Building My Bridge Home

Maria Lisella

I GREW UP IN A HOUSEHOLD of three generations, speaking the southern Italian dialect of Calabrese alongside English; much later I enrolled in a study abroad program to learn Italian. Continuing to learn the language has enriched my sense of place – yet I am haunted when I visit Italy, feel a strong link to places of my ancestors yet do not totally belong and as much as I may have been Anglo-Saxonized in America, I consider myself apart from the American culture.

“C’era una volta” or Once Upon a Time

Snow White appeared with Seven Dwarves

a first impression of men and women

that led to questions:

Could it be that women get

seven little men to serve them? Or,

did they stand for seven deadly sins?

Cinderella or Cenerentola, the abused bastard

of a houseful of spiteful hens came

close behind, followed

by Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel,

unimaginative blondes who tossed

their hair out windows or wore

braids wrapped like little crowns.

I knew them for what they were

“paper dollies,” no one would want

to be like for more than a minute

because they’d blow away.

Instead, I waited to sit silently

among i vecchietti on Saturday mornings

to watch Continental Miniatures’

black and white edgy heroines

like the wild-eyed Anna Magnani,

sweaty, bloody, hair as black as crows

and opera as common as the tar on streets.

Unlike American parents,

Italian nonni never sheltered me

from impassioned tales of fallen women.

Magnani’s Mamma Roma’s midriff rolled

through cheap black satin cloth,

as she fended off old tricks on her journey

to right her life, sell fresh fruit,

win her son back, she flies

into the snare of madness,

in a dialect I always understood.

My love of “things foreign” began, but did not end, in a working class, predominantly African-American neighborhood in Jamaica, Queens, New York. I was the first among my family members to return to Italy nearly 40 years ago, thereby sparking new relationships with second and third cousins, none of whom have visited America. As much as I wish to claim my heritage, my impulse is laced with fear and a sense that I am an impostor – not being all American or all Italian.

Cornrows¹

Cheryl’s cornrows are

A maze of braids that crisscross

her round head that tops

her dark, Trinidadian neck.

Her mother jelly-coats

her coffee-colored fingers to move

rapid and sure through nappy, crinkled hair.

She pulls one rope of hair

over the other, over the other,

over the other, until

the braids are locked down tight

with barrettes, ribbons and bows.

Around the corner at Jean’s Beauty Parlor

white women plop into wide leather chairs

as metallic chemicals crimp and whip

their soft hair into prim tootsie roll curls.

Across the street Sylvia’s is crammed

arm to shiny bronze arm with black women

pressing their hair – make it straight, straight,

straight, shiny, smooth as seals – take the nap out.

Cheryl and I watch Angela Davis,

who never lived in Queens,

the land of smooth and straight,

cry out of the TV.

She raises her fist past a brazen halo

of naturally kinky hair –

letting her ‘fro fly loud and free,

as if her hair said, “I will not hide,

I am trouble, see me now.”

Cheryl’s cornrows, a puzzle of braids

locked down tight, tight, tight.

I touch my smooth hair,

a single rope down my spine

wishing all the while

best friends could look more alike.

Of all the places I have visited the world over, in my profession as a travel writer, my fondness for Italy continues to grow. Through my work, I have had opportunities to visit most of the country; however, these trips have taken me not to the places of my ancestors but to other corners of Italy for which I have nothing but curiosity and now some insight.

Continuing to practice and learn the language has given me a deeper sense of place and belonging, but always returning to the U.S. I identify myself as a bridge both in my private life in my family among the generations in Italy and the immigrants in my cultural identity.

My Italian cousins have asked me the same questions over and over – “Aren’t you sorry your grandparents left Italy”? and “Why are you so fond of Italy”? – both of which spurred me to address this chasm of misunderstanding in poetry and in journal writing.

Having the good fortune to live in New York City, I am fed by the flow of new immigrants from all over the world, which stoke the fires of my own multi-cultural identity with empathy for the next immigrant.

The Same²

I want to tell

the little Chinese women

with the loud voices

to sit beside each other

so they don’t shout

across the car,

over my head,

shattering my space,

interrupting my reading.

I offer my seat.

The lady with the

short-cropped perm

red as a rooster’s comb

in a Chinese market

gives me a toothy grin

an essence of onions, garlic

shakes her head

from side to side like a

tai chi exercise, no, no, no

as if to say, “I may shop in Costco

wear jeans, a North Face down jacket

but you’ll never

make me a Westerner,

won’t drop

my Chinese voice

a single decibel

to suit you and your

Anglo-silence on subway cars

as if they were chapels or

worse, private property.”

I hear my grandmother’s

staccato Calabrese vowels

clang against brick walls

in an alleyway in Queens

with the same defiance,

the same pride

the same sorrow to be in America.