Estrella

Christmastime is the time to be extremely happy, right? We all try to hold onto that giddiness and magic we had as children when we become adults, but sometimes life wears us down. This year's Christmas in the U.S. after three months in Italy added some culture shock to my experience. Jet lag mixed with a highly commercial culture and fast food economy was making me nauseous the first few days back home in Missouri. My saving grace was my family and the time I could spend with them away from mainstream society. But Christmas wasn’t easy. Meeting my sister’s boyfriend had its bumps, and watching how my grandfather struggled with his dementia broke my heart. Wasn’t Christmas supposed to be all bliss like the good old days? But then I remembered how Christmas happened those 2,000 years ago, and it was anything but bliss. It was a hot, dirty, messy, depressing and tyrannically violent world for the Jews in the Roman Empire, so happiness was far and fleeting. A people ...

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...