American First Italian Always

SCHOLARSHIP WINNER – ASHLEY TAYLOR

            Ever since I was a young child, my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother have instilled a sense of pride in my heritage in me.  Close family ties are a common Italian tradition and in my family this has been extremely important.  No matter what, family comes first.  A very important value in Italian is the importance of the family and the desire to know about your ancestry.  I could sit down with my grandmother or great grandmother and they could go back several generations to little towns all over Italy.  Over the years, contact with our Italian relatives has been lost, but the morals, values, and traditions have not ceased to exist in the DeLuca and Flader family.  Throughout my entire life, I have been told that I was half Italian, even though my mother didn’t come directly from Italy.  Going back more than three generations, my family came from a small town called Fiumedinisi.  This 14 square foot town of about 1,600 people is the root of my Italian heritage. 

            From national holidays to just Wednesday night dinners at grandma’s, the family would always have Italian food.  During Thanksgiving, the average American family would cook a turkey and vegetables.  At my house, turkey was nowhere to be found.  Instead, this bird was replaced by baked ziti, Italian sausage, homemade sauce, and pasta of all shapes and sizes.  On New Years Day, when most people were having ham, my family served up lasagna, Eggplant Parmesan, and garlic bread.  It was commonplace for my family to ignore American traditions in favor of the Italian ones.  We even put our own Italian spin on some of the most traditional American cuisines.  Our hamburgers were mixed with garlic and onions and there was often grandma’s marinara sauce served on the side in place of ketchup.  Our meat and potatoes always came with garlic and some kind of tomato sauce.  The only time I would have an American meal would be if I had the occasional burger from McDonalds or I ate dinner at a friend’s house.  Growing up, I didn’t know any different and I was quite please with the food I was served on a daily basis.  Even now, so many years later, I will always choose chicken Parmesan over steak and potatoes.

             Before I started kindergarten, I spent most of my time during the day at my grandmother’s house, where I was constantly exposed to the Italian way of life.  We listened to several authentic Italian CDs on repeat every day.  Opera was one of my grandmother’s favorite genres.  Although it wasn’t a popular genre throughout the people of my generation, I enjoyed listening to it on occasion.  Giuseppe Verdi was one of the familiar voices I heard coming from my grandmother’s house during my early childhood.  Even without vocals, the instrumental music of the Italian culture would fill the house with artist such as Franco Alfano and Giuseppe Martucci.

             Many of my peers can have a living grandmother or grandfather, but not many can say that their great grandparents are still alive and well.  I think of myself as very lucky person that I have been able to spend my entire life thus far with my great grandmother.  Although she is nearing 100 years old, she still finds time to do the things she did when she was younger.  My great grandfather was born in the little town that my Italian heritage stems from, Fiumedinisi.  When he and his family came over to the United States, they settled in Brooklyn, New York.  My great grandmother’s parents came from Italy and instilled the values of her heritage in her at a young age.  She was brought up under difficult circumstances, but she was raised just as I was to respect my heritage.

             My great grandparents passed on the Italian traditions taught to them by their parents to my grandmother.  She, in turn, passed them on to my mother who eventually passed them down to me.  I have never questioned my heritage.  I have always accepted and embraced my Italian heritage.  I love the Italian people, food, music, and values.  I will always and forever be an Italian American.

SCHOLARSHIP WINNER – JORDAN HOLZMACHER

        The person of Italian heritage that I have chosen to write about is a person who I have a great deal of respect, admiration and love for.  He name is Bruna Branzi DiMarco and she is my maternal grandmother.  Bruna Branzi was born in Florence, Italy on February 22, 1928 to Tito and Guilliama Branzi.  Her fraternal twin, Fedia Branzi, was born 5 minutes later.  Both girls were raised under the shadows of some of the most magnificent architecture and art of all times.  They were told at a young age that they should be proud of their lineage.  They were true Etruscans as, for untold generations; all of their family had been born in Florence.  They played near the works of great Italian artistes like Michaelangelo, Da Vinci and Bernini.  As young teenagers, their simply city life was changed when Mussolini came into power with the Fascists movement.  Soon the Germans entered Italy to claim it for Hitler.  War eventually began.

During the nights with the lights off to protect themselves from bombardments, Bruna’s father use to tell her stories of seeing Italians being taken away by trains to the North.  Before long, Bruna was given a passport that identified her as a Catholic Italian female.  (She still possess this even today).  Tito Branzi died in 1944 by an American bombardment in Verona.  Bruna and her sister Fedia became the bread winners for their mother by dancing in small cabarets for the Germans soldiers.  She survived by eating scraps of food left by the soldiers or killing and cooking pigeons and mice.  Bruna was given protection from harm from an older German soldier that wanted her to go to Germany to care for his family.  She played along with him but never intended to go into Germany.  When the Americans entered into Italy, Bruna, age 16 was noticed by a colonel in Eisenhower’s Army.  He cared for Bruna because he also had a daughter the same age and felt sorry for her.  Within 6 months, the Colonel adopted Bruna as his own child and gave her the opportunity to come to America to live with his family.  Bruna said yea and left all she knew behind her, including her mother and sister.

 Bruna came to New York in 1946.  She entered into New York and moved to new London, Connecticut to be with the colonel’s family.  She met a young Italian man named Joseph DiMarco in 1946.  He had just returned from battling the Japanese in the pacific.  They dated regularly and had her enroll in school to learn English.  He also convinced her to enter a local beauty pageant and she won Miss New London County 1949.  She came in fourth runner up in the Miss Connecticut pageant.  Joe and Bruna married in 1950.  Fadia (my mom) was born in 1954 followed by a son Dorian, in 1959.  The rest of Bruna’s life is filled with happiness of raising 2 kids in a small town on the banks of Long Island Sound.  Joe and Bruna moved to Florida in 1990 to be with my mom for my birth.

 My life with Bruna is special.  Grandma Bruna has told me her story numerous times.  She continually tells me to be proud to be an Italian.  But I am proud of her more than she knows.  Grandpa Joe died in 1994 and she has lived her life as best as she can.  She never left my side when I was diagnosed with cancer.  I can still remember her trying to hide her cries when she saw me throwing up from the chemo.  She told me to fight like she did to survive during the war.  She said I was waging my own war with cancer.  And here we are today.  Together we just celebrated her 82 birthday.  She is a proud Italian who is a survivor and so am I.

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