The Joys of Growing Up Italian
An Essay
I thought that my experience growing up Italian was not only joyful but also unique until I began sharing my experiences with many of my fellow Italian American Social Club members. We just call our IASC "da club." I am convinced that our stories of "growing up Italian" are so similar that I have come to realize that this experience is probably being felt by over two or three million second or third generation Italian-Americans in this country.
Most of our members who actively participate in our many events express feelings of being a part of "la familia" or maybe feel they are "from the old neighborhood," just because of the way we share our Italian heritage and experiences. . . and how important it has become to each one of us.
I would like to share with you the joy of how I grew up Italian. If you are Italian, this may be your story also.
I was almost into adulthood before I thought I was an American. I was born an American. My mother and father were both born Americans. Only my grandparents emigrated from Italy. But we all thought of ourselves as Italians. Americans were people who spoke only one language and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that came out of waxpaper or plastic packages.
We were different. We were Italian. To me there was a distinct difference between we and them. . .them and us, especially if you were a second generation Italian-American growing up in the 40’s and 50’s. Those other Americans at that time were distinctly different. They were Irish, Polish, German, African-American, Jewish. They were all part of the big American melting pot. But they were different. They were not Italians. They were "Metagons" as my grandparents used to call them. "Those Metagons’ was always the way they would say it.
There was no animosity in their description. There was no prejudice, no hard feelings, just a distinct difference that made them "Metagons." It was just a friendly and proud observation because we felt that "ours," the Italian, was a better way.
For example, "Metagons" had to go to the store to get what they needed. We had a bread man, a fruit and vegetable man, an iceman, a coal man, a junkman, and even an olive oil man. Each of them came to us. They were the peddlers who would fly the Italian neighborhoods week after week. We didn’t have to call them. We just knew they would be there. We would hear their call, their yell. Each had a distinctive recognizable sound.
In fact we even had a man who sold dry goods door to door. He packed his goods on his back. When he yelled all the ladies gathered to see what he had in his pack. There were no prices. . . just good old hard bargaining even from our most timid of neighbors.
To this day, I can vividly recall his sad and frustrated lament, " I’ma gonna loosa money, but I’ma tired of carrying it around." He always returned and the neighborhood ladies played the same game again and again.
We came to know these street merchants with expectancy and dependability and they all and knew us. They learned to cater to our wants and needs.
"Metagons," they had to deal with strangers. That was a shame. Truly, I felt sorry for them.
My "Metagon" friends never experienced waking up in the morning with the smell of a hot crisp loaf of Italian bread waiting for them behind the screen door.
As children they never knew what it was like to hitch a ride or hop on the back of a peddler’s wagon on the way to school. They had to walk. We were special because we were Italians from the neighborhood.
There was something else that amused me about "them." On holidays, my American friends and classmates celebrated by eating turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce. But that was it. Italians had those things too. . . but it was only after the anti-pasto, the soup, the salad, the spaghetti, the meatballs or what ever else Mama had prepared specially for the holidays. The turkey or chicken was often accompanied by a baked ham or a roasted veal. . . just in case a visitor came by who didn’t like turkey or chicken.
All of these things were followed by an assortment of nuts, fruits, pastries, cakes, and of course those home baked waffle like cookies we called "pizzels." Each family had their favorites and served them with a special pride. Everything was home baked. We never served store bought pastries. We were Italians.
Very early in our lives we learned how to serve a seven-course meal that lasted from noon to 4 p.m. We learned how to serve and handle "Hot Chestnuts" without burning oneself . . . and oh how good they tasted. We learned to put tangerine wedges in red wine.
I truly believe Italians have a life long romance with food.
I can’t help recalling, when I speak of food, about Sundays. Sunday was the morning that I woke up smelling the aroma of garlic and onions cooking in olive oil. As I awoke, you could here the sizzling of the tomatoes being dropped into the hot pan. You knew what was happening. The feast was being prepared.
Good as it smelled, it was frustrating too, because Sunday was Sunday and you had to go to Mass. You couldn’t eat before Mass because you had to fast before receiving communion. My grandma used to say with a twinkle in her eye, "the hunger you’a suffer before communion is a part of you’a penance."
The good part was coming home from church. You could smell the meatballs frying in the kitchen and a race for the table ensued.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, tasted more delicious than meatballs and crispy chunks of Italian bread dipped into Mama’s sauce. Even though it has been years, I can still taste it. It makes my siliva run just thinking about it.
Another thing different between "them" and "us" was that we had gardens. Large vegetable gardens. My grandparents used to say we grew tomatoes, tomatoes, and more tomatoes. We ate them raw, we ate them cooked and we canned them. Anything we canned we called "Jared."
Of course, we also grew peppers, lettuce, zucchini, basil and many other spices. Everything we prepared, had to be fresh. Some of us even had fig trees like in the old country. A few of us even raised chickens so we could have fresh eggs everyday. Most of us had a grapevine or two. In the fall we made homemade wine. . . Lots of it.
Those things thrived year after year. It seemed we had something extra our American friends didn’t have. We had grandparents. It isn’t that they didn’t have grandparents. Their grandparents just didn’t live in the same house or on the same block. Grandparents were an integral part of our immediate family. They had to go somewhere in order to visit their grandparents. We lived and ate with ours. God forbid we didn’t see them each and every day.
I can still hear both my grandfathers telling me in their unique version of English, Italian English, that I learned to understand quite well, how they came to America on "da boat." They told of the long hours, days and nights they had to work in the factories and mines when they first arrived here. . . and the hardships they had to endure in "da olden days."
They also told us how they lived in rented tenement houses, and took in roomers and boarders in order to make ends meet. They were also determined that they didn’t want their children and families to grow up the same way and in the same environment. When they saved up enough money (I never could figure out how) they put everything they had into buying a house. They were so proud to own their own homes.
These homes served as family headquarters for the next 40 years.
I still remember how my grandparents hated to go anywhere and leave their houses. They would rather sit on the back porch and watch the garden grow than go anywhere. When they did go anywhere they anxiously had to get back home quickly as possible.
" After all, nobody is watching da house."
When I was old enough to drive, because old age was limiting their ability, they would ask me to drive them to the Italian Club in "da machine."
They were so proud of me and I felt so important. I will always remember that feeling.
I will also remember the Holidays. All the relatives and at least a few friends would gather at some family member’s house. There would be tables filled with food and lots of homemade wine. You could hear someone playing music somewhere. There were women in the kitchen, men in the living room or out under the grape arbor. There were kids everywhere. There were first cousins, second cousins, and third cousins. I must have had a thousand cousins. After all, my father came from a family of nine and my mother from a family of eight. They all had families and they lived close to us. . . most in the neighborhood.
There were cousins of every age. . . more than enough to go around. We always seemed to choose a best friend out of the group. We then became close, almost inseparable, during these childhood years.
I remember how my grandfathers enjoyed sitting in the middle of it all. . .holding court, grinning, and nodding their heads with a glow of approval as they surveyed their domain. They sat proud of their children’s accomplishments. All of the boys were good workers with steady jobs, and families of their own. All the girls had married well with fine husbands, and healthy children.
Everyone knew the meaning of respect. Respect was one of the most cohesive elements of "la familia."
I never knew what a good life I had until I went to college. For the first time I was away from home, away from my family and my neighborhood. I was now among "them.". . . the Metagons. Their lifestyle was very different.
For example, their packages from home consisted of a few cookies and a check. My package from home consisted of salami, pepperoni, olives, petsels, and whatever else my family thought necessary to sustain life, as we knew it. Mama always included in the package a few dollars in cash to help us along. She also included a note that said she loved us and hoped we were getting enough to eat.
One thing she never asked was how we were doing in school. That was just understood. You always studied hard and got good grades because you would never let the family down. It was to important. After all, my grandparents had no formal education at all. . . my parents left high school because they needed to work and help at home. Now, here I was at college fulfilling their dreams.
When my grandparents died things began to change. . .slowly at first. My cousins, uncles and aunts moved away from the neighborhood eventually cutting down on their visits. The family gatherings got fewer and fewer. Something seemed to be missing when we did get together. It just wasn’t the same.
I did not realize it, but we were slowly drifting apart. Time and space was eroding the daily bond that so closely tied us together.
The holidays changed too. The great quantity of food we once consumed without any ill effect suddenly wasn’t good for us anymore. To much starch. . . to much cholesterol. . . to many calories. Nobody bakes anymore. We just buy what we need. We are all to busy. We just talk about how much it tastes like mama’s or grandma’s.
Even the neighborhood is different. The carefully painted and maintained houses my grandparents bought and sold are covered with aluminum siding. It just doesn’t look the same.
My mother still lives in one of the houses in the old neighborhood and strangers, "Metagons," live in the others.
The gardens of course have all disappeared and covered with lawn or ground cover of sorts. The grapevines are gone and the last of that home made wine has been served.
For a few years we did try to make regular rounds and visits. We are all spread apart now, but we do use the phone a lot. Some have moved to other cities with retirement to Florida being the most popular.
Today, we meet at weddings and funerals and visit the cemetery often. Many of the people we cared about are there now. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, including my own father are gone.
Now, when we get together it is either at my house or my sister’s house. We still enjoy it. After all, family, la familia, is still everything. . . but for those of us who remember "back when." It’s just not the same. To many things are different. Things are missing. We have changed. The neighborhood has changed.
The difference between us and them cannot be so easily defined anymore either. This is good. I think this is the way it is supposed to be. It is the nature of things to change surely as the passage of time.
My grandparents were Italian Italians, my parents were Italian Americans, I and my children are now Americans of Italian decent, and my grandchildren and great grandchildren are American Americans. We are all Americans now. . . Irish, Polish, Jewish, German. Call it culture. Call it roots. I am not sure what it really is.
Life is still good. . . and the memories, the memories are great. But there is still a small part of me that will be a little bit sad. My children, my grand children, and their children will never experience first hand how great and important that piece of what they are. They will never get to know my grandparents and the joys of growing up Italian.
- This essay was claimed to be written by Elvira S. Oliver in 1968