Fargo and Away

I’m really looking forward to this trip to Italy, and not just for the cycling. While I’m not Stanley Tucci and not Italian on both sides (IYKYK), my mother’s side of the family all came from Italy, and I’ve always felt a strong connection to my Italian heritage. When asked by friends about my heritage, I usually said, “I’m half-Italian” and glossed over the (to me) less interesting fact that my dad’s side was of English descent. During COVID, to stay sane, I mapped my ancestry, and it was only then I realized how interesting my father’s side of the family was. We arrived from Sussex, England back in 1637! Not quite on the Mayflower, but pretty close.

As for my mother’s family, my great-grandfather Guiseppe Grella was born in Sturno, near Campania, in 1877. He emigrated to the United States in 1893, arriving in New York, before settling in Boston. He naturalized in 1902, married my great-grandmother Concetta Filomena Tocabaccio in 1905, and moved into my hometown, Newton, Massachusetts. Concetta was also from Campania, born in Benevento in 1880, came to America in 1903. My grandfather, Angelo Michelo Grella, one of 11 children, was born in 1913. Meanwhile, my other great-grandfather, Antonio Carmine Leone, was born in 1886, in San Donato Val di Camino in the province of Frosinone, about 100 miles northwest of Sturno. Antonio arrived in the New World in 1904 and settled in the Boston area. There, he met my other great-grandmother, Elisabetta Commito, who was from Vittorito, L’Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy. They had three children, one of whom was Fiorina (Florence), my grandmother.

Grampa Angelo and Nana Flo finally met and married in 1937, and had five children, including Mom. They lived in half of a two-family house with only two bedrooms. The three girls shared a bed upstairs next to Nana and Grampa. The two boys, my uncles, slept in the attic of the other half of the two-family house above my Uncle Danny and Aunt Annie’s family.

Mom grew up in a predominantly Italian section of the Newton called Nonantum, but which the locals called The Lake, because it was a section of Town that had at one time been Silver Lake before it was filled in with land excavated during the creation of Storrow Drive. Many waves of immigrants came settled in the village over the years, including Jewish, Italian, Irish, and Roma peoples. In time, though, the Italian-Americans became the largest population, and we even had Italian flags striping the streets instead of yellow lines. And, each July we had the Feast of Saint Mary of Carmen, with parades, fireworks, and a carnival.

We even had our own local dialect, with much of it derived from the Romany language.

• mush (pronounced to rhyme with push) — “guy”, can be positive or negative depending on context
• wicked pissa, mush!–“extremely awesome, guy”
• chabby — “boy child”, possibly related to the Romany word chavvie = “boy”
• chor’d — “stolen”, possibly related to the Romany word choro = “thief”
• chuccuo — (chu-co) — “donkey”, “horse’s ass”
• cuya moi — “shut up” or “go to hell”
• divia (div-ya) — “crazy”, “jerk, screw-up, or harmless screwball”
• inga — “unattractive” or “bad-tempered person” or “junk” or “crap”
• jival — “girl”
• mush has a cormunga in his cover — “guy is hiding a gun”
• mush is the earie — “the guy is listening”
• over-chay or overchay (ova-chay) — “it’s a lie” or “he’s an actor”
• oy — “eat”
• pissa — “awesome”
• pukka to the mush — “tell the guy”
• quister jival (quest-ah dival) — “pretty girl”
• quister mush (quest-ah mush) — “good, standup guy”

Even today, if you’re from Newton and meet someone else from the Lake, you might get asked, “Are you a mush?” The Lake’s dialect even made it to Conan O’Brien when. Matt LeBlanc, who is from Newton, shared a few terms. (Cool fact: my Mom used to be a Teacher’s Aide in the Newton Public Schools and believes she used to help with Matt LeBlanc!)

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx4VUpOeihboaSwo8Ojbcso3ik08cNj6yb?si=WKA24jcenEV1HWof

Another result of my ancestry research was that I decided to pursue Italian citizenship for me and my family via a pathway to dual citizenship that had been available to people of Italian descent under some circumstances. I did a TON of research and discovered that we had a narrow pathway to citizenship. Over the past 4 years, I’ve documented our ancestry and worked with an Italian law firm to present our case in Rome. I traveled last year to Florence to hand deliver the paperwork I had laboriously compiled over several years; I was not going to trust anyone else with ensuring that it arrived safely. Unfortunately for us, there have been recent rulings and laws passed in Italy that appear to have closed the door for our petition.

While Italian citizenship may not be in the cards, the pull to see more of Italy remains strong. I’ve seen parts of Florence, Rome, and Milan, but the rest of the country is still on my “to do” list. This cycling adventure will take me along the very top of Italy, from Alleghe to Bolzano and then on to Bormeo. We will be very close to Switzerland and Austria at some points of the journey. We land in Venice and leave from Milan but I will spend no time in either city. The map below shows the most direct route via cars but does not represent the actual route we will take.

In my next post, I’ll share more details on the actual routes we have planned. Time to pack!