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@Vesu.ViusAnthony, My intentions for the @Vesu.Vius project have taken a sharper focus. Last year, I videotaped my walk to the top of Vesuvius, down to the pits and valleys of Pompeii, and retraced my steps, through the streets of Napoli to the L'Accademia di Belli Arti, where I studied over thirty years ago. I came to discover the part of my identity that originated in the nearby town of Cervinara where my family's Bronx-Napolitano dialect had its roots. I saw the place where my mother and father were born, and their mothers and fathers before them. I was 20 years old then, and had moved from my birthplace in East Harlem to The Bronx, moved again and again through Italian American neighborhoods to be closer to the paisans and comaras from Cervinara who were getting ahead. In catching up, we were becoming more Americanized, yet were, at the same time, trying to maintain our values as a close-knit family. Ironically, it was my visit to Italy in 1965, where I sought to become more Italian, that pushed me over the edge in the opposite direction. It was there, that in many ways, I became more American. In spite of several months of speaking, grooming and dressing like my friends, my fantasy of being truly Neapolitan proved to be a mere illusion that was shattered unexpectedly. One day, as I was about to cross a street in Napoli, a blind man standing on the corner put out his arm, indicating that he wanted to be accompanied across the street. Without saying a word, we locked arms and halfway across he asked, "Sei Americano?" "Si," I responded knowing that my accent would betray me if I claimed otherwise. "Buon Giorno," we repeated as we parted ways. Later that week I learned how the blind man knew that I wasn't Italian. "That cologne you wear," my cousin Menita said, "is only used by the Americans, mostly tourists and those who are at the military base here." That was only one of my identity crises that year. - pda Excerpt from: Two Volcanoes by d'Agostino and Fragola. |
@EtnaPeter, This seems to be the point of departure for our dialogue. I had the same quest, with similar results, except that I never reconciled myself to the split between my Italian heritage and American identity. Whereas your work seems to me, heretofore, distinct from any attempt to reconcile your cultural identity with your discovery, my work, in contrast, has focused on that dichotomy. In the summer after my sophomore year at Columbia, I traveled from Northern Italy to Calabria and Sicily. In Italy I realized that I, too, was not Italian, but neither did I feel totally integrated with American culture. My reception in Calabria was not open, effusive, and accepting, as I had envisioned and as your had been. In Sicily, though, I discovered the connection to my past, to the lives of my grandparents and "antenati" that I had been seeking since childhood. Moreover, I experienced a deep connection to the island that appeased an inchoate longing that had been instilled in me since childhood as I listened to my grandmother's tales of the island, the volcanic eruptions and flowing tongue of molten lava that would have destroyed her village had it not been for the intercession of her beloved St. Egidio. As I child I had envisioned and felt an affinity with Etna, that the people call La Montagna, but I was not prepared for its grandeur that I found oddly soothing and threatening. The mountain, sometimes peaceful with a languid plume of smoke, others times showering the night sky with sparks, loomed majestic and enchanting. Ten years ago I returned to Sicily and watched the sun rise on Mt. Etna and I experienced a sense of oneness with creation and the vastness of the universe that was comforting rather than frightening. My journey was one of exploration and self-renewal. Within view of its smoky crater I felt a sensation akin to rapture. By investigating the essential mythic nature of the volcano, I delved deeper into myself. For years I felt apart from mainstream America and separated from others who understood this need for connection. By entering into this dialogue, developing this web site, and becoming cognizant of the potential for communication via the web and e-mail I have emerged with a renewed sense of identity and clarity of purpose in my work. -afragola |