The Journey of Nicolino to Nick

To understand the present and future one has to go back to the past and in my case a little mountain farming village in Italy were I was born with the name of Nicolino. My class of birth which would ever remain with me while in Italy would be the son of peasant farmers. I mention this because the class system base society is a deterrent to personal growth and achievement in Italy and many parts of Europe.

Towards the latter part of 1948 I along with another infant were afflicted with the polio virus. My mother seeing what it was doing to me brought me from village to village to find anyone that knew what was happening to me. After going to a number of Villages she managed to find a doctor that understood the affliction and advised my mother as to what she should do to curtail the physical damage that I was experiencing. Throughout my life I have been examined by many doctors and many cannot believe that what was done to me could have stopped the virus from leaving me an invalid. This experience though a negative at the time actually turned into a positive for me because it instilled a determination in me that would carry with me the rest of my life. This early lesson was one of simply not giving up and excepting the cards that you are dealt and make the most of it.

My mother having been born in the United States but raised in Italy due to my grandfathers early death wanted more for her family so she made the sacrifice to reestablish her American citizenship by coming back to America in the latter part of 1952. Her Aunt and Uncle sponsored her and helped her find a job whereby she could save enough money so that my father, brother and I could also come to the United States in April 1954. Many sacrifices on both sides of the Atlantic had to be made to make this possible. To put it in proper perspective my mother was being paid 43 cents per hour, yes she sacrificed considerably.

The boat trip to the United States had finally arrived. If you have seen the movie Titanic then a visual of the accommodations can be imagined. We were in the lower deck just like Leonardo DiCaprio. Being only six I managed to explore every inch of that Ship, however, my father and brother were bothered with sea sickness the entire weak or so that we were on the ocean. Another lesson from this was that I always need to find out for myself what is in front of me.

As I mentioned I was six years old and had not seen my mother for almost two years, when we got off the boat I was somewhat hesitant to go to her, for she had been gone for so long. There were so many more changes in store for us. Once we arrived in Ohio and got settled we were informed by our American relatives that we need to learn to fit in and the first step was that our names had to be Americanize, therefor my father went from Michele to Mike, My brother went from Celestino to Charlie and I went from Nicolino to Nick. We also were told that we needed to learn English so that we no longer sounded foreign and the final straw was that we were enrolled in a summer camp setting so that my mother and father were able to go to work and we could be looked after. This was probably the worst week that my brother and I had ever spent. As mentioned earlier many sacrifices had to be made and this was no exception. As was the custom at the time many neighborhoods were inhabited by people of the same nationality therefore communicating was not as difficult. Though some talked to us in Italian everyone enforced the need to learn English. By the time my brother and I started school in September, we were both speaking English. The school would use us to translate for other kids that had just arrived from Italy. We like our American relatives informed them of the same indoctrination, we are in America and we need to be American.

How things have changed since we arrived in the 1954. English is slowly becoming the second language. An American identity has to have a hyphen attached to it. American pride means that you are offending someone else. To become successful you must have cheated.

I started this journey by saying that we must look to the past for answers to the present and our future. America is at a crossroad whereby all the individual factions within are slowly taring apart the very fabric of this great country. My question is Why and for What Reason?