lavishly, who, if they were true Christians, should have been giving food to the
people. (They took money from the collection boxes, my grandmother said, and used it for themselves. This was why she never
donated money during Mass. She told me never to put the money my parents gave me into the collection box at church— better
I should use it for myself or give it to the poor.)
Once my grandmother, when she was very angry about this, told me they should suck the fat out of all the people who ate too
much, and fashion it into candles. (You can do this, she told me; you can make candles from fat.) And with these candles,
she said, you could light the darkness of the world for a hundred hundred years.
In the photograph, my grandmother is light-skinned, although her skin burned when she stayed in the sun too long. But by late
summer, she was well tanned because of her outdoor work on the farm of her relatives in Long Island. She was dark-haired,
though graying at the temples, and her hair was pulled back away from her face, though not austerely, so that one wave dipped
over each temple, its lustrous length braided and fashioned into a neat circlet at the nape of the neck. This does not show
in the naturalization photograph, and, although her hair was beautiful and long, I could never imagine her wearing it down,
for women who wore their hair around their shoulders, she said, were puttane, whores.
At the corners of my grandmother's mouth in the photograph, there is a smile playing, and it might have been because she was
happy that she was becoming a citizen of the United States. But I don't think so. For she was always suspicious and contemptuous
of the ways of bureaucrats and government officials, and also of rules and regulations, taxes and fees and stamped documents
and official ceremonies. But I think the hint of a smile on her face is one of disdain for the proceedings.
That her name was Libera suggests she probably came from an anarchist family, like my grandfather. His father's name was Libero,
and these names— Libera, Libero— were ones that only Italian anarchists gave their children. Which is how their families might
have known one another, through anarchist circles, for many Italian anarchists settled in Hoboken, where my grandparents lived.
It is during World War II. It has taken a long time— over twenty years— for my grandmother to decide to become a citizen.
But now the United States is at war with Italy— Sicily has been invaded— and being Italian in the United States is dangerous.
When the United States first declares war on Italy, thousands of Italian Americans are arrested; more than two hundred are
interned. The news sends shock waves through the country's Little Italys. And here, in Hoboken, police have raided Italian
neighborhoods.
Many of my grandmother's relatives living in the United States are fighting in the war, both in the Pacific and in Europe,
demonstrating their loyalty to the United States, their new land. In Italy, they are perhaps even fighting against family
and paesani. Still, Italians and even Italian Americans are suspect. So she and my grandfather decide to become citizens.
Until the United States declared war on Italy, my grandparents had sent nonperishable food, money, and clothing to relatives
there.And until Mussolini's abuses became known, they had defended him because he supported the South. After the United States
joined the war, they were anguished and torn: they wanted to know the fate of their people— parents, brothers, sisters, uncles,
aunts, cousins; they didn't want the land of their people destroyed; they feared that relatives in the United States would
wind up on battlefields in Italy fighting against paesani; yet they wanted the United States to win the war.
Renouncing their Italian citizenship was fraught with difficulty. Though they knew they had opportunities here that they hadn't
had in Italy, that they
people. (They took money from the collection boxes, my grandmother said, and used it for themselves. This was why she never
donated money during Mass. She told me never to put the money my parents gave me into the collection box at church— better
I should use it for myself or give it to the poor.)
Once my grandmother, when she was very angry about this, told me they should suck the fat out of all the people who ate too
much, and fashion it into candles. (You can do this, she told me; you can make candles from fat.) And with these candles,
she said, you could light the darkness of the world for a hundred hundred years.
In the photograph, my grandmother is light-skinned, although her skin burned when she stayed in the sun too long. But by late
summer, she was well tanned because of her outdoor work on the farm of her relatives in Long Island. She was dark-haired,
though graying at the temples, and her hair was pulled back away from her face, though not austerely, so that one wave dipped
over each temple, its lustrous length braided and fashioned into a neat circlet at the nape of the neck. This does not show
in the naturalization photograph, and, although her hair was beautiful and long, I could never imagine her wearing it down,
for women who wore their hair around their shoulders, she said, were puttane, whores.
At the corners of my grandmother's mouth in the photograph, there is a smile playing, and it might have been because she was
happy that she was becoming a citizen of the United States. But I don't think so. For she was always suspicious and contemptuous
of the ways of bureaucrats and government officials, and also of rules and regulations, taxes and fees and stamped documents
and official ceremonies. But I think the hint of a smile on her face is one of disdain for the proceedings.
That her name was Libera suggests she probably came from an anarchist family, like my grandfather. His father's name was Libero,
and these names— Libera, Libero— were ones that only Italian anarchists gave their children. Which is how their families might
have known one another, through anarchist circles, for many Italian anarchists settled in Hoboken, where my grandparents lived.
It is during World War II. It has taken a long time— over twenty years— for my grandmother to decide to become a citizen.
But now the United States is at war with Italy— Sicily has been invaded— and being Italian in the United States is dangerous.
When the United States first declares war on Italy, thousands of Italian Americans are arrested; more than two hundred are
interned. The news sends shock waves through the country's Little Italys. And here, in Hoboken, police have raided Italian
neighborhoods.
Many of my grandmother's relatives living in the United States are fighting in the war, both in the Pacific and in Europe,
demonstrating their loyalty to the United States, their new land. In Italy, they are perhaps even fighting against family
and paesani. Still, Italians and even Italian Americans are suspect. So she and my grandfather decide to become citizens.
Until the United States declared war on Italy, my grandparents had sent nonperishable food, money, and clothing to relatives
there.And until Mussolini's abuses became known, they had defended him because he supported the South. After the United States
joined the war, they were anguished and torn: they wanted to know the fate of their people— parents, brothers, sisters, uncles,
aunts, cousins; they didn't want the land of their people destroyed; they feared that relatives in the United States would
wind up on battlefields in Italy fighting against paesani; yet they wanted the United States to win the war.
Renouncing their Italian citizenship was fraught with difficulty. Though they knew they had opportunities here that they hadn't
had in Italy, that they
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