An interview with Joseph Di Benedetto: an Italian of New York.

Like many of his fellow countrymen, however, he learned, above all, the dialect from his parents. His decision to learn Italian is linked rather to his inner feeling of being a bridge spanning two cultures. Joseph interprets his European roots as a value, which others do not possess, constituted by taste, habits and a way of thinking.

As a lawyer he practises his profession in the "Big Apple" but he is in love with Italy where he returns whenever possible.

What does it mean to feel both Italian and American at the same time?

"It depends first of all on ones personal history. I am thirty-two and I was born in New York. My father, Stefano, comes from Palermo, while my mother originates from Trieste but grew up in Catania. My father came here in 1958. It seems that my grandfather had written some letters to the United States government asking for permission to emigrate there and that it had been granted four years later. Of the four Di Benedetto brothers the two elder ones left with their father, followed by the other two some time later. They were bakers and a family friend put them to work in a pizzeria – typical work for Italians! In two or three years they had saved enough money to open their own pizza-restaurant. My father was 17 when he arrived and couldn’t speak English. He stayed with the family or with other immigrants in the area. In that way he met my mother who was 15 when she arrived.

They got married when she was 17 and had three children. My mother spoke a little English but my father, not a word. I learned English at school and I even felt out of place for the first two years because for me, growing up with Italian parents and neighbours, it was a foreign language. And this happened less than thirty years ago! I went back to Palermo every two years with my parents which enabled me to maintain my links with Italy and develop my passion for Italian culture, for fashion and art, for everything that makes me feel Italian. The point is that my father, just like everyone else around me, spoke Sicilian, whilst I wanted to learn Italian. Anyway, at the age of 16 I started to travel by myself. If I can, stopping at Rome and Palermo, I go back three times a year, never less than once and I have many friends."

Is a knowledge of Italian useful in your work?

"Unfortunately, Italian is not much use to me as a lawyer. However, whenever possible I try to help Italians who need assistance and find themselves in difficulty with the language. This explains my undertaking with COES. I work to maintain links between residents in this area and in Sicily. I used to know a disk jockey of a religious radio station who asked me to speak once a week, every Saturday for fifteen minutes in Italian, and so I studied a bit and had practical experience."

Why is it difficult to find someone bilingual among your Italo-American friends?

"The problem is that nearly all the emigrants born in Italy are elderly and their children are already American. In the United States, second generation Italians are already integrated into society. The ‘emigrants’ as such are all South Americans, Indians and Ghanaians: they come here and stay among themselves because they don’t understand the language, exactly as happened to the Italians up to thirty years ago. An Italian who has been here for sixty years knows the language. The exception consists of the elderly who, having arrived as adults, have never learnt to speak English. They have always been helped by their children who acted as translators and have continued to live and work in Italian quarters. How can one maintain the links? I am maybe the only one among the Italo-American that I know whose parents encouraged the use of Italian, whether pure or dialect . The other parents wanted to be American, proud of their new life and obliged their children to use English at home."

What is the common image of Italo-Americans in the U.S.A.?

"An American, also children of Italians, has, in general, a negative idea of anything ‘being Italian’, the diffused stereotype is negative. The Italian is considered a bit vulgar, without class, maybe mafia types. Yes, it’s a stereotype, which dies hard. Of course, those who travel, who go to Italy tell me that the Italians they have met, ‘are like you, Joseph, you’re different to the Italians that emigrate to America’. Certainly, New York is an exception, it’s a cosmopolitan city, there you find people who have travelled round the world. The negative idea of Italians is more widespread among the provincial Americans, where there are people who have studied and yet have never come into contact with Europeans. They don’t know any foreign people and so believe that Italians are those who you see on television, a bit ignorant, tough guys. Those, on the other hand, who travel fall in love with the Italians, especially those of the south who are particularly hospitable and affectionate: there is nothing they wouldn’t do to make you feel at home."

In what sense do you feel different from other Italo-Americans?

"An Italian who didn’t grow up as I did doesn’t have a sense of history or roots. Feeling Italo-American means having values, to feel part of a tradition. I feel Italian because my parents are Italian, because I know the language and the places where my ancestors were born and grew up, I have an idea of my cultural belongings, of the history of Sicily in particular. If you don’t cultivate the land of origin you’re just American, you belong to this great country which is, by its very nature, a mix of races and ethnic groups."