, we are supposed to meet Cass soon, how long are you?  About an hour I think, do you want to wait at the car?  I think so, let me call you back.  I called him several minutes later and we agreed to meet at the car; the phone was dead, I was cutoff from everyone.

I bought a ticket on the PATH and found my way to the Exchange stop that was just inside of New Jersey.  Great, I was finally across that dreaded water.  Now to find a cab.  I ran up a long escalator trying to show off how obviously in-shape I was for a 300 pound fatty.  I was pretty set on having a heart attack once I got to the top, but to save face, I put my face in a corner where the maps were and said three Hail Mary’s to Jenny Craig.  Outside of the station there were no cabs.  Huh?  Every movie set in New York has eleventy thousand cabs scurrying around like busy ants collecting all the faithful and delivering them to their homestead.  Ok, maybe I was in New Jersey now, but seriously, where are all the damned immigrant cabbys!

I walked one block, then two, then three.  I turned left, right, up and down.  The sun was setting and I was beginning to lose my orientation.  Without technology, I am a complete fool.  I learned to tell my direction from the sun in boy scouts and that was my single call to any survival skills.  Still, no cabs.  Occasionally I would see one passing on a corner a few streets down but too far for me to hail.  I looked down a street and saw no buildings at the end of it.  It was the waterfront and showed my way home.  I saw across about 150 yards of water a marina with at least a hundred yachts parked, the building where we had bought tickets, and the parking lot where I needed to be.  Hmm, how to get across?

A couple minutes passed and a ratty car pulled up behind me with an American Gladiator sized man and his dog.   He waived me over.  “Could you help me?  I’m not from here and I’m almost out of gas… I’ve gotten my key stuck in my ignition and I need to get home to fix it.”  So we struck a bargain, he would take me around the marina’s bay to my parking lot and I would throw him a little gas money.  If ever there was a stupid thing to do, it must be to get into a car with a stranger in New York.

Not 5 miles went by before he raced through a light just after it had turned red.  Urreeoohhh, urreeoohhhhh the sirens rang behind us and he pulled over the car.  He leaned over to me and said be cool and we will be alright.  Wait a minute, why do I need to be cool?  “Be cool?  I was cool until you said to be cool, why am I being cool?!”  He turned away as the officer was walking up, “shhh, just be cool.”  The officer asked for his license and registration.  As he reached for them, the officer’s com sounded “tango blah blah blah, be advised tag blah blah blah has been reported stolen blah blah.”  The officer took his flashlight and shined it at the driver who gave him something of a gangster lip curl, and then to me to see a pasty fat dude with eyes forced about as far outside of one’s head as possible.  Stay in the car he told me, and then ordered the driver out.  He patted him down and pulled some small bags out of his pockets that I can only guess were drugs of some sort.  After some chastisement, he took the driver to his car handcuffed.

It was my turn: he patted me down and found only one thing, the brick of 100 hundred dollar bills I was carrying with me to go to Foxwoods.   At that moment, I realized the severity of my situation.  I just got caught in a stolen car with someone who either does or distributes drugs with $10,000 in my pocket.  He looked at me like he had just busted Tony Soprano and threw me in the car with him.   As the officer walked around to get in the cruiser, I pleaded with the driver.  “Please God tell him I’m not with you, tell him I’m just some stranger you picked up…” nearly in tears.  He told me to not worry and I would be ok.  Worried was a state of mind that hardly described my current feelings.

The officer took each of us to different holding cells at a nearby precinct.  I had everything on me confiscated and witnessed everyone around me look on me like the scum of the earth.  I said, when could I have my phone call?  We will get to you as soon as we can.  Cluck, the bars closed.  My vacation ended.

About 15 minutes later another man took me to a small room and asked me to describe to him who I was and what I was doing so far from Alabama.  I spilled everything I could think of as being important.  My mind jumped sporadically from event to event and my mouth could hardly keep up.  Too much jibberish, I had to slow down.  I told him about the trip up, Ellis Island, the address of my new blog, how I had gotten lost, that I was going to play high-stakes poker at Foxwoods.  He warmed up a little to me and was coaching me by the end.  I think he realized I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They put me back in the cell for about 30 more minutes.  Then the same man came back and said that they didn’t suspect me of anything and the driver had corroborated my story.  Don’t get into cars with strangers, he told me.   Getting back to my usual self, I tried to make a little light of the situation: at least it wasn’t a rapist; I would have hated to lose my anal virginity in a van.

I walked several blocks down and found the same view of emptiness at the end of the street.  It was the same place I had been an hour ago, looking across 150 yards of water to my destination.  I turned my back to the water, still no cabs!  Damn it, I’m just going to have to man up here and summon my inner Michael Phelps.  I put my camera in one hand and my sandals in the other.  Ok, I’m not an Olympic swimmer and the bay was not a sauna.  I’m as much like Phelps as a humpback whale is to a dolphin.  I sloshed around randomly depending mostly on the buoyancy of my stomach as much as my forward momentum.  I don’t know how long I was in there kicking forward through the water with my hands help up in the air, but by the time I got across to the rocky shore, a couple boats of people at the marina were clapping and cheering for me, the nutjob who crossed in front of their eyes.   When I got two feet ashore, I promptly turned my back to the Wall Street Brokers turned playboys and held a double bird salute towards Manhatten.  Good-bye forever I thought.

I looked down the road and the parking lot was just a distant spec.  A block on the other side of me was what looked like a small train station.   I walked towards it and a bus pulled up alongside it at the same time.  Does this bus go to the end of the pier?  Yes, but this is my last stop on my shift, you’ll have to wait for the next bus driver.  “Oh man, I’ve had a horrible day, is there anything I could do to get you to take me down there?”  “Hmmm, mmmhmmm, well let me take a smoke and I’ll give you a ride.”  Great!  I bummed a cigarette off him as mine were completely soaked.

We started some small talk.  He told me they called him “Fo’ty” which I took to mean fourty the number.  I asked why they called him that and he opened up a big smile, a big dark smile: he only had four teeth positioned in sequence on the bottom of his mouth.  Oh.  I asked him how he liked driving a bus around such a crowded city.  “It’s stressful, no one lets you over, they always cut you off… you get written up if you’re early or late, if you don’t record all the fares, or if you don’t include any stuff that comes up on your report.”  Man, why don’t you come down south.  They will pay you just as much and you’re life will be easier!  “I gotta support my family, I work up here 12-16 hours a day to keep up for my wife and kids.”  He said he had to work out his two years with the city to qualify to get some sort of state bus driver’s license.  “When I get that license, I’ll go to the big time, I’ll be able to drive a Grayhound and live it good.”  I hid my laugh because it all became so clear that he really did think it would be a success.  We finished smoking and boarded the bus.

He drove me about 4 miles down the cobblestone road.  “Can you drop me off here?”  Sure, he said.  I started down the stairs and stopped.  I reached in my soggy billfold and fingered my brick.  The stupid brick that had gotten me arrested, the one I was so “ballin” with that I wanted to keep it together for the casino, the one I had refused to break to give good tips to my waiters… debit please.  I carefully pulled out one soggy hundred dollar bill and handed it to him.  “Have a good dinner with your family tonight.”  He was surprised and thanked me and blessed me and all those other sorts of gestures you make when you are unexpectedly a beneficiary of a gift.

Fo’ty really put it in perspective for me.  I had a shitty day.  My best friend who I still couldn’t find was probably furious with me, I had been lost, arrested, and shocked in the cold water of the harbor.  I had my day ruined.  This vacation was supposed to be my get-away, my break from “working so hard.”  No, this was a hard day for me, but every day was hard for Fo’ty.  He worked hard to put dinner on the table every night.  In a few hours, I would be back to my life of leisure, without a real worry in the world, and this day would be a footnote on an otherwise amazing vacation by his standards.  And despite the tribulations, he seemed like a genuinely happy character.   I guess he was happy for the same reason I should have always been:  we were free men in the greatest nation on Earth with rights protected by the millions who have bled for us throughout our common history.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled massed, yearning to breathe free…

NUOVAIORCA NOVECENTO

Trenta lune riposano fra i nostri canti.

 La polvere delle macerie cede il passo

 alle nebbie di Ellis Island.

 Le mani, calli e salsedine,

 salutano i mostri di vetro e cemento,

 pronte a dare respiro al sogno.

 Anni rinchiusi fra spago e cartone:

 le luci di Nuovaiorca baciano

 le immagini di amori lontani.

Migliaia di sguardi sfiorano

scrutano accarezzano

scarpe rotte sorridenti.

 Gesti e parole, diffidenti amici

che ci guidano lungo i chilometri

di ferro, fumi, odori ancora da percorrere,

 mai certi dell’approdo.

In the past I ask my parents why they left Germany and never got an answer. I grew up in phoenix and learned the desert rat lifestyles. When it was time for me to start School I had to learn English in order to attend public school, back then English was the only language spoken unlike today. So many years later and still a desert rat I have a son, which was a job raising him and then three granddaughters. That is a whole new adventure. Try going camping with girls in tow. One did like 4 wheeling, she called it forfun.So what is deferent about Germany you ask.

Food Quality: yogurt, cheese, and beer that are rich and still alive, wide availability of organic and natural foods in supermarkets, wine and chocolate with full body and tremendous flavor, fresh local produce, bakery breads. Are idea of fast food is sitting at a café with some cheese, bread and a pint of beer. Appreciation of Lifestyle Rhythms and Work/Family Balance: it's still very common for Europeans to take time off during the day, have lunch at home with their families, go back to work in the afternoon feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, and then return home for a long, leisurely slow-food family dinner. Grabbing a slice of pizza or a hot dog and eating it on the run is simply not part of the culture; food is to be savored, and family plays a crucial role. In Germany we have Multilingualism, most educated Europeans speak at least two languages; many speak several. On my first trip to Europe, back in 1993, I encountered a couple of kids, who tried three or four languages until they got a response, in English, from my wife and son. In this state you almost have to speak Spanish just to order food. Villages are still very much a part of European society. They often have clear boundaries and a clear identity, and they may specialize in a particular artisanship there’s still a value placed on the land, and an understanding that the cow or goat grazing in the field has a direct relationship with the food on our table. In most European cities and towns, a well-established and much-used network of buses, trams, suburban and long-distance trains can get you pretty much anywhere, efficiently and comfortably. While large private cars are gaining currency, most vehicles tend to be much smaller than American cars—and the inner cores tend to be pedestrian-friendly. In many parts of Europe, bicycles are also heavily used, and dedicated bike lanes, vast numbers of bike racks, and the ability to bring a bike onto a train all help keep the populace fit and trim while lowering air pollution. Don’t misunderstand me America has been great; It gave me every thing one could ask for and then some. But that was then; today I see change in the culture, values, and lifestyle. More and more the state is looking like Mexico; you go to the store, restaurants, where ever and Spanish is the language. Just think when you order Asian food is the cook asain, what about Italian food. I was in Viet Nam; the food here is not the same. Sorry but Italians cook food there way and Mexicans cook there way. When I go into a restaurant I expect the food to taste like it should, you cant expect Juan Valdez Mendoza to cook Bratwurst mit Sauerkraut or Sauerbraten with out a cup of grease,yes when they cook they use to much grease.Back when I drove truck I ate in restraints all the time.In border states Mexicans work in the cooking field but go somewhere like Oregon,Nebraska,Minnesota and you would see whites,blacks waiting tables,busing tables,and cooking are food.Back then "up till 1995"we rarely heard of people getting sick from the food they ate.this summer we traveled around the U.S and what a change some of the restraints I went to now has Mexicans,in Waverly,Tennessee the woman barely spoke English,The bacon and eggs over easy was soaked in grease.the hash browns had grease running.I would not let my family eat it and told the manager he should lube his car with the crap.Does Mexicans eat there food like that? OH sorry you  want to be called hispanics and Latinos

I wanted to capture the uncertainty of displacement; one can never be sure when relocating what the future would hold. This pictures raises the question whether by coming to the United States, new immigrants were going into light (outside the hall) and leaving behind the dark - or the other way around.

The first picture shows some promise with the coloured lights and the second draws a clearer distinction between darkness and light; what lies inside and outside.

Colazione da Starbucks, metro e pronti per affrontare la fila senza fine per comprare i biglietti per la Statua della Libertà ed Ellis Island. Traghetto dopo traghetto, fila dopo fila, ecco il resoconto della mattinata:

• la Statua della Libertà non è niente di che, insomma, neanche l'hanno costruita gli americani! (per chi non fosse informato, sappia che dietro la sua creazione c'è lo zampino del Sig. Eiffel).
• Ellis Island è invece magnifica, forse l'unico posto negli USA con una storia (eh eh questa è cattivella, ma nemmeno del tutto falsa).
•  i (troppi) turisti italiani sono davvero imbarazzanti, motivo per cui abbiamo cercato di non entrare in contatto con loro, cosa che comunque risulta molto difficile visto che i turisti a New York sono composti quasi esclusivamente di connazionali (meridionali-specifica interessante).

Nonostante la stanchezza e il caldo, abbiamo deciso di fare un giretto a Brooklyn, scelta che si è rivelata azzeccatissima. "Stufi" dei grattacieli di Manhattan, ci siamo rifugiati in Dumbo, all'ombra del ponte di Brooklyn e Manhattan, tra ex magazzini trasformati in loft da urlo. Se mai dovessimo trasferirci nella Grande Mela, questo sarebbe decisamente il quartiere ideale. 

Ovviamente al ritorno abbiamo percorso a piedi il ponte senza fine delle famose cicche, davvero bello, ma troppo trafficato (solito odio perenne per i turisti, non solo italiani, che si fermano in mezzo alla strada a fare foto inutili e imbarazzanti).

Ultima tappa della giornata China Town e Little Italy (o almeno quello che ne è rimasto). Vedere per credere. Alleghiamo anche tra le foto un piccolo esercizio di traduzione per i sinologi che ci seguono. 

Next I went to see where the World Trade Centre used to be, which is now just an enormous building site for whatever the city's magnates have decided to put in its place, walked past the World Financial Centre, and headed down along the shore of Manhattan Island towards the ferry ports for Ellis and Liberty Islands. The queue was just ridiculous, but the prices reasonable, so I will brave the wait at some point and go and view the work of M. Laboulaye before I leave New York. I stopped to watch and video some street performers in Battery Park near Castle Clinton, then headed up Broadway and Pearl Street towards Wall Street, which is not quite as obviously financial beyond the well-guarded Stock Exchange building as I'd anticipated, and took the subway at Fulton Street back to my hotel. I took photos left, right and centre, and will eventually upload them onto my computer, and thence onto Facebook probably. New York is beginning to remind me somewhat of London, Frankfurt and Moscow rolled into one, with street patterns familiar from all three of the others, but just three times the height of the buildings on either side.

After a brief pause in my room, I went past Carnegie Hall to saunter a bit around the southern end of Central Park, then headed back via the fabulous supermarket (where I bought a LOT of drinks and even some outlandish ice-cream) to my room. I spent quite a while chatting to various different people on Facebook and Windows Messenger, and am now watching NBC's coverage of the Olympics while waiting for the latest edition of Games Today to appear. Tomorrow I will stay closer to home and look around the Rockefeller Centre and drop by the Juilliard School and UN headquarters, and check out Amtrak prices from Penn Station for future reference.

From Di's eyes: Connie planned a very interesting trip for her children and the family's German exchange student. I'm impressed!

WHO: Connie, 47, and Len Corey, 49, with their children Ian, 14, and Owen, 12, all of Reading, Mass., and Corry Kieper, 16, of Essen, Germany.

WHERE: New York City

WHEN: Two days in March

WHY: "We had a high school exchange student from Germany for three weeks and wanted to show her as much as possible," Connie Corey said. That included visits to Salem, Boston, Plimoth Plantation, New Bedford, and Newport. "For me the best part of the New York trip was the idea of being able to show someone from a foreign country how much that city is truly a melting pot."

IMMIGRANT ISLAND: The family stayed at a hotel in Newark to save money. "It's cheaper to stay there, and my husband went to school in New York and isn't afraid to drive in the city," Corey said. They arrived on a Thursday night and started sightseeing Friday morning with a trip to Ellis Island, which Corey said was easier to reach from the New Jersey side. "All three of the kids had studied it in school and were interested in history, so they really enjoyed it." They drove into Manhattan, where they found parking right outside their lunch spot, Christine's Polish American, an East Village diner serving Eastern European dishes. "We had the best parking luck all weekend."

TOWN AND TUNNEL: After visiting a popular section of Central Park, "where all the movies are filmed," they fought their way through the crowds at the Museum of Modern Art's "Target Free Friday." "There were 500 people in line, but at least it was moving. It was so crowded that you couldn't really see the museum, but there is such excellent modern art there." They visited Rockefeller Center and drove through Times Square before heading back through the Holland Tunnel.

LIVING IN AMERICA: Saturday started with a trip to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which presents a look at migrant and immigrant life in the 19th and 20th centuries. "They would have 12 people in an tiny apartment with a bathroom down the hall and no tub or shower. It's really about trying to understand people's lives and the dreams, the risk, and the work that these people were willing to do to get here. It really puts into perspective how the American Dream has changed."

CIAO FOR NOW: After enjoying the sounds from Italian-speaking diners at Rocky's Restaurant in Little Italy, the kids had a field day in Economy Candy. "It's about 12 feet wide and 50 feet long with floor-to-ceiling candy, with every candy imaginable," Corey said. After a stop at the Gothic masterpiece Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, they headed home, mission accomplished.

A little girl and her brother make the long journey to America all alone to reunite with their parents, passing through Ellis Island along the way.

She was born Elisa Capobianco. Surprisingly, the family name came through unscathed, but her Christian name, Elisa, got lost.   The immigration official had never heard of it and began throwing out names he was familiar with to give to her.

“ Ethel?” he said.  She shook her head.  “Edith?” he wrote it down for her to read. “Non,”she said.  “Ellen” he shouted, but that was wrong. As exasperation filled his voice, “I’ll call you Alice. That’s a good American name.” And Alice she became until the day she died. In one fell swoop, her sister Chiarina. which translates as Clara, became Katie. And Annaida, another family member, became Edith.

That's only half of it. My dad doesn't know for sure which town/city my great-grandmother (on my grandfather's side a.k.a. my dad's father's mother). Ugh,...I can't talk about this anymore, it was really interesting when I started but now I got a headache because my dad keeps talking about different connections of family with my grandma and he talks really loud. X_X So now im in the bedroom..but I still hear him -_-.

Tutto si può dire di Emanuele Crialese tranne che non sia un regista serio, intellettualmente onesto, al punto tale di assottigliare quella che potenzialmente è una grande storia per farne un film essenziale e rigoroso. Tutto si può dire dell’ultimo film di Crialese, quel Nuovomondo che è tanto piaciuto al festival di Venezia, tranne che non sia un film “tutto d’un pezzo”. Che poco concede allo spettatore. Pochissimo. Alcune dicotomie forti e definite sono infatti l’unico appiglio per comprendere le intenzioni di un lavoro per molti aspetti rarefatto. Forse eccessivamente rarefatto. Ma tutte le opposizioni partono da quella fondamentale che, come il titolo suggerisce, è la dicotomia tra il mondo antico e il mondo nuovo, tra il pre-moderno e il moderno. A questa fanno seguito la divisione tra lo stato di natura e la civilizzazione, il sapere magico/emotivo e il sapere logico/intellettivo. Di conseguenza: la magia e la scienza, la libertà naturale e la regole. L’inizio del film ci presenta una Sicilia arcana che viene abbandonata per raggiungere un’America che non vedremo, ma che si presenta subito come il mondo delle prescrizioni, non della libertà. La libertà moderna è infatti una libertà scrupolosamente strutturata attraverso norme. Ci si deve sposare, bisogna essere sani, produrre e dimostrarsi svegli. Se non si ragiona a dovere, allora si è tagliati fuori. Insomma, il concetto, il significato del film, c’è tutto ed è molto interessante. E non stupisce che i francesi adorino Crialese: Respiro ricordava Girard quanto questo Nuovomondo fa pensare a Foucault. Non è roba da tutti… il regista è uno di quelli bravi.

Eppure, nonostante alcuni pregi notevoli, il film non convince. Molto belle le scene a Ellis Island, bellissima la partenza della nave, molto bella la scelta di frammentare gli spazi dell’azione (lo spettatore non li vede mai nella loro complessità) che costituisce un punto di forza stilistico, e molto bello l’arrivo nella nebbia e non nella luce. Perché non è luminosa, la modernità. E certamente è bella la riflessione di fondo, che ci suggerisce che l’uomo ha bisogno – per natura – di uscire dallo stato di natura. L’uomo vuole regole in cambio di una diversa struttura del tempo, ma in tutto questo poi rimane imprigionato. Però, nonostante questo, Nuovomondo è narrativamente così esile che non ci fa amare le persone che vediamo sullo schermo. Che, in effetti, non sono persone ma incarnazioni. La cosa, però, non affascina per forza e può essere anche fonte di noia. Inoltre, la supposta visionarietà del film dà l’impressione di una giustapposizione stilistica vagamente ruffiana. In sintesi, Crialese è un regista da tenersi stretto, e Nuovomondo ne è la conferma. Una conferma che è anche un’attesa rivolta al futuro, però. Perché il film, come Respiro, non è di quelli molto promettenti ma non torniti fino in fondo. Intuizioni e intenzioni non portano necessariamente ad appassionarsi a una storia che, svuotata e svuotata, rischia di essere piatta, monocorde, priva di progressioni.

Nuovomondo, di Emanuele Crialese, Italia/Francia, 2006, 111 minuti

Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Vincenzo Amato, Francesco Casisa, Aurora Quattrocchi, Filippo Pucillo, Federica de Cola, Ernesto Mahieux, Isabella Ragonese.

Uscita: 22 settembre 2006