Who am I, really?
When I was growing up and I asked where we were from, it was always, "We're Italian." Nothing more, nothing less. Grandpop, my Mom's father, lived with us when I was little. He was the only one of my grandparents who I knew. The others had all passed by the time I was old enough to remember so there was never any family discussion about "the old country." Italy, to me, was my mother's spaghetti and meatballs for Sunday dinner, homemade Sicilian pizza on Friday nights, and special occasions celebrated with dinner at Sabatino's Restaurant in Baltimore's Little Italy. Italy was the house on Bank Street in Little Italy where my father grew up, one of 11 children in a house without central heating, the house we went to visit my Aunt Rosie and Aunt Vicky when I was growing up. Italy was my father growing Concord grapes and making wine from them every year, fresh tomatoes and corn from his garden every summer, with my mother...