PRAISE FOR When I Am Italian
A beautiful book. It takes us through the decades of the last century and into this one to ask what it means to be Italian long after one generations arrival, and to consider how deep and elemental the facts of that are. This is a subtle, moving, and original piece of workto read it is to see the world around us differently.
Joan Silber, author of Improvement: A Novel
When I Am Italian , Joanna Clapps Hermans exquisite new memoir, begins with her rich, cocoonlike childhood inside an extended Italian American family in Waterbury, Connecticut. With its all-encompassing rituals of food, talk, and work, her family has transposed the rhythms of southern Italy to the new world. Its only when Clapps Herman leaves hometo escape the restrictions and claim her own lifethat she realizes that this part of her identity does not necessarily reflect how the rest of America sees itself. With beauty and insight, When I Am Italian gives us Clapps Hermans fully lived understanding of the complex interweaving of culture and finding self.
Lisa Wilde, author of Yo, Miss: A Graphic Look at High School
WHEN I AM ITALIAN
WHEN I AM ITALIAN
Joanna Clapps Herman
Cover image: The family at Sunday dinner. Courtesy of the author.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
2020 Joanna Clapps Herman
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
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Excelsior Editions is an imprint of
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For information, contact
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Herman, Joanna Clapps, author.
Title: When I am Italian / Joanna Clapps Herman.
Description: Excelsior editions. | Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, Albany, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2019000459| ISBN 9781438477183 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438477190 (ebook : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Herman, Joanna Clapps. | Italian AmericansBiography. | Italian American womenBiography. | Italian AmericansEthnic identity. | Herman, Joanna ClappsFamily. | Herman, Joanna ClappsTravelItaly. | Italian AmericansConnecticutWaterburySocial life and customs. | Waterbury (Conn.)Biography.
Classification: LCC E184.I8 H47 2020 | DDC 973/.0451dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019000459
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Per Lucia, sorella di luce
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are always too many people to thank and acknowledge at the conclusion of any project. But to make an attempt, I want to thank my beloved friend Myra Goldberg who read and reread these pieces too many times, always with love and encouragement. My sister, Lucia Mudd, who reads my work and is always with me when I need her, and as much as when I dont; my oldest best friend and cousin, Beatrice Avcolli, who lived through much of this with me and who found a piece, an important piece of my writing that had gone missing.
I also want to thank my Italian sisters who make my world a better place in which to read, write, think, and whom I love deeply: Edvige Giunta, Nancy Carnevale, Annie Lanzilotto, Maria Lisella, and Maria Laurino.
I thank my Italian brothers Peter Covino, George Guida, and Joseph Sciorra.
I love and thank Theresa Ellerbrock, Judy Solomon, Linda Sherwin, Wendy Dubin, Liz Rudey, Maria DAmico, Lisa Wilde, and Sarah Marques, who are my friends, writers, and artists.
I am grateful to Katharine Bernard for editing and proofreading; my lovely stepdaughter, Donna Herman, for proofreading and editing, as well as Robert Oppedisano for editing and fine suggestions for cuts and additions.
Working with Jenn Bennett-Genthner and Michael Campochiaro has been a great pleasure. Actually more fun than I think its supposed to be. Im extremely grateful to both of them.
But above all I want to thank James Peltz for his enduring qualities as an editor and as a friend.
INTRODUCTION:
MANY MISSING STONES
My son, James Paul Herman, who is a neuroscientist, has explained a few basics about the brain to me. He tells me that there is so much sensory information impinging on our senses every instant that its necessary for us to selectively prioritize only a small portion of that stimuli on which to base our moment-by-moment decisions, thoughts, and actions. Were built to respond to stimuli, but we simply cant respond to each and every bit of information that incessantly arrives at the portals of our perception.
Hes also explained that memory actually works very differently than we think it does. The recollection of a past event is less like visiting a favorite painting in a museumthe viewing of an unchanging object that we can examine any time we choose; instead it is more like re-creating the painting, and in the act of remembering storing it away with new modifications. Over time, our memories accrue distortions. Although they derive from our original experiences, each time we return some aspects are amplified, others diminished; new details are added, and some lost forever. In short, memories are never accurate recordings of what we have experienced, and are further altered every time we go back to them.
These are the facts.
I point this out because writing works in a similar way to our perceptual processes. Moreover, memoir writing is inherently problematic.
To write anything its necessary to eliminate much of what comes to mind as we work, so that we can create order out of the plethora of words, ideas, and images that swim forward as we try to fasten language to a page or screen. Then too, a writer has to create a through line, and hold her focus, which means we cannot and should not allow ourselves to go down every path that presents itself as we work.
There are many missing stones along this path. (Reading my earlier memoir, Anarchist Bastard: Growing Up Italian in America , will fill in some of the missing pieces, but only some). Like all memory, its also distorted, but never willfully. I attempt to be simultaneously as truthful as I can be and still shape the narrative as a writer. Probably thats oxymoronic.
The central question underlying this book is this: can a person born outside of Italy be Italian? This question cant be answered with a simple hyphenation of Italian-American. This hyphenated identity coming from the academy, while technically correct, is for some of us (me in particular) too formal and technical. It wasnt what we called ourselves: therefore, it feels inauthentic when I say it. While I know I am American, I know, too, that I am Italian.
How do I claim such an identity when I am not able to speak the language more than primitively? The voices I heard around me: tones and cadences, the broken English, the letters from Italy being read out loud to my grandmother, the dialects that were spoken, the kinds of jokes and stories we told, the Italian and American songs, the vernacular English, even the provincial accent I carry with me are all a part of the grounding soil from which I came. Its all in the soup of vocal and written words that I call on when I write.
