Just a small blog about a relevant 'Italian-American' issue. There's been a lot going on lately and my schedule has been a bit hectic. This past weekend was my nephew's Christening, which was nice but also very draining. Draining in the sense of entertaining people at an event that is hosted by one of your family members, where you are more compelled to engage in conversation. The party was nice but at a certain point I realized how sad it was that our party was filled with friends my family had kept over the years and people who were married into the family via in-laws.
Being that our family is just our immediate family here in America, every real event we've ever had in the states was always filled with friends of the family, no real family. Granted, there is one "Uncle," that is related to my father as a cousin, but he was born Italian American and doesn't really have an immediate close relationship with us.
My sister and I were talking about how this is something interesting with these types of events all of our lives because we were never lucky enough to have aunts, uncles, cousins, or grandparents living here in America like us. Remember, my parents came here solo, with no other siblings or family and no one came or followed out to the states.
We were forced into the 'friends of family' thing as our family because we were growing up Italian-American without our Italian family. Its really an interesting concept, because for instance when I was 18 years old I happened to be in Italy and I had a really big party hosted by my parents. The party was like no other, tons of people, food, friends, family...I mean just a whole other level of a gathering with my family. I never experienced this here in America because we were growing up with just our immediate family. So, this weekend kind of brought back those memories and made me feel a little sad about the fact that with every momentous occasion in our lives here in America we rarely get to spend with our Italian family. It made me think, how many Italian Americans have this same situation...and are faced with this realization..???
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