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.
No comments:
Post a Comment