• Who Am I to Speak to You of Italy?

    Who am I to speak to you of Italy? Who, for more than 50 years have lived in silence, far beyond her shores. Yet, such words do not belong to me alone. “Italian Americans are invisible people.” Fred Gardaphé writes, “Not because people refuse to see them, but because, for the most part, they refuse to be seen.” Even here, across an ocean, truth resonates in his words. And as he knows, being forgotten has a price. A price paid with the coins of self-forgetting. “I am Italian.” “I am Australian,”, here statements irredeemably, eternally both true and false. Words which mock reason and defy solution. Yet in their mischievous…

  • Italian Stories: From the Godfather to the Fortunate Pilgrim

    This story is written from Australia: far from Italy. Yet for me these two places will always be connected, for I was born in one and have grown up and lived in the other. It takes some making sense of – this life spread across half a globe. Somehow the neat boxes that society creates – this country here – that country there – find no place in my heart. How can I apportion my left ventricle to one land and my right to another? There is a problem with this tale which parcels out the world in separate lands; for inside my one human body I carry stories from…