Why I’m Going Back
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 four-year-old played outside her house in Jackson, Mississippi. She didn't yet fully understand race, but she was an African-American girl living on the other side of town in a segregated neighborhood. A gunshot went off in the distance, and although she didn't know it, Medgar Evans was just assassinated outside his home only a few blocks away. Her mother quickly called her inside, and she obeyed.
There was no packing up or moving immediately. There was no fleeing from the Ku Klux Klan or the Jim Crow laws of the land in 1960’s Mississippi. My grandparents stayed put and raised their three children in Jackson and then in Bloomington, Indiana, returning to Jackson after they finished their graduate school at the University of Indiana. And my mother didn't grow up in fear but flourished from the four-year-old to the doctor that she is today.
Sometimes in the face of fear, my ancestors didn’t have the freedom to run or flee but to face the fear and evil and try to fight it the best way they could. My grandparents continued to educate African-American students at Jackson State University over the decades, retiring in the 1980’s. They didn’t run away from a fight, and I shouldn’t either.
Believe me, the conservative politicians like Trump are not evil that needs to be removed. It is the bigotry, the hate and the fear that they and others spew. Remember: hate the sin, not the sinner. That’s another tenet my grandparents and parents taught me. And most importantly, love conquers all.
So, I go back with some remorse, but with a fresh sense of knowing where I belong and that my worth isn’t determined by what others say. It is God and my family’s legacy running through my veins that does. But I don’t forget Italy, its people or its passion for life. Because of my experiences here, I go back with a renewed vitality for life, only to appreciate how precious and magnificent it is.
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 four-year-old played outside her house in Jackson, Mississippi. She didn't yet fully understand race, but she was an African-American girl living on the other side of town in a segregated neighborhood. A gunshot went off in the distance, and although she didn't know it, Medgar Evans was just assassinated outside his home only a few blocks away. Her mother quickly called her inside, and she obeyed.
There was no packing up or moving immediately. There was no fleeing from the Ku Klux Klan or the Jim Crow laws of the land in 1960’s Mississippi. My grandparents stayed put and raised their three children in Jackson and then in Bloomington, Indiana, returning to Jackson after they finished their graduate school at the University of Indiana. And my mother didn't grow up in fear but flourished from the four-year-old to the doctor that she is today.
Sometimes in the face of fear, my ancestors didn’t have the freedom to run or flee but to face the fear and evil and try to fight it the best way they could. My grandparents continued to educate African-American students at Jackson State University over the decades, retiring in the 1980’s. They didn’t run away from a fight, and I shouldn’t either.
Believe me, the conservative politicians like Trump are not evil that needs to be removed. It is the bigotry, the hate and the fear that they and others spew. Remember: hate the sin, not the sinner. That’s another tenet my grandparents and parents taught me. And most importantly, love conquers all.
So, I go back with some remorse, but with a fresh sense of knowing where I belong and that my worth isn’t determined by what others say. It is God and my family’s legacy running through my veins that does. But I don’t forget Italy, its people or its passion for life. Because of my experiences here, I go back with a renewed vitality for life, only to appreciate how precious and magnificent it is.
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