Setting the Table Is How I’m Keeping My Girls Connected to Their Culture

iStock

In the late 1970s, my mom left her small hometown in Puglia, Italy, to live in L’america! Brucaleen, to be specific. While she was likely anxious and worried to leave her life behind, the excitement of starting her own version of the American dream was stronger. Another force on her side — a slew of Giovinazazze (locals from her town) had also immigrated to Brooklyn and she would seek them out for help. The little community they fostered meant their life in Italy wouldn’t be left behind completely — at least not the traditions, customs, and amazing meals.

Just a short 13 months after she arrived in America, I was born.

I came after she was married and had my first sister. Alone in a new country without a grasp of its language, and a husband who was at work all day and sometimes at night, all my mom had was what she knew. And what she knew was Italy. She immediately began teaching me.

Before I could speak English, I could speak Italian. Latte, aqua, pane … early childhood words I would use to communicate my needs and wants. Lasciami state! Lei mi ha toccato! The screams of siblings fighting and later in my older years, proper sentences and state recognition for my impeccable Italian grammar and grades in high school. Another important Italian custom was to always make your mother proud, so good grades were a must.

Along with learning to walk and talk were tasks like "apparecchiare la tavola" — setting the table.

Italian custom calls for a clean tablecloth, matching plates (a sottopiato for the main course, bowl for the first), water glass, wine glass for adults, two forks, a knife, spoons (small and large), and bottles of sparkling water and wine. No, this wasn't a holiday, this was a Tuesday, but all meals, no matter what the day, are met with fanfare. Today, I uphold this idea of respect for the table that brings a family together and encourage my kids to set a proper table for almost every meal.

This notion that my little girls need to learn to set a table brings up a struggle between old and new — the treasured traditions of an Old World mindset that go against everything I am teaching them to be now.

I, of course, want them to be independent women who shouldn’t conform to the box women have been put in for so many years. When single mom friends see them getting up from playing to stop and gather matching napkins for the chosen tablecloths, plates, and cutlery, they wonder if what I am holding onto isn’t that same thing we worked so hard to break away from. But I wonder about it in Italian and then allow my girls to debate me in that same language.

My mother told me if I learned to think in Italian, I would never forget the language. I’ve passed this bit of wisdom onto my kids and when they are deep in thought while thinking about water vs. wine glasses, I can almost see their hands moving in their minds as they sort it out in Italiano.

In the early days after my mother immigrated, it was not uncommon for expats of the same background to cluster in particular neighborhoods, even live in the same building.

These were the people we would spend Sundays with, further enforcing the importance of traditions. I would pray for a child to show up one Sunday, because I was growing continuously sick of my own siblings who I was forced to be with 24/7 — sleepovers and playdates were never even considered in an Italian household. So, Sunday has always been an important day for me. Even into adulthood. I spent nearly every Sunday of my life with my mother — no matter how old I was, no matter how hungover, no matter how busy, no matter how tired I was from staying up all night with twins, no matter what.

Sundays are sacred and a time for us all to reconnect and remember what we are. Famiglia. I now force my own kids to stop all their activities, chats, and events to spend Sunday with me in the kitchen, cooking food that will undoubtedly show up in their lunchboxes in some form, and then at the table, talking. I know they are frustrated about it now, but I can almost bet in 20 years they will look back and appreciate it. Just like they appreciate our summers.

Just like my mom did for me, every summer we escape the hot streets of New York for the even hotter streets of Puglia.

There were no trips to Disney or lakes. We spent the summers in my mother’s hometown of Giovinazzo, surrounded by our extremely large family. Large enough to overtake a building rooftop for Sunday dinner. This summer, my girls swam in the same rock-lined beaches I did. They ran into the piazza for the same gelato I ate and did all the morning market shopping my mother made me do. When someone realizes there are not “locals” and ask where they're from "da dove sei?" They proudly answer: Siamo da Brucaleen.