{"id":15316,"date":"2023-10-16T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-16T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/?p=15316"},"modified":"2024-02-19T18:40:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T23:40:21","slug":"my-precious-italian-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/my-precious-italian-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"My Precious Italian Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By Juliet Hallier<\/strong><\/p>

Juliet Hallier, is a high school senior student at San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno, CA. Juliet has been studying Italian for 3 years and plans to continue her studies in college. She is an academically achieving student, who volunteers at the Sons and Daughters of Italy\u2019s charitable cultural events.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Italian Consulate in San Francisco is perched atop one of the steepest hills in the<\/span> b<\/span>ay, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the bustling harbor filled with visitors from all<\/span> over the world. Although I have seen the city lights many times in my short eighteen<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

y<\/span>ears, I will never forget the moment I walked through those consulate doors to receive<\/span> my Italian passport for the first time. As an American teenager, the moment was surreal.<\/span> W<\/span>ith my mom and two little brothers at my side, this opportunity was over 150 years in<\/span> the making.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Let me explain. See, my three-times great-grandfather was born in a tiny <\/span>citta <\/span><\/i>called<\/span> Poggioreale on the island of Sicily, twelve years before Italy officially became a nation in<\/span> 1861. When his two children were young, he knew that life on the island would become<\/span> increasingly difficult. The family left the home that his ancestors had lived in for<\/span> centuries, lured by the American dream and a better life for him and his wife. For<\/span> decades, my Italian-American relatives then passed down the stories of their courage,<\/span> tenacity, challenges, and nostalgia for the island, but they never let it get the best of<\/span> them. My passport signifies their strength, their prayers for their offspring to live and<\/span> breathe the American dream, and their inability to never go back home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

So, I don\u2019t take my newly recognized Italian citizenship for granted. Not even for one<\/span> day. Maybe it was because of the stories passed down by my great-grandparents in their<\/span> native Sicilian tongue. Maybe it was the notion that my great-aunts were too ashamed to<\/span> speak Italian in an unfamiliar and frightening English-speaking environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Regardless of the reasons why, the nuances of the Italian language definitely don\u2019t come<\/span> naturally to me. Even as an Italian citizen, I struggle to recall the subtleties of a delicate<\/span> tongue click or a romantically rolled \u201cr.\u201d From the time I started studying it, deep in the<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

online world of the COVID pandemic, I knew I wanted to grasp the language in a way<\/span> that I just couldn\u2019t accomplish in the limited three years that my high school offered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

One thing I am now confident about is my desire to learn the language so that I can<\/span> think in Italian, dream in Italian, and eventually communicate so effectively that it will<\/span> enable me to continue my works of service, both in college and in the Italian-American<\/span> communities that need assistance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Language is about more than just talking. It is about conveying emotions, appreciating<\/span> our diversity, learning about our past, and collaborating in such a way that groups of<\/span> people can move mountains together. Our journeys through life are fluid, made up of<\/span> pieces of not only who we are, but where we came from. The old Italian law that allowed<\/span> me to receive my Italian citizenship, along with my family\u2019s grit and grind over the<\/span><\/p>

y<\/span>ears, was the impetus that sparked my desire to learn more about my family\u2019s culture<\/span> and language. I look forward to continuing this tradition while in college and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Juliet Hallier Juliet Hallier, is a high school senior student at San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno, CA. Juliet has been studying Italian for 3 years and plans…Read More <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15316"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15323,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15316\/revisions\/15323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}