American First Italian Always

1st SCHOLARSHIP WINNER – DANIEL C. MARREN

                 There will always be one thing that connects me to Italy. Though I have yet to breathe its air with my own lungs, or set foot on its soil, my very definition is laced with allusions to the country; the reaching arms of lineage keeping it there. Both of my parents are of Italian decent, and they are truly what links me with Italy. 

With a name like Deborah Antonelli, my mother fit right into that chunk of Italian influence amid the amalgamated sections of New York City that was known as Greenwich Village. This same balance was maintained as she moved out to the less apprehensive Staten Island at the age of six, with her parents and older sister.  Therefore, being in the same city and the same essential culture as her former surroundings, no major anomaly should have been anticipated.  Of course, her new home would provide for her the auxiliary abundance of trees, grass, and sky that Manhattan could not, but beyond that, new buildings, and street names to get used to, there was certainly was no lack of familiarity with her new surroundings. 

Deborah's new home on Princeton Avenue in New Dorp, Staten Island benefited her in the respect that her future best friend would live just a few houses down from her, (there was quite an abundance of kids living there at the time, so one would not have to stretch their imagination too far to realize that there was a potential best friend on every street).  This new friend, Elena Marren, was one school year ahead of my mother. Elena lived with her two parents and her younger brother, David, at the time. David was one school year behind my mother. Although Marren is not an Italian name, Elena's mother's maiden name was Fugazzi, thus fitting their family into the typical Italian neighborhood.  

Deborah and Elena maintained their close friendship as the years rolled by them like the traffic on the Verrazzano Narrows bridge.  The tightly-knit communities that spelled out the culture of the Northern United States from the beginning of their formation inevitably demanded that the Marren and Antonelli families become as close as their daughters had become, and indeed they had.  Deborah's mother, Joy, and Elena's mother, Claudia, had created and held a bond during their time spent as neighbors on Princeton Avenue that even time would fail to permeate.  

My mother attended an all-female high school on Staten Island and upon her completion, she moved, on to nursing school. Two years after graduating from nursing school on the island in 1977, she left the ever familiar sounds, tastes, and sights of New York for Florida: the apparent cradle of paradise. Here, in Fort Lauderdale, she retained her pursuit of nursing and braced herself for the liberty of having the unpredictable reins of the future in her own two hands.  

Ms. Deborah Antonelli enjoyed those unique and endlessly satisfying benefits of the solo life that is the driving force of teenage existence with all of her heart. During this period of her life she met monumental people that would leave lasting impressions on her life, and some, she would never lose contact with. Then, in 1983, Deborah received a phone call from her mother.  From this phone call, Deborah was made to recall a distantly familiar name.  Her mother had informed her that David Marren had just moved down to Fort Lauderdale, close to where Deborah was living, and that he didn't know anyone yet Deborah's mother suggested that she should go and re-introduce herself to him so he would have a friend in his new neighborhood. 

Deborah had not seen David and scarcely heard of him since her high school days. After putting the meeting off for some time because of its overt deficiency of priority in my mother's schedule, she finally made it down to the pharmacy where David was working in the spring of 1984. Upon their reunion she was taken back by the slightness by which David had changed. He was still intact with his "boyish charm" and that playful sense of humor that was always such a definite trademark of his personality. He also had that familiar air of Staten Island and Deborah's history engraved within his presence.  

My mother soon found herself supplying her brain with diluted excuses to stop by the pharmacy. She would just go in to pick something or another up, but she would always go dressed up and with one of her girlfriends. This obvious beating around the bush was fueled as David and Deborah would continuously meet each other haphazardly at a local club. Whenever they ran into each other at the club, they would dance together and have a good time.  The night would end as they parted the club with promises of phone calls, but these promises were left unsupported and fell uncounted upon that ancient concrete floor that is littered with endless nights of mutually miscarried meetings of zealous merriment. 

Time and life left David and Deborah to drift slowly apart as the spring melted into summer, and as summer dried into autumn. My mother adored David, however, chance and circumstance had forced a distance between the once active couple that never really ever was a couple. Then, as the holiday season bloomed with the red, vibrant fervor poinsettia plants, Deborah received a Christmas card from David. This sparked a new spike in their communication, and led to that long-awaited first date. Over dinner that night my mother knew she had fallen in love with David. Her love had stricken gold in the lottery of the frequently cursed river of amorousness as one date led to the next. Their days together blended with the harmony of a perfected poem, and their love was secured in both their hearts and the heart of eternity when David proposed marriage to Deborah, who whole-heartedly accepted.  

Finally I this is where I come into the picture.  If I recall correctly, according to some ancient sixth grade English project,  I learned that no one really knows the true origin of the block of blended symbols that is my last name. It has been referenced as a time-spurred or intentional mutation of the Latin word "marinus," which means “of the sea.”

         Most likely, on my dad's side, I was born from a family of sailors.  Pirates are sailors too. Therefore, I take pleasure in the fact that these ancestors were pirates. In my mind, they were relatively nice pirates though. They were not the "rape-and-pillage" pirates, but the "make-slightly- uncomfortable-and borrow-some-pennies" pirates.  

Though my mother's maiden name would have suited my heritage better, as I am very Italian. I think I like “Antonelli” more. It's more of a loaded word.  It would make me sound like I would give you an offer you couldn't refuse. “Marrenelli” perhaps would be good.  

So here I am. Throughout my life, my parents have reflected on me many traditions and mannerisms of life that they, themselves, had learned from their parents, and so on. It's pretty amazing how the spirit of a land can live overseas, with the learned familiarity of favorite recipes, or the correct pronunciation of words like “calamari,” or “ricotta.” When you think about it, what essentially makes any culture so great is its preservation from generation, to generation, to generation.

2nd SCHOLARSHIP WINNER – JOSHUA COSTELLO

Luigi Pirandello's life began in Agrigento (originally named Girenti), Sicily, in Italy, during the year of 1867.  Luigi was born it to a family that had wealth. His father worked as a sulfur mining contractor.

 Upon graduation from a local high school in Sicily Pirandello attended the University of Rome. After graduating from the University of Rome he advanced his education even further by attending the University of Bonn, located in Germany, where he obtained his doctorate.  Luigi had time to write because his father had enough money to support him, until the collapse of the sulfur market. He then had to take a job as a teacher to pay the bills, but still found sometime to fit in for his writing.

 In 1894 Pirandello married Antonietta Porturano. Luigi and Antonietta's marriage was arrabged by their fathers, who worked together in the sulfur business prior to its collapse that left both of the families financially wiped out. Antonietta's mother died while in child birth with her due to complications. The complications took place due to Antonietta’s father's jealousy and not letting a doctor in the room. Luigi and his bride did not meet for the first time until the day of their marriage. During that time in history it was a perfectly normal in Sicily for the fathers of a man and woman to get together and determine how their children would wed.  Luigi was twenty-seven when he married and his wife was a great deal younger.  Immediately following the birth of Luigi and Antonietta's third and final child, Antonietta began to suffer from a mental illness. This mental illness deeply affected many people. For Luigi it had a deep impact on his writings. For the third of their children it leads to a failed attempt at suicide. It was a failed attempt because the revolver no longer worked, due to its age. Antonietta herself eventually die due to her mental illness. Luigi had no money for her to go to a private institution and did not trust the public ones, so he kept her at home for the next seventeen years until he could afford for her to go to a well established asylum. His wife always stayed agitated with him and their three daughters for keeping her at home while she was like this. In 1919 Luigi placed Antonietta into a private asylum because he had a great deal of success with his plays around that time.  His wife was not the only thing that affected his writing.

 World War I accorded at the same time as the bulk of his writings, after that time all of his works involved struggles between reality and illusion. He used this technique to show his readers the nature of the real world. A fellow Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga led Pirandello to have a new out look on life. Previous to this German writers influenced Luigi and he often wrote many works in verse. His wife's short lived life was the primary reason for him turning his focus to death, insanity, and old age. Writing became all that he had in life. That is why he wrote nine plays in a span of a year. Achievements like this led to him winning both the Noble Prize for writing and the Legron of Honor. 

Luigi left this as his final request in life "When I am dead, do not clothe me.  Wrap me naked in a sheet. No flowers on the bed and no lighted candle. A pauper's cart Naked. And let no one accompany me neither relatives nor friends. The cart, the horse the coachmen, e basta. Burn me (Luigi). Pirandello died in 1936, his last wishes were not met because the church did not believe in cremation, also the church felt that his nudity would disrespect him.

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