I Segreti Translation
Here’s the translation of the essay I posted in Italian yesterday… with a little extra
When I was little, my parents spoke Italian from time to time, when they didn’t want us to understand them. They spoke a dialect, but I didn’t know it. I thought that everyone spoke like they did! Italians love secrets; but I wanted to know everything. For example, why, oh why, did the family change its surname from Bentivenga to Bennett? My father was so proud to be Italian. He was angry when we ate American food. So why did he call himself ‘Bennett’? They told me that my father had changed the name when he became a businessman, because he didn’t want to become the target of discrimination. Bennett was a neutral surname: no one knew the nationality. But they also told me that he changed it when he was a boxer, because Bentivenga/Bentivengo was too long. But one time my Dad told me that his ‘ring name’ was ‘Innocenzo Parole’! He said that he needed this pseudonym because he was too young to box.
My paternal grandfather was dead: I couldn’t ask him. (I never met him.) My grandmother didn’t speak English, except to say, “little Gramama” when she saw me or my sister. Over the years, I began to think that perhaps my grandfather had done something illegal, and had changed his surname as an ‘alias’, but it wasn’t true. I had so many questions when I got older, that my Father would sigh in frustration and say, “Call your Aunt. Ask her.” I called Serafina, peppered her with questions for an hour, and she actually told me things that were a little closer to the truth. Afterwards, my Father asked, “You were on the phone for an hour! What did your Aunt say?” I told him, and he laughed ! How tiresome!
Anyway, later I did a lot of research on the family. I donated to churches in South Philly and asked them to peruse their copious records, which were excellent. The findings sometimes shocked me. I spoke to cemetery directors, wrote to the Archdiocese. (This was all pre-Internet, pre Ancestry.com, pre DNA testing —-whereby I discovered two first cousins, and in one case, figured out which of my Mom’s six brothers had been dallying. I told my cousin who her Father was before the genealogist she hired got back to her. I sent her photos. And so on.)
I also became a journalist because: 1) I like to write. 2) I want to know the truth. 3) I can always ask questions!
Karen Bennett ©️ 2017; 2024
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