The many humorous malapropisms, we heard growing up with Clelia provided us with fun as we tried to figure out how she came up with her choice of words. A lady friend of my mother-in-law told me to pick one word every morning and say it all day.”Ĭlelia’s use of words is quite logical to her, reflecting what she thinks she heard on TV, from others and from reading the newspaper. My husband and my father-in-law spoke English because they came to America before to make money for their family in Italy.
I asked her how she learned to speak English, and she said, “I didn’t go to school because I had children to take care of.
#Growing up italian american family how to#
She explained that if she would have spoken to us in Italian, she would have never learned how to speak English. Knowing that a language is best learned when very young, my sisters and I asked our mother why she did not speak to us in formal Italian when we were growing up, as her dialect was primarily spoken among family members. Now a venerable old woman at age 92, she is the Matriarch of our big, Italian American family!īecoming an “American” was very important to Clelia. Though challenged by a new culture and language and hardships that might have defeated a less strong person, she did the best she could to assimilate into the American way of life. She married at 17 and migrated from Italy, alone and pregnant at 18, to start a new life in America. Sua figlia, la scrittrice, ha scritto di certi strafalcioni che sua mamma dice che la fa ridere anche adesso.įuture generations should know what our mother Clelia went through growing up during WWII in a small town in southern Italy. Lei legge ancora il giornale e continua a parlare non solo l’inglese (ancora con un accento diverso) ma anche il suo dialetto siciliano. Lei ha imparato l’inglese piano piano e racconta come si é concentrata sempre su una sola parola al giorno. Adesso, lei ha 92 anni, Clelia ha sempre pensato che parlare la lingua inglese con i figli e con la gente fosse importante per assomigliare al modello di vita americano. L’articolo descrive la vita di Clelia, una donna italo-americana che è immigrata negli Stati Uniti quando aveva 17 anni. Excerpts of the unique life story of an Italian immigrant.
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