Moving to Italy: Speaking Italian

Paul and James had settled in the new asilo, and their Italian improved dramatically, while mine progressed slowly. Even James began to chatter more in Italian around home. After a month in the asilo, one of the fathers asked George if his son could come over to play with the boys so the son could learn English. George told him the boy was welcome, but he wouldn’t learn English because when Paul and James played together they spoke in Italian. We were delighted that the boys were picking up the language so quickly.

One day, I was cleaning up around the house as usual when I asked Paul a simple question, in English of course. He looked at his father, then pointed at me and said,

"Che cosa ha detto?"  (What did she say?)

Alarmed, I repeated myself and he still looked at his father. He needed a translation!

I realized he had so immersed in Italian that English had been pushed aside. This was my son, my firstborn, the forerunner of the rest. I could not, would not, lose verbal contact with him—and after him, the others?  No!

This memory returned later, as I taught college students who regretted that they could not communicate with their immigrant grandparents in their native tongue. How many immigrant children were told to speak only English in their homes if they wanted to progress in this country?—standard advice. As they spoke more and more English, many lost their first language. And I wonder how many immigrant parents and grandparents lost the power of a common language with which to communicate with these children. Language acquisition as an adult is a much slower process. Even if the parents/grandparents learned to get by in English for interacting in the community, it takes years of practice to become fluent enough to express oneself clearly, to communicate at a deeper level. I know. In my year at Gabi, despite my ardent desire to speak fluently to those around me, I was nowhere near gaining that ability.

 

On that day in Italy, I stood firm: “English only in the house!” I told Paul and James. It would slow down my Italian, but I had already lost my community; I would not lose my children.  

And then I looked at my 25 year old self. Who was I? I could no longer see the person I used to be in California—engaged in reading, writing, politics, and slowly studying my way to a Bachelor’s degree. With adult interaction in my native language limited to my husband and my in-laws, I was afloat in the world with no other connections except for occasional letters. I felt isolated on the farm with no newspapers, nor magazines, not even television, and no conversation with anyone outside my home. Because we could not converse, the Italians in town and our relatives on the farm defined me as housewife and mother, and nothing more. Were they right? Was that all I had become? My core identity was fading, and I felt helpless to stop it.