Immigrants as Frankenstein

The Frankenstein's edition I have, edited by J. Paul Hunter, is divided into three volumes and every volume into several chapters. In the chapter III of the second volume, Victor Frankenstein acknowledges how the monster learned about nature, light, fire, food, etc. From the text:

"Several changes of day and night passed, and the orb of the night had greatly lessened when I began to distinguish my sensations from each other. I gradually saw plainly the clear stream that supplied me with drink, and the trees that shaded me with foliage. I was delighted when I first discovered that a pleasant sound which often saluted my ears, proceeded from the throats of the little animals who had often intercepted the light from my eyes. I began also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me, and to perceive the boundaries of the radiant roof of light which canopied me. Sometimes I tried to imitate the pleasant songs of the birds, but was unable. Sometimes I wished to express my sensations in my own mode, but the uncouth and inarticulate sounds which broke from me frightened me into silence again."

In bold are the expressions that have value for me. If I look at it with my immigrant eyes, I read in it that we, the immigrants, are like Shelley's monster. We need to learn on our own how to behave in our new country. When, at the beginning of our stay in our adopted land, we try to talk, our words may apparently making no sense. Not only we need to learn a foreign language, but what to eat, how to cook, how to walk... and we may call a bird a "animal with wings" because we don't know the word "bird" yet. The list is endless. Everything is new to us: the people, the texts, the politics, the food, the roads... Only after the initial confusion vanishes, we can distinguish our sensation from each other, we can see (clearly) the stream that supplies us with water....

The whole process of learning is slow and painful. At the end, we may be different from what we were originally. In this process we may lose forever a part of our "self" .

Sir Elton: “Vote for Hillary Clinton!”

A few days ago, Elton John played, in New York, a fundraiser concert for Clinton’s campaign. The article I stumbled onto it is funny and true. The author is a clever writer too. It is a great article first because it points up that even non-citizens can comment on American politic (especially if they raise money for political campaigns!), and give advices on who should be the next president; second, even though Sir Elton spends most time in America, he still sees America with a stranger’s eyes. Now, Elton John is not much the matter here, but he may be an example of how foreigners, who don’t actually live in the US, can have a wrong pick on American society, culture, and thus on its politic.

John stated that Americans are misogynist. (Of course, Hillary didn't comment on the statement, and this is what she said). They are not! It is not that Hillary Clinton shouldn’t govern America because she is a woman, but rather she shouldn’t be the next president because she seems able to transform politic in soap opera. Then again, assuming that she will be the new president, the US will may have three leaders in one because her husband and her daughter seems to play an important role in her political life.

Americans should vote Clinton if they want to live a “fairy tale”.


YOU DO NOT VOTE FOR CLINTON SAGA!

Update: I just found out on The New York Times that "Mr. John, a foreign national, cannot under federal law make any contribution to a federal, state or local election campaign." Check on the blog post. Does Hillary know any federal law at all? Where the 2.5 million dollar raised will go now?

This is another article from The Huffington Post

Stay Teen: an Innocent Video for a Big Idea

This is an ad from the national campaign. It is beautiful in its semplicity. Teen pregnancy is a concern for families and society. The national compaign strives to make teens stay teen. Ckeck out their web site, and enjoy the video.

Online Pregnancy Test

During my first months stay in America, I noticed that everywhere I went there were children. I thought it was positive fact, but I didn’t imagine that many of those children were the result from a high-school or first-year- college error or weakness.

At the time, I enjoyed seeing those kids around. They signified, I believed, that America was a young nation, and that it would always been a young nation due to its human force’s recycling. I didn’t know anything about “teen pregnancy” until I realized that many of those children were born from children. Until then, I never knew anyone who actually had a baby when he or she was still a teen. Then I heard about twelve-year-old women who got pregnant… what? Twelve years old? I thought my narrator was kidding, I didn’t believe her. I thought she wanted only to shock me. With the time, I understood she wasn’t kidding at all and that teen pregnancy is a real thing.

Browsing the Net, I found this web site. It seems to help potential pregnant girls understanding if they are expectant or not. It is called “on-line pregnancy test”, and, of course, it is not a real test, but it may help with counting the days, etc. “If you are 13 year old or younger, click here,” the main page says. I hit it. A new screen asked for a name and an email address, so that someone could stay in touch with the person who clicked the link.

Women don’t get pregnant only thinking about sex/love, they actually do need to have sex/love – well, it is not always the case because of the scientific progress in matter of fecundity but, authentically, women need to have sex in order to get pregnant. Now, what sex may be for a 12 or 13 years old woman (I consider her a woman, at least physically, if she longs for sex)? Why do kids need to have sex? Why do need to rush their first time? They should wait for the right time – in this case “right time” is not a fallacy –not only because it is important to find the right person (at least for the first time!), but because one need a certain maturity to practice sex.

Sex may be OK (it is OK! and always take precaution), but wait a few more years. For god’s sake, teens, you have all the time in the world!

Cell Phones/Seclusion

Cell phones are annoying. I dislike them and I use them only when necessary. Today, people seem cannot life without at least two or three technological devices. Among them, I bet, one may include his or her cell phone. I see people sending SMSs while they are “listening” to teachers who do their best to deliver a lecture from decent to great. I see people checking their email, taking picture, downloading songs and ringtones on their phones.

One may discourage a face-to-face conversation trying to stay in touch with the external world through cell phones. This may be how: many times I tried to talk to people I knew, but, what a coincidence!, they took their phones right at the moment I was opening my mouth. I never tried to speak to them again!

Look what happen to a student who answered the phone while a professor was lecturing!

My Experience at McDonald: when "Fast" Became Clear in my Mind

I never ate hamburgers prior to arrive in America. Now I don’t eat them very often, but sometimes I do. A couple years ago, I sought a job at McDonald's. They gave me a job as assistant manager. The salary wasn’t bad, and the store was close to my house. I accepted the job as if it was a “regular” job; only later, I realized that I was going to fulfill duties that clashed with my beliefs.

During the time I was at McDonald's, I found out a few things about myself and about the corporation. I understood that I am not a pushy person, and thus I am unable to tell people what to do and how to do a certain thing. I believe in advises, but suggestions weren’t what McDonald was looking for its employees. The company needed someone who could walk over the tired bodies of its minimum-wage employees. My job could have been decent if only my supervisors allowed me to act according to my ideals that, instead, seemed to be a big issue for them. That my thought was a problem for them came out when they decided to activate what, from then on, I called “human drive-thru.” They planned it like this: during peak time (about 11 am until 2 pm), McDonald's wanted two drive-thru lines. One was the “classic” drive-thru customers were already accustomed to, for the other one, an employee, in order to take as many orders as possible, had to wait for the consumers on the parking lot under the burning Florida’s sun.

McDonald's wanted another drive-thru line to increase the production, make more hamburgers in a certain time range. Only then I understood how important Time was for McDonald’s. Only then I understood why its food is “fast food.” If customers had to wait more than one and a half minute, the food wasn’t “fast food” anymore!

The term “fast” became one of my major concerns because the sandwich-makers (most of them underpaid Spanish women) had to run a doubled quantity of food within the same time frame they used working with only one drive-thru line. McDonald's planned two drive-thru, but the number of workers behind the counter didn’t increase.

Every served customer was a goal for the store, but it wasn’t for me. I didn’t care about time, but about those employees who sweated and puffed over the food incited by a fat-ass general manager. All the managers were excited at serving two customers every three minutes or less, but I wasn’t.

Although I believe that customers are always right and they should be served as fast as possible, at McDonald's, this model worsened. I just wanted to scream “Stop it! Stop those freaking drive thru lines and give water to these poor women!” But I didn’t say anything. I was sure the managers could not understand me. They all were concentrated on money and time. All mangers incited workers to improve the production.

At that point, in order to continue working at McDonald's, I had to change what I was and the way I was raised. Could a hamburger be worth much? I left McDonald's. I didn’t want to treat “my employees” like slaves only because I had to please a few hundred customers per day. My decision no to work for McDonald's maybe didn’t change the harsh working condition of those employees, but I, an immigrant, didn’t consent a mammoth American corporation to trap me in its web.

Dead End: a Redundancy

Yesterday, after about twenty miles that I was riding my bike, I literally found myself in the wild. Until that moment, I didn’t realize that in Florida the sign DEAD END advises a driver that a road ends in the middle of nowhere and it doesn’t connect to any other street.

DEAD END seems a redundancy because “end” implies some death. Of course, it doesn’t imply “death” all the time, because, for instance, the end of a movie doesn’t infer the death of that movie. However, in the road’s case, the pick may be different: a road that ends is also dead because it doesn’t meet any other roads. DEAD ROAD would be enough to give the sense of the road that is not going to connect to anything.

In Italy, they use only a sign to indicate a DEAD END. To miss that may be a trouble, or perhaps one may find this (check it out!)! Lo, I found only palmetto trees and fire ants!

Look up also this DEAD ROAD. That's just hilarious. It links to what I say about "end' and "death"!

Nonna Pizza: a Story of Immigration

Nonna Pizza is a 1,000-square-feet restaurant located off Pine Island Road in Cape Coral. Its kitchen, oven, and refrigerators take up most of the space leaving a dining area of five tables. Here, diners may enjoy the view of the Italian gulf that a local artist painted on the wall. The entire enterprise took more than a couple months to complete. Pictures from Italy decorate the other wall of the restaurant. Some are photos of Rome but most of them were shot in Cerisano, a tiny place of 3,000 people located in the heart of southern Italy, where Nonna Pizza’s owners comes from. For these people, Nonna Pizza proved that the America dream still exists and that everybody can achieve it if only he or she will to work hard. As many other families, also Nonna Pizza’s owners come from a poor background. Money was always a problem for them. They didn’t have enough to get by while they were in Italy.

These are the immigrants to whom I am trying to give a face in this blog. These are my people and their struggle is my struggle. I found their faces everywhere, among my books, among my words, language, poems. These are the immigrants Dufresne, I believe, was talking about in his interview. These people may learn a word of two just to be able to survive in America. These people never pretend to go to school and to become doctors; they look only for food, a job.

A JOB can be a “big word,” the most important word for them. It can be the ticket that releases them from their misery. To drive a $2,000 car may be enough for them because in their country they did not have any car. To buy two t-shirts at Wal-Mart may be enough for them because in their country they didn’t have money to buy new clothes; to own a house built in the 70s, infested here and there with some “roches”, may be ok because in their country they couldn’t buy a house…

They don’t pretend much. They only need a chance.

"I Wish I Knew How to Quit You" - Best Scene Ever

Open your eyes even more now...

Watch This with Open Eyes, Please...

It doesn't need commentary. You just OPEN YOUR EYES.

PS: Whoever made this video did a TERRIFIC job!

Brokeback Mountain

Before I came to the US, I thought of the US as if they were the “perfect land”. I thought here I was going to find freedom and tolerance and people able to understand others' needs. I had my first shock when I took a class on family and marriage (structure, social function of the family, etc.). In that course, I learned that only a few states in US recognize homosexual relationships as legal. I thought that Americans could understand "diversity"; I thought Americans were “civilized people” and as such they would accepted same-sex union. The course I mentioned and some harsh critique (for example, Christian critiques) of Brokeback Mountain were like a “breaking news” for me.

I do not think of Brokeback Mountain as a modern western, but I considere it a love story that never falls into sentimentalism. What the audience receives is the “hard fact” of the relationship between Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist. Such “hard fact” suggests how American society was back in the 60s. Here is when the movie becomes a lesson – “teach us something” – and mirrors today’s society. It creates a reality without which the love between two men wouldn’t exist.

Homosexuality is not a sin; it is not a deformity nor a shame. It can be love, friendship, passion. Watch Brokeback Mountain with open eyes and see what love may be....

The Quantitative English

Browsing the Net, I found that, in 2002, Robert Birnbaum interviewed John Dufresne . In this piece, the writer talks about his years in school and his origins. “My grandparents and most of my friends' grandparents came from somewhere else. Canada, Italy, somewhere else. They came here. They learned a language. The English language, for them, was information [...],” Dufresne says. Then he specifies what type of “information.” It is that his relatives – and most of other immigrants – used the foreign language to speak with a cashier at the Publix supermarket, or at Wal-Mart. Most immigrants speak a “quantitative” English. They know only so much to survive in the American jungle.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with a couple, friends of my husband. They lived in Chicago for thirty of forty years, they made (literally) a ton of money (but they worked very hard especially the husband). They were born in the little town where I was born. They came in the US when were very young, but after all these American years, not only their “accent” is still very strong, but when I spoke to them, I could read in their eyes, they were surprised to hear how I talk. Generally, immigrants, or at least the immigrants I know, those who came to the US to live and realize the American dream, those who, when arrived, believed could find money on the street: all they had to do was just scoop the money up, and instead ended up working 18 hours a day, don’t talk about literature. They talk even less about writing. To become a fiction writer (say it again…“Fiction writer”? What is it? A new dish? But is it served with mashed potato or with asparagus?) may be something awkward for them.

Defresne pinned down what English language may have been for most immigrants: a practical aid in their everyday life. Immigrants usually were people who filled their stomachs with hope, people who more than acting needed to react to their misery; people who traveled for weeks on a ship, who were packed like cotton balls in a two-ounce container, infested with fleas, forgotten in their countries; people who carried all they owned in a suitcase made of a cheap cardboard.

For these people, “English” may remain a mystery they will never discover.

Invitation for a Music Party: Playhouse Disney Show

It is a wet weather. 3:35 p.m. My daughter and I just arrived. We are listening to a young mail lady who says she needs to delivery some invitations for a music party. Here is dark, and it is hard to write.

First invitation delivered 3:30 p.m. The lady delivers the first invitation. Little Einsteins comes to the stage. They talk about music. To let the kids understanding what "music" is, they use a simple but familiar metaphor. They say that "music is like language and the notes are like words." They seem to imply that music is a language. It is a nice implication, either for kids or for adults. Because it is a language, people can learn music; because it is a language, music is communication between people. I would say that music is an universal language. It doesn't have boundaries; it doesn't have an "accent," and it doesn't record stories of immigration.

Second invitation delivered. 3:50 p.m. The audience gets excited when it saw Winnie the Pooh. He is the friend everybody wants to have. My daughter says she would like to have a friends like him. "It OK if he cannot stop eating honey!" she says. It is OK if he is a little overweight; eventually he will lose some pounds... Winnie the Pooh talks and the crowd... listens to him...

Sweet honey pot. 3:55 p.m. Pooh starts eating his honey!

Third invitation delivered. 3:55 p.m. Handy Manny arrives with his tools. Mr. Lopart, refusing Manny's help once again, says that the tools can make only noise. Manny defends them. He replies that it is not true. The tools can do much more than just "making noise". Manny seems to encourage his tools to believe in themselves and to be proud of what they are. Here I am grasping a message of self-esteem and faith. Again, the tools may be different from other tools and certainly they are different from humans, but diversity shouldn't be scary or frustrating. Both messages are a great not for kids and adults.

This is what music can do. 4:05 p.m. Mr. Lopart is dancing and singing like crazy! Music can soften also the heart of the most stubborn individual.

End of the first act. 4:05 p.m.

Two volunteers. 4:22 p.m. A little girl and a little boy volunteer to dance on the stage. The girl is dancing, the boy won't dance.

Little Einsteins are back from their trip. 4:25 p.m. They tell story of the places they visited. They perform "popular" music from China, Japan, Italy, and other countries. The message is clear: music like knowledge is fundamental in order to understand other cultures.

The moment we all were waiting for. 4:30 p.m. MICKEY MOUSE! Everybody seems happy to see Mickey. We all sing "misca, musca mickey mouse..." which are the magic words that allows us to call for the clubhouse.

The clubhouse appears. 4:35 p.m. And with it all the friends living in the house... They now need to find the right music for the party. They need to find the right harmony...





The light goes off. 4:40 p.m. No problem, Manny will repair it!

The big finale. 4:47 p.m. All the characters are on stage. All are happy. Mickey ends the show with a big message. Music is everywhere and it brings together all of us. If people can develop their ability to listen to music, they will be able to listen to each other too. It is a simple and direct note. A message that may craft one's soul, make the kids smile, and the adults think.

"Bye, bye, see you later." 4:50 p.m. Curtain down.

“You Break It, We Fix it”: Handy Manny

My daughter and I are having a little talk this morning. I should be prepared for Saturday show, she says. She talks about Handy Manny, the Disney version of “Go Diego Go.”

Handy Manny is a male character whom, as his name suggests, is a handy guy. He owns a workshop and animated tools that occasionally are lazy. Sometimes they ask Manny if it is the case for them to stay home, because “maybe Manny doesn’t really need them.” Manny, though, never leaves them behind.

Manny helps anyone and, according to Wikipedia, he was awarded the “Good Citizen Award.” He speaks Spanish and English, but he is an immigrant because, although he speaks good English, he has an “accent.”

Maybe he comes from Cuba, my daughter just guess.
Maybe, I say, it really doesn’t matter.

Manny knows personally the people living in Sheetrock Hills, the town where every story takes place. He knows how to do his job, but he is not presumptuous, not even when he speaks with Mr. Lopart who owns a candy store near Manny’s workshop. Mr. Lopart, a bald man, is a stubborn character who doesn’t want anyone to help him, and constantly refuses Manny’s hand (is it a “cute” pun or an involuntary alliteration?).

My daughter cannot give sense of Mr. Lopart’s behavior. Sometimes, she says, he seems jealous of Manny; sometimes, he seems just an obstinate old man. Maybe both of these apply to the character.

Handy Manny is a show that may teach tolerance and solidarity. In general, American cartoons aiming at understanding tolerance and acceptance of the “Other” (Spivak’s Other). In simple words and images, they teach how to behave in case they meet a person with an “accent” or a black kid, or an individual on a wheel chair. American cartoons, Disney and Nickelodeon animated series particular, somehow are like movies: they teach something. These cartoons are not only amusement, but they may lesson to modern society. How, for instance, people should take Mr. Lopart? He often gets in troubles because he refuses Manny’s assistance. Mr. Lopart is an anti-hero, is he not? He may resemble our elder neighbor who leaves unaided and becomes sully because of his loneliness and aging and he refuses any help from anyone in the neighborhood, does he not?

What do you thing Manny will repair on Saturday? my daughter asks.
It can be anything. Maybe a house in Iraq that has been destroyed by the American militia, I say.

What do you mean, mommy?
Let’s go have breakfast now, I say.

Playhouse Disney Live is Coming to Town

That’s true! Kids of all age be prepared: Mickey Mouse and pals will be at German Arena on March 22. My almost-three-year-old is packing her things…

Disney is an American hallmark that always fascinated me. When you go to the theme parks, don’t you feel you are the luckiest person in the world? Don’t you feel that Cinderella and pals are waiting for you (and only for you) to take you in a magical realm in spite of the horror that surrounds human life? When they parade, smiling and waving, don’t you feel they are smiling and waving at you? Don’t you want to burst into tears because of that joy? Don’t you want to live that magical world, and wear Cinderella’s shoes, and buy tons of other shoes – at least virtually – for all the kids in the world who don’t even know what Disney is? Don’t you think of those kids also? Don’t you feel guilty because you have what some children cannot even dream about? Don’t you wish your dreams – sooner or later – would come true?

“Come on, mommy, I don’t want to be late,” my daughter says. I follow her. I armed with my cameras. My daugheter stops. She takes my hand. She throws beams of life. I tune my heart. I am ready to go…

Italian Food vs. Real Italian Food

I am amazed at what people in Cape Coral and Fort Myers may call Italian food. Aside from a couple of restaurants (Carrabas and maybe Maccaroni, for instance), here where I live, there’s not such a thing like Italian food. Whatever is called Italian is not even a pale replica of what one may eat in Italy.

In Italy, food is cooked in many different ways. There are many types of salami, cheeses, wines, meat, fishes, pizzas, and desserts. Just to give an example, in Italy, I never heard of spaghetti and meatballs. Italians don’t use to eat everything in only one plate. So they rarely, unless pasta alla Bolognese – with ground beef in tomato sauce – is at a play, eat pasta and meat all in once. Italians don’t eat salad as appetizer or in between appetizer and meal. They eat salad at the end of the meal or with the second dish (in this case it called contorno). They eat in this order (at least when they are in a restaurant):

1. Antipasto
2. Primo (usually pasta)
3. Secondo (usually meat – beef or pork, rarely chicken – or fish) + contorno (salad, potatoes, rarely it is mashed potatoes)
4. Frutta (frutta)

5. Dolce (any dessert, but I would easily pick a cannolo siciliano or a piece of crostata)
6. Caffe (espresso only)

Antipasto and secondo are usually eaten with bread. Sometimes pasta is eaten with bread too(soccer players do it all the time because they need many carbohydrates).

The Italian food I know in Florida is americanizzato. My family is “starved” because it cannot find good Italian food not even if it exchanges pure gold for Italian groceries! Vegetables and fruits, especially in southern Florida, have a different taste because of the climate. Sometimes, it has not taste at all.

Trust me, there’s not such a thing like Italian food around here!

Tell Me How You Eat, I Tell You Who You Are

The first time I ate at an American restaurant was also the first day I landed on the American shores. In a twilight glow, the American people who were with me decided to dine at a nice restaurant on the river. Here, I had my first shock: after less than five minutes, the waiter brought us the menus. Interesting enough, I gave the word “quick” an optimistic meaning.

I could not read the menu because I didn’t know any English, and I was too tired to let my hosts translate the list for me. I ordered something I would enjoyed for sure: fish. Here I had my second shock: the food arrived on our table in ten or fifteen minutes. Uhmm, how in the kitchen did the chefs know I was starving? Was that a special care for a brand new immigrant?

With time, I understood that it was not a special treatment. The way American people eat at restaurants was another “American style”. Even when they are not in a hurry, Americans are always in run: they want to seat quickly, to be served carefully and fast, and to leave the restaurant as rapidly as possible. In Italy, the servers are neither quick nor full of care for their clients (perhaps because their customers do not leave them any tip). Consumers may spend an entire evening eating at a restaurant, enjoying their tasty food and their company, drinking a casareccio glass of wine.

Americans do not have time. At morning they bring their children to the day care, then they run to work. At night they come home exhausted. Their children are tired too. The entire family is hungry. Let’s go eat outside then… lo a glance at their checking account does not allow any extra expense! No all is lost: a handy credit card will solve the problem, but when a new bank statement nocks at their door, they realize they spent too much. Now they activate the machine: they will seek another job or a double shift to pay for their invoices. At night, they will be more exhausted, they will not have time to cook, they again will eat outside, and their credit cards will soar, again. It is an unchangeable spin. Working may be one of the main reasons Americans do not have enough time.

It took me almost five years to realize that my first dinner in America wasn’t a special welcome and that it wasn’t a special welcome at any other restaurant where I ate throughout these years. My first dinner was only another picture of the American style.

Americans try to get rid of everything as promptly as they can. This is true when they go to a restaurant, a concert, a circus show, a grocery store, a pizza shop and a bagel place, a wedding and a birthday. This is true for their holiday dinners and for their daily suppers.

The word “quick” became a synonym for discontent.

Women’s Day or Festa della Donna (in Italy)

In Italy today is the festa della donna’s day. It is one of the sweetest memories of my childhood and early womanhood. Supposedly, March 8 is a day where women receive from their men (fathers, spouses, brothers, and friends) a special gift, a "bunch" of mimosa, a tree that happens to flourish around this period of the year. The Festa della Donna is a special day to remember the struggles, past and present, women underwent and undergo throughout their history.

Aside from the romantic edge of the day, I would advise women to think of March 8 as a day about reflection on the roles they have in their society and how they can shape their world (please forget about the Hillary Clinton’s saga; do not take it like a model!).

However, there is also a vulgar side of March 8: eating and drinking at a local restaurant, and watching male strippers who perform for into-heat women. These deeds, for say, are not wrong, but they are wrong on March 8. Do women really need to get drunk the day where they are celebrated for their courage and intelligence? Do women really need to see men showing their pseudoinflated penis under their nose in a day in which females celebrate their freedom from the males’ subjection? The attachment to the phallic scenario some women demonstrate during this day is more a regression to a primitive status of their unnatural condition than a progression of their autonomy.

March 8 should be something more than touching a well-shaped arse of a young and hot man. It should be a day for women to engage themselves in a serious critical thinking. Generally, women are proud of their independence and the possibility they earned to decide on their lives. Is it not looking at a male’s muscles a fair way for women to sing their freedom.

I never went to watch a stripper, and I never got drunk that night, but I saved the mimosa my grandfather every year bought for me. I saved here, in my heart, the memories… I can still see my grandpa, my man, carrying a bunch of mimosa under his arm. He used to tell me, “one day you will be a good woman!” Then he handed me the bunch of flowers.

I don’t know if I became a “good woman”, but whatever he is now… grandpa’ (nonno, an Italian noun dear, dear to me), thank you for all the flowers and for having always believed in me!

Life Experience Shapes One’s Critical Thinking

I bet everybody thought at least once in his or her lifetime what would happen if he or she had taken another course, made another choice. After five years I am in America, many times – not only once! – I asked myself what would be if I did not leave Italy.

People like to think of their future more than they like to think of their past. Inasmuch as the future they can still shape their lives, make a different turn, but the past, as the word suggests, is passed. Is it utterly true? Humans live in their present as if it is the result of their past. Is it not? “Experience” intended as “length of participation” –partaking in life, in this case – suggests a sense of past, of something that is not anymore. Once again, the language helps understanding a nuance of a truth humans strive to comprehend: why humans are who/what they are? Because of that life experience, because of their past thus, they shape their critical thinking, how they are related to the world, what they are and what they will be.

It is because of that experience that one may have a read of a text and another person may have a different read. It is because of that experience that philosopher cannot give any “truth” at all, but may only teach an illusionary way to reach it. What is handsome for one is not the same for another. What one knows about reality is the addition of a rather collective experience. One’s singular experience is a little section of the whole.

People’s brains and behaviors are shaped by those same people’s life experience.

The life-experience package includes one’s culture and origin. To give an example, the value an American may give to the symbol of the American flag is different from the importance another may give – either in respect of the American culture or in respect of the one’s own culture – to the same object. Culture shapes life experience that shape one’s critical thinking. It is a chain, the chain of understanding and being that binds humankind together and, at the same time, creates their diversity.

Poetry Under the Rain: William Blake

It's raining tonight.

Light, fine rain that apparently does not wet the earth, though it soaks the soil after a few minutes.

It's raining.

It is almost invisible; I can scarcely feel it on my bare skin.

Under the rain, William Blake takes my heart. “I have something I want you to read,” he says.

I read Auguries of Innocence.

Sweet like wine are a few lines before I fall asleep.

Sometimes I seek poetry, and

sometimes poetry seeks me.

It is an exchange of human fluids, and

human needs.

Now

I am in peace and I can rest…

Prepositions: A Video for Everybody

It may be a little boring, but this video is cute!

Prepositions Reveal Meaning

Prepositions relate nouns, pronouns, and phrases to other parts of a sentence; they create relationships among these pieces. I like to think of a sentence as if it is a pearl necklace. In this light, prepositions are in a sentence like the string that helps the necklace to shape and straighten; they help the sentence to shape its meaning. Let’s consider these two sentences:

1. Sara talks to Giacomo
2. Sara talks with Giacomo

In the first sentence, the preposition to suggests that Sara is the active talker, while Giacomo is rather a listener more than a speaker. The action of talking goes from Sara to Giacomo. In the second sentence instead, the preposition with suggests that Giacomo is also a talker, a speaker and not just a listener. In other words, in the second sentence Giacomo may participate in the action (talking).

Language reveals itself. Writers do not create language, but language forms writers. That Sara talks to Giacomo bears its own meaning apart from the meaning the writer wanted to convey.

The Battle to Become Citizens Overwhelms USCIS

USCIS is inundated with applications for naturalization. Due to the fee increase that took place a few months ago, to save a few bucks – well, maybe a couple hundred bucks – many applied before the actual increase came into effect. The number of application almost doubled. Now USCIS is flooding. Future citizens have to wait an average of eighteen months now before they see their application processed.

Everybody is patiently in line, but the soldiers, the non-citizens who fought for the US, no, those shouldn’t wait for to become American citizens. That these people put in jeopardy their lives should speed up their applications. This is how it should be, but it is not what happens in reality. Because of the war, some military lost their lives before being able to become naturalized citizens. It is that the applications, sometimes, are not accurately filled, it is that in zone of war the time is stretched…

To know more about this topic, read a New-York-Times article by Fernanda Santos.

Hearing/Listening: a Binary Opposition

A reader, Michelle f, says,

"Don't lose hope, Anna! Some Americans are self-absorbed. But some aren't! There are so many people willing to listen and willing to help you. You just haven't come across them yet. I must admit when I first met you I couldn't figure out what in the world you were saying! Forunately for both of us that has changed and I love to listen to you. You bring a perspective to our blogging class like no others have before. I admire you."

Here “listen” is a key. There is a significant difference between hearing and listening. Sometimes, people hear but they do not actually listen. That is, hearing is a sensorial, almost mechanic, activity, and although involves the brain to participate in the hearing performance, it is not apt to understanding. Its opposite, listening, is related to the comprehension of a particular object/topic.

When one talks to another and he or she notices “wondering” eyes, it may be a sign that the other only hears what it has been told. If on one hand, today, media – its pictures and images – literally harasses the audience that, in return, loses most of its ability of listening; on the other hand, the busy routine humans use to cope with regularly don’t help the activity of listening. Thus, the “different,” the “alien,” and the “stranger” are often neglected because these bring within themselves the ineradicable necessity to be understood, interpreted. That is, one cannot only hear the “different,” the “alien,” and the “stranger,” but he or she must (actively) listen to them.

Hearing lies in the sphere of passivity, while listening is a labor that requires involvement, concentration, and focus on the speech that takes place. It is trough listening that people apprehend and understand the external world.

... But I Am Still Standing...

At least, I try to...

Ladies and gentlemen, Elton John!

Van der Waals Bonds or Human Relationships?

In chemistry, the Van der Waals bonds are weaker than other bonds. That is, it is easier to separate two atoms linked by such bond than to break bonds of other type. Humans are like atoms. Sometimes, they want to be very close to someone else. They may create a strong bond (ionic or/and covalent bonds, depending on the intensity of the relationship); sometimes, the resulting bond is weaker (Van der Waals bonds and/or Hydrogen bonds); sometime, humans believe they created a bond, but to realize then that it was not a bond at all. Now, the nature of these bonds may vary, so they can be friend(ships), love(ships), sex(ships), intellectual(ships), economic(ships); they can be everything humans want such bonds to be.

Throughout my life, I had my share of friend(ships) and love(ships), but I lost them all when I came to the U.S. Here, I found silence and frustration. Americans are not very extroverted people. Apparently, it is difficult for them creating any kind of bond. They do not talk much and they are self-absorbed. This is true in every field, in every context/contest, in everything Americans do. More than concerned with human relationships, Americans are concerned with rushing their lives and buying more things.

Yes, Americans are self-absorbed. This is one of their biggest problems; they do not need (or they just think they don't) anybody else's help or friendship. Americans can recite lines for you and after a minute say, “Oh, I have to pee in the woods, I’ll see you!” Americans can walk over a dead body without realizing what they just did, but then they may cry at a wedding! I am forcing myself to fit in this reality. A terrible feeling.

For years now, I have been screaming, “Hey Americans, I am here, can you see me?” But Americans do not want to hear/hear me. More than a critic, I became an observer. I cannot do anything else than just watching and hoping that, one day, somebody will take my hand and will say “Hey, I heard you. Do not scream anymore, I am not deaf… Let’s have a talk!”

Yeah, I am a little dreamer, still.

While I am waiting for this moment, though, I am afraid I can lose my humanity and my ability to create bonds. I am afraid my heart will dry like a handful of raisin.

I am a man among other men, but I am invisible. A face amidst other faces, a face without color, without a smile. I howl, “for God ’s sake, please I am a human being too!” And I am a screamer without voice. I am like in an Edvard Munch’s painting…

Can anyone grab my hand, before I fall?

Please.

What Writing Is (for me)

A couple weeks ago, a professor and I talked about writing/ creative writing and about my writing, in particular. This teacher always encourages me to continue to write – if this is what I really want to do, and it is – because all the issues I have in expressing myself into another language, with time, will eventually fade away. That is, with the time, I will get better, and I will get rid of my “silly” grammatical errors. I think so too. I think one day – and I do not know how long it will take – I will be good at writing in English.

Since I was born, all I wanted to do was writing. Perhaps I was in elementary school when I started writing poems and enjoying the activity – it is an “act-ivity,” indeed – of reading.
When I was in fifth grade, I read The Diary of Anne Frank. People asked if I “had understood” the book. Yes, I said! It was a compelling topic not suitable for kids of my age. Yes, I repeated, I got it. Yes, it was a complex read, but I enjoyed it very much. Even now, I can see myself – so young at that time– reading that book, and I remember the image and the style of it. I remember the suffering of Anne and her family as if they are right in front of me, right now.

Since then, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Since then, I knew that language was my lonely tool to express myself. Since then, I knew that language and I were going to be great friends, and that I was going to devote my life to language and written words.

Until… I became an immigrant, and I lost all of my lines because I did not know any English line. I lost myself, as I landed on American shores. I broke the pact I made with my language. But living without writing was not life, for me. Yes, writing has always been a matter of living or dying (for me)!

I can never be objective in the sense that I cannot separate myself from my writing. I make sacrifices for writing. One of the most painful sacrifices is the time I do not devote to my daughter because writing itself is time consuming and it sucks all of my energy.

I did not come to the U.S. seeking a job to make money; I do not care of it, at all. Richness is not my priority, but writing is the principal that rules my life.

My story of immigration is also the story of my writing.

"Roma Capoccia" by Antonello Venditti

Antonello Venditti: an artist!

Writing Workshop in Rome

How splendid must be attending a creative writing workshop in Rome. One may think Venice is the most romantic city in the world. It is not. Rome is the one! This city has something special. The way people talk, the dialect they speak is vivid, soaked with life, impregnated with a magic dust that envelops the city’s thin roads, its historical monuments, its art.

Rome and its cats, yes cats! The city is famous for its stray cats. The citizens feed them, and the city sterilize– or tries to – sterilize them all. There is nothing wrong with the felines being wild. They are intelligent animals who maybe know their city more than humans do. They do not bother people. They are just there. They are a feature of Rome.

Rome with its Colosseum, its life, its streetlights that at night may dance with solitary vagrants. Oh Rome and its author, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, another writer among the roster of my favorite authors. Oh, la Roma Capoccia sung by Antonello Venditti. A shiver.

Rome is the marrow of the Italian culture, tradition, politic, art, creativity. The food that little trattorie serve is delicious. Real Italian food. What is it? Something that down here, in Florida, people do not know! Only God knows how I miss the Italian food! Only God knows how I miss my Italian lines, and my authors, my poets, my roads, my folks… myself.

Plot: an easy interpretation

Plot is the framework of a composition. It is neither necessarily interesting nor juicy. It is the backbone of a story – of any story. A seemingly good plot will sell; if the author is lucky he or she will make millions out of it, but this commercial aspect does not have much to do with literature. Plot is nothing more than a chronological sequence of events, and it should subordinate the language and style an author uses. It is an easy understanding of a tale. Plot is for lazy people while language is for committed people. To base the meaning of a novel only on its plot is irresponsible. It leads to only one conclusion: the audience is not or does not want to be engaged in the read. Everyone can think of a plot, but very few can write a short story/novel/ novella.

Plot is an impart component of a story, but language is the tool that reveals, word after word, the “secret” of a work.

Words

“I came to love understanding how people use words to craft ideas,” Tim Challies says in his last post. His seems a powerful concept, a sort of epiphany, a sentence one may want to keep on his or her desk as it was a reminder.

I like the word “craft” because it gives me a sense of great dedication. And writing is an artisanal work done with only one tool: words. These are important! It is my idea and it seems Challies’s idea too. Words stand out of the page like many little sculptures. Each one is important to the context, and each one participates in the creation of an idea, a thought; in short, each one is responsible for the “creative” work and its originality.

I have always been bewitched by words. Most of the time, I fell desperately in love with them and with the ideas lying beneath them. A dictionary has always been a perfect companion for my literary trips. With the time, I discovered that there is a word for every meaning, there is a word for every account and for every moment. There is a word to console and another to discourage. There always the right word that can be found. You just listen… it is right there, in your heart.

Another Video

This video is just hilarious. But it is also true because this is how Italians may behave. What is most interesting, though, is that different meaning of words and signs may change according to a particular culture.

Behind the "Accent"

“How may I help you?” the woman said. She greeted me from behind the counter of my dog’s doctor.

“I am here for Easy. She needs a rabies vaccination,” I said. She found my dog’s record, and she asked if I had an email address. I started to spell it. Once. Twice. Three times. She didn’t get it. I wrote it on a piece of paper. At the end, she got it!

I could swear to god she was annoyed at my “accent.”

An “accent” is not necessarily a bad characteristic one may have. “There’s nothing wrong with your ‘accent’,” people tell me from time to time. Of course, an “accent” is not a sin, but it becomes an unfortunate attribute if the audience don’t know how to listen. With the time, I am learning that people barely hear what others say, and if the tune is not the right one, if the “other” bears an “accent” forget it!

An “accent” may be funny. YouTube has many videos that mock the (Italian) “accent.” And it is okay. But people should never forget that behind that “accent” there is a human being, who lives and breathe just as Americans do.

A Matter of Style

Yesterday night, after a workshop of one short story I wrote, a backpack full of peer reviews lay on my bedroom floor. I hesitated before flipping the twenty-five returned copies of my work. I awaited the comments of my classmates with dread. In the last few weeks, I sweated on my story; I cried for my characters; in short, I cared for my work that was not only an assignment for my advanced fiction class, but it challenged also my ability to write clearly and concisely in English.

Of course, I wanted to read my classmates’ comments; of course, I wanted to consider their suggestions of how to better my writing and my work. I took a deep breath. I opened the pack, and I found that many peers encouraged me; other appreciated my work; some did not “quite get what I was trying to say.” Sometimes, the components of my sentences were misplaced, they said. I really enjoyed looking into these possible issues. I stayed up late. I tried to understand what my peers meant by saying that they did not get the sense of what I wrote. After I scanned through my lines for hours, the only plausible outcome was that some of my classmates confused style with what they thought was a “sentence-structure-issue.”

That is because, most of the time, readers do not understand what style is.

Style is about sensitivity for a language and its written speech. Style is what fits the thoughts of an author and how such ideas are displayed on and within a document. Style is what distinguishes a writer from another; what makes a reading crispier than another that might be flat and empty.

Style is a destination a writer may reach after a continuous process of digestion of a language, its grammatical rules, and its mechanic. Style is like a rose: each petal is a functional layer of the crown.

Next Posts

Challies.com and Langugae log are two interesting blogs. Both talk about language. I am going to write one or two blogs on some post of theirs.

In his last post, Tim Challies writes "I came to love understanding how people use words to craft ideas." I think it is a poweful line. I think I'll be touching on it on my next post.

Giuseppe Ungaretti Recites Giuseppe Ungaretti

In this video, Giuseppe Ungaretti recites one poem of his and talks about his earliest literary influences, he cites Giacomo Leopardi and Stephane Mallarme. On Mallarme's poetry, Ungaretti says that, even though the lines of the French poet were "obscure," they carried a secret. It is that secret that Giuseppe Ungaretti wanted to discover...

"Veglia" by Giuseppe Ungaretti

Giuseppe Ungaretti is one of the most famous Italian poets of the XX century. He is popular for his shrunken lines, for the humanity each word he chooses bore in its contest. The uncanny depths of Ungaretti’s words make almost impossible a translation of his poems.

The versions of Veglia available on the Internet are forced attempts to a skinny transplant from the Italian language. They only mirror the original work. But the people who translated the poem have no fault whatsoever because a translation cannot fill the nuances each foreign word contain. To give an example, the word digrignata is translated into sneering, gnashing, or gnashed. Among these latter, gnashed is perhaps the closest dared translation, because the participle, an adjective in this case, has the same function digrignata has in the poem.

Now, neither these gerunds nor the participle conveys the meaning digrignata. In Italian, it has a visual effect that it seems it cannot be translated into English. A frustrating aspect of translating, in this case, is that digrignata bears the content of the entire poem. It is the key term to understand the poem; it is the leading word to which all the verses will converge on when the deed of understanding the poem is completed.

Maybe, a visual experience may help the translation of Veglia.

Harmony of Language: a Recipe

Translation is not only a means to survive in a foreign country, but it also a story of addiction and frustration. These have nothing to do with drugs and alcohol, but they deal with "language exploration." Like addiction, a traslated word drags other words that wait to be translated, and so on until an entire phrase, sentence, or paragraph is poured into another language. It is funny, to some extent. It is compelling, but also frustrating because words and language are intangible. That is, people give words their meanings, and they change with time. Translators are always concerned with how to get close to the meaning they want to convey. Words and their significances depend on the context. While for a native speaker such context may be intrinsic, for a foreigner the many nuances a term bear are not so explicit. This difficulty is at the core of the experience of a writer who wants to translate even a simple written work.

To translate themselves into another language, writers must rape the foreign idiom. That is, they have to uproot the words from the text and observe them as if they were a Michelangelo’s statue. After that, writers must make peace with them and treat them with pure respect as if they became their own words, their own children. Only in this case, probably it will be more a harmony of languages than a mere transplant of nouns.

Why are American students obsessed with grammar?

For a writer and for everybody, grammar should be a “natural tool.” As Stephen King makes clear in his On Writing, one has either already grasped the sense of grammar since her earliest years of writing or she will never learn. According to King’s view, students in school can only learn the name of the grammatical rules. Other than that, if one arrived in college not knowing the mechanic and the style of her own language, she will never learn it. Grammar is to a writer as walking is to a baby. That is, a baby learns to her own how to walk. Then, when the time comes, she will walk!

Most American students seem obsessed with grammar. Why? Nobody, in middle or high school, taught them the rules? Perhaps, in their earliest years of school they did not find the right teachers. Grammar should be funny. It is nothing to be frightened. Students need only some goodwill and a strong backbone able to hold on negative feed backs that are not always “bad,” but they are constructive most of the time.

Language and grammar shouldn’t be an obsession, but an integrated sphere in everybody’s life.

On Illegal Immigration

Today, whatever users tune their ears they can listen on illegal immigration. Lou Dobbs – and God bless who may understand him when he talks! – fights illegal immigration almost, if not, every day. The CNN plays immigrant’s story, the headlines of the newspapers are filled with immigration issues. For years, they are talking about it, but almost nothing has been done. Ok, let them fight illegal immigration, let them send 25 million people back to their own country. Then what? The U.S. will go through an even greater economic crisis than it is experiencing today.

In Farmer Branch, Texas, illegal immigrants cannot rent or own homes. This is what the city’s council ruled.

Ok… dear Texan residents and citizens you send your illegal immigrants home. Then ask yourself who will milk your cows and prepare your meal when you go to your favorite restaurants? Who will harvest your fruits and vegetables? Who will clean your personal and public restrooms? Who will build your houses and clean your roads. Dear Texas: think about it!

On Immigration

Immigrants often don't know what immigration means until they become immigrants. Only when in a country something goes wrong, its citizens need and want to live their homeland. In a state of peace, people do not depart from their native country. Sometimes, the choice to leave everything – and often nothing – they own in their nation is not a happy choice. Often, it is a forced way out, but it also an unconscious act because immigrants have no idea of what they will go through after they will leave their familiar soil. They have no idea of the suffering they will encounter on their journey. If they knew it, probably they would have remained poor for the rest of their life and die in their motherland.

Immigrants double their working hours to show their new country that they can make it, and that they are entitled to be there. Immigrants take all the scraps, the hunger, the harshness of the native citizens: whatever unfortunate events happen in a country, it is considered the result of the immigrants’s sin.

That of the immigrants is a story of survival.