Estrella

The story goes as the following: the American woman comes to Italy, falls madly in love with an Italian, and she stays and raises her half-American and half-Italian children with the love of her life in the most romantic country in the world. Sounds like a dream... Many American women have had similar experiences in coming to Europe, I being one of them, but I’m not staying in Italy after January. It’s not that I don’t love the country or the culture, or I didn’t have an exciting relationship with an Italian man for a moment, but duty is calling me home to the States to be involved in the movement to make the voiceless heard. Why? How can I return to the country where conservative politicians eat minorities for breakfast in Tweets about Michelle Obama being the ape in the White House? Wasn't I happier in Italy than in the U.S.? Do I want to return to a country that undermines my value with racial bigotry and sexist agendas? I must, as I remember this story from my grandmother. A f

"Nobody with a dream should come to Italy. No matter how dead and buried you think it is, in Italy, it will rise and walk again" - Margaret Johnson, the mother in The Light in the Piazza . This was her most memorable and striking quote from the theatrical musical , based on the 1960 novella by Elizabeth Spencer. Victoria Clark as Margaret Johnson (L) Katie Rose Clarke as Clara Johnson (R) What are our dreams? And what is their significance to us? And how do they change over time and with our experiences? I came to Italy for the sole goal of studying, but my old dreams arose: romance, a trip for my mother and me to visit Tuscany. As soon as they began, life's cruelty crushed them. No more romance, no more dreams - even if that wasn't what I was originally looking for. Just like Clara's mother, Margaret Johnson (the musical's protagonist), she felt that her bloom for love had entered winter while her daughter Clara's chance for love was in spring