As of today, Cosa Nostra is hurting in both quality and capable manpower, and rackets to operate. Lots of racketeers but no rackets to operate does not a mob make! The best and the brightest of the Italian people have been long ago integrated into the American mainstream. And their children and their children’s children are on the highest trajectory of success and have melded into the American dream.
A good thing? Of course! But with everything you achieve in life you give something up. Everything is a tradeoff in life. And although today Italians have reached the pinnacle of success in the fields of politics, big business, Hollywood, and the like. Something is amiss.
I personally feel that with these “achievements”, a bit of our Italian culture has been lost to the ages. We have become a bit too “Americanized” for my taste. And although I love this country we call America (named by the way after the Italian explorer Americo Vespucci), my love for my base heritage – being 100% Italian – is very near and dear to me. And I’ve tried to raise my children to appreciate all that we are as Italians. To embrace the rich history that Italy has, and carry forward the pride and knowledge that has been handed down by our forefathers. My father and mother, grandfathers and grandmothers, uncles and aunts, and of course, my great-grandparents, and our forefathers before them.
I must say that in the scheme of things, my kids still fare pretty well on the scale of comparison with many of their friends and schoolmates. Most of those children do not have a clue about their heritage. Be they Italian, Jewish, Irish, Greek, etc., Today, all families face the same dilemma in that the “Americanization” of our youth (and ourselves for that matter), has taken such center stage as to blur our past. Our families wanted so much to be accepted by the Americans and achieve the “American Dream” that we were quick to dismiss our past.
In retrospect, a horrible thought!…. Only in the last twenty years or so, I noticed many young couples again starting to name their newborns with classic Italian names like Antonio and Antonia, Francesco and Francesca, Camillo and Camilla. Slowly but surely these European names are making a comeback, becoming en vogue again.
It’s good to see! And everything Italian is becoming “cool” again. Where decades ago young Italian parents cringed at naming their son after his grandfather Giuseppe or Calogero instead giving the child an anglicized version of Joseph or Charles. Today, it’s the reverse, they totally embrace those old-time Italian names with a passion.
