Whether you get along with your family or not, knowing where you come from is a crucial part of raising them. The side I know more about is my father's. Like many Italians post-WWII, my grandfather tried to find opportunity elsewhere. The country was in turmoil, and many were leaving. So my grandfather had a son, then left to go to Australia to find work and try to get established. Then he came back to Italy after a year or two, had another kid, and tried again in America. He ended up having four children and was able to finally bring them over after leaving his whole family to get established.

My grandfather was fairly innovative in that he was able to get his hands on an automobile and use it for commercial purposes - hauling people and goods - to and from other areas of the country before he left Italy, when no one else in his town had a car. He had amassed some money, not easy in those days, so my question to my father was always: Why did he want to leave if he was succeeding and building wealth?

There were a few reasons. One was the mafiosi in the region. They knew of the people who had means, and they would find ways to get money out of them. If they couldn't find an easy way, they would simply kidnap children and bring them into the hills to send random notes. My father told me his mother would always make sure he was close by her for this reason while he was growing up there. Anyone with a skill set they knew they could put to good use elsewhere and be paid well for it with little fear of this kind of passive-aggressive retaliation would be foolish to not leave - the opportunities were too good to pass up, and outweighed the culture & roots about which many had become disenchanted anyway.

The other reason was that, regardless of mafiosi, if you were successful in a small village of people who knew you and your family, these people would find ways to hate you. This goes to my point above in eliminating traits best left behind. While proud of my heritage, I know many Italians - just like in any other culture - are lazy, jealous people who would rather see people kept closer to their level than succeed. This is crowdism at its finest. If my grandfather had stayed behind and managed to not get mixed up in any of the mafiosi business, his fellow villagers wouldn't look too kindly on him if he stayed. They would have seen him building a better life while they were content to go with the flow of whatever government was popular that week - something for which Italians are notorious.

Stretching back further, something I didn't know until recently is that my great grandfather was one of the immigrants who helped build the interstate system (up through Vermont). Growing up outside of the place most of my ancestors did, then having to ask about my family's background from another country has been interesting. As I noted in the interview I did for Alex, part of my identity comes from a place I've only been able to visit three times in my life, and most of it comes from the area I was born in and have stayed in. Asking questions about my background has taught me a few things: that some of my traits are obviously carried over from my father and grandfather, and there were some I never realized that were carried over from past generations. Visiting the place my father's side of the family came from also motivated me to ask more about my family's past, something I recommend for parents to do with their children when they can afford it.