Actually, when I think back, my concessions to the non-Italian community began in my pre-teens when we moved from what had once been a primarily Italian neighborhood in Hoboken, New Jersey. I can still see clearly in my mind the widowed Italian women walking the Avenue in small groups. Imposing looking, yet with that motherly "I must feed you" Italian air.
But before long, Hoboken changed. It stopped being the small Italian enclave it had been and my parents decided that it was time to move. Granted, they had no intentions of moving into another city-like atmosphere, they'd worked long and hard to have a nice little house with a nice little yard. Their American dream come true. Suburbia.
I confess the move miffed me. I didn't want to move and I didn't understand why we needed to. But hindsight...20/20 is a good place to be when you finally come to understand your parents sacrifices for your future.
Anyway, we went from what I jokingly think of Little Italy in Hoboken to the little seaside hamlet of Cliffwood Beach. There was an instant culture shock for me. In Hoboken you could walk from one end of the Avenue to the other in no time at all. Churches were like Starbucks, one on practically every corner. School was just around the corner from our apartment. Notsomuch in Cliffwood Beach. In Cliffwood Beach there was exactly one thing within walking distance, and it was kinda far if you ask me, The Sweet Shoppe. It was in a tiny patch of connecting stores. I think there were three, one of which was a Laundromat. But the main attraction was the Sweet Shoppe.
Even to get to the elementary school I was attending meant a bus ride. It was a short ride granted, just across a little highway, but I needed a BUS to get there?! And you didn't just go home for lunch. I had to eat bologna sandwiches. (Confession: in the beginning it was so far from what I was used to that I really learned to like bologna sandwiches.)
If I was a loaf of Italian bread, my new friends were white bread. In the beginning it felt like camping. Except instead of the woods it was a lush yard and picnic table. PB&J's abound. By the same token, there was no escaping their fascination when they would walk up my driveway and smell the pot of gravy simmering on the stove. I'm fairly sure I was the first Italian they'd ever met. When asked what the yummy smell was, I said "gravy". When they looked in the pot and saw the red gravy bubbling I was told in no uncertain terms that gravy is BROWN and sauce is red.
They seemed so confident in it. So adamant. That night I asked my mother and she told me that it was true, there was brown "gravy", but Italians call the red stuff gravy too. Before long I found myself switching words depending on with whom I was speaking. If it was family, we had gravy. To "outsiders", it was sauce. That was my first step towards my losing my heritage. I was adapting myself into their culture rather than introducing them to my own.
Funny story...this is probably a year or two ago when my oldest brother and I were on the phone around holiday time. We were discussing our menus and whatnot and I mentioned that I was going to simmer mushrooms in sauce like mom used to do. My brother said "gravy". I said "huh? I could swear she always put sauce on them" -- I mean I watched her do it like a MILLION times! But no, he said again, "gravy". I kinda just let it go and changed the subject while thinking to myself "well, I know how she did it, and that's what matters for dinner." About two months later, out of the clear blue, I remembered a time in my life where I myself called it gravy and I finally understood what he was saying.
It continues till this day. I'm so used to having to speak without my Italian inflections that when it does slip out I actually feel weird about it.
Oddly enough, this shames me in a way. Granted, my mother's side of the family was pure Italy with my grandmother being first generation off the boat. My father's heritage was never really part of the household. It wasn't something that seemed to matter to him very much, I guess. I do, however, have great memories of those valued too few years we'd gather at my father's family clam bakes in North Grafton, Mass. The lilt of the accents made everything sound romantic to me. Lots of cousins, clams, a hill I could log roll down...Sorry, got lost there for a moment... Anyway, Italian was what I always I told myself I was. It's all I ever really associated myself as being. A Jersey Italian. But not in the creepy way. And not in Jersey anymore, either.
Every once in a while though, when I'm home alone, I secretly say words with the Italian pronunciation I'd grown up with. I hear it and it sounds so foreign yet so right. I like the way my tongue rolls over the words. Well, the fact that most of the words are food related MIGHT have something to do with that...