Igrew up calling myself “Italian.”

I never used “Italian-American,” partly because it’s fairly obvious that I am American and also because I didn’t want any grief from the tedious people who say things like “Why do you hyphenate yourself, we are all just Americans!”

Unfortunately, my relatives never bothered to teach me Italian, so I paid good money to learn it in college. And my grandmother refused to show me how to make pasta by hand, correctly assuming I would slice my fingers on the “chitarra,” I figured it out by myself.

That being said, I wasn’t a big booster of Columbus Day, or marches, or the other forced manifestations of my identity.

I live it in my faith, my food, my ferocity and my use of words that often begin with “F,” in both languages.

It’s also that I never understood

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