Growing up in a predominantly Italian neighborhood, I became aware of cultural differences at an early age. In a community of smooth, olive-toned skin and glossy black hair, our family stood out as being tall, fair, and different. It wasn’t only because we were a blend of German, Polish, English, and Lithuanian - talk about having an identity crisis - or that we were the only family in the neighborhood to eat Ragu from a jar, mixed in with our spaghetti, it was a lot of other little differences that added up.
I loved everything Italian - the way they talk, their mannerisms, and the amazing aromas that permeated the air on Sundays when everyone, except my mother, would be cooking their sauce. Sometimes when I was alone in my room, I would look into the mirror, wave my hands wildly and babble something that I thought sounded like an Italian, in the hope that it would somehow metamorphose me into one. I gave up on doing that when I realized it wouldn’t, and when I noticed my mother peeking in at me through a crack in the door. Maybe that’s one of the reasons she later told me that I marched to the beat of my own drum.
In spite of our non-Italian status, we were accepted. Not the way the Corleones took in Tom Hayden, but the neighborhood took care of its own, and we were recognized as being part of it. The neighborhood kids taught us some words in Italian. I was thrilled to be able to really speak the language, although it wasn’t until later that I learned I was saying all of the primo curse words used in Italy. Still, they were legit, not something made up.
I even took part in two Italian rites of passage. The first was having my ears pierced, this was at a time that predated piercing guns and the short-lived “sleepers”. Our neighbor, a woman who came to the USA from Sicily, had just finished piercing her infant daughter’s ears, and my mother had finally given in to my constant begging to have mine pierced too. As I sat in my neighbor’s kitchen waiting for my ear to be numbed by the chunk of ice she held in her left hand, I tried not to look at the huge sewing needle, white thread dangling from it, that she held in her right.
My screams prevented me from telling her that the ice didn’t stop me from feeling the pain, heat, and like I was going to faint, but I think she got the message. After what seemed like an eternity, the first thread was through my ear lobe. The second ear was easier, probably because by then I really was numbed by the throbbing of the first, and because she got somebody to hold me in place for that round. In spite of my wiggling to be free and continuous screams, she managed to get the piercings even, the sign of a true pro. I wore those bloody threads with pride for weeks until I finally was able to have my first pair of tiny gold hoops.
The second rite happened years later when another Sicilian woman I knew took pity on my limited cooking skills (and the horror of seeing empty Ragu jars in my kitchen), and took the time to teach me how to make a proper Italian tomato sauce - Sicilian style at that.
The old North side neighborhood has evolved throughout the years. The large Italian families have since died out or moved on. A different population now rules the turf. Yet it was those little differences early on that piqued my interest in other cultures and gave me an appreciation for diversity, not to mention the best recipe ever for a killer sauce.
©2007 Barbara Dolny