Out of the Many, One

I grew up in a small Italian village called Udine. My father was in the military and my early years were spent playing with Italian friends and, occasionally, eating strange but delicious foods in their homes. I’m sure I must have picked up a bit of the language but if I did, I have long since forgotten it.

Udine, Italy

What I do remember from those early years are the people, smells and spectacular views of the Alps that I could see from my bedroom window. My best friend was a boy about my age whose name has stayed with me even though I have no idea how to spell it. Phonetically it sounded like Musimenno, and since he lived only a few apartments down from where we lived, and since neither one of us had reached school-age, we played together every day.

Musimenno’s mother had a kind and gentle heart and often invited me into their tiny apartment for lunch. While I can no longer call by name the tasty dishes coming from her kitchen, just picturing the plates filled with an assortment of cheeses, pasta, meat and hot Italian bread still makes my mouth water. I must have learned a smattering of Italian words because I can still see her smiling face as I tried to convey how much I loved her food. Musimenno knew only a little English, but we got along like two life-long buddies and played for hours on end.  The joy of childhood has a way of erasing cultural barriers.

The two story apartment we lived in was located on a dirt road not far from the town square. My family lived on the bottom floor and an Italian family, the people from whom we rented, lived on the top floor. At both ends of the dirt road were busy streets, where shops, restaurants, bakeries and markets were bustling with customers.  Because the business areas were heavily trafficked streets I was not allowed on them, but frequently my mom took Musimenno and me shopping with her where we could visit some of the stores.

One particular shop fascinated me. It was a bicycle shop with all kinds of bikes, motorbikes and riding equipment for sale. The name of the man who ran the store has escaped me, if I ever even knew it, but I can never forget his mustache, yellow teeth and broad smile. At first he frightened me a little, but it didn’t take him long to learn my name and call out, “Ciao, Michael,” every time I visited his store.

Musimenno and I spent a lot of time in that bicycle shop when my mom was shopping in clothing stores near-by. Later, on my 5th birthday, my dad and mom bought my first bicycle from the mustached man with yellow teeth. He slapped some training wheels on my bike, and off I went, riding endlessly up and down the dirt road in front of our apartment, dreaming of the day when I could ride on the busier streets.

It has been a long time since I rode my bike in Udine, Italy, but I think the experience of living in a foreign land at an early age enabled me to be receptive to diverse cultures, strange sounding languages and a variety of people later on in life. Even today I enjoy meeting non-English speaking people and especially love eating foods from different places around the world.  

Kids riding bikes in small Italian village

When my family returned to the states, and as I grew older and became more of a conversational partner with my parents, I was surprised to learn that their experience in Udine was far different from mine. My father and mother were never at home in Italy. They found the language, culture and people unsettling to their way of life. They tolerated the Italian culture but could hardly wait to get back to America, read an English newspaper, hear English being spoken, go to an American movie and munch on a hamburger afterwards.

While we lived in Italy my parents were good at hiding their disenchantment with all things Italian and when one night my brother and I spoke of how we would love to go back to Udine, we were caught off guard by the degree of their negative response. It was the best of times for my brother and me, but the worst of times for our parents.

Why did we have such different experiences? I’m convinced that age had the most to do with it. My brother was only 4 when we moved to Italy and I was still a toddler. Italy was the only world we knew and we immersed ourselves in that world. We didn’t have to adapt to something new because we knew nothing else. All of our friends and playmates, for the most part, were Italians. Italy was our home.

The world for my parents, on the other hand, had been dramatically changed. They had left their home and loved ones back in the states and were confronted by a culture starkly different from the one they had always known. Faced with having to adapt to a new culture and learn a new language in order to fit in with the Italian community, my parents chose to spend most of their free time with other Americans. As a result, what social interactions they had were on base with other military personnel. My parents may have lived in Italy but in all the really life-changing ways they never left America.

There are some things in life that if you don’t learn them as a child are extremely challenging to grasp as an adult. Languages, for instance, can best be learned at a young age, but once we pass a certain time, becoming proficient in a foreign language is next to impossible. An appreciation and love of different cultures and traditions can best be absorbed while we are young. The older we grow the more we become locked into our comfortable ways.

That being said, we shouldn’t use age as an excuse to wall ourselves off from others just because they speak a foreign language or come from a different culture than the one we are familiar with. If we choose to associate only with those who are like us, we will limit the opportunities to grow and broaden our understanding of the world.

In the neighborhood where my wife and I live we have neighbors who have come from all over the world—South America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, India and all parts of Europe. Many of these people have become close friends, even though our cultural backgrounds are different and more often than not our religious beliefs too. I find that my life has been immeasurably enhanced by getting to know people from other lands. I believe the healthiest communities are those with a rich blend of cultures and traditions, languages and religions. It is part of who we are as Americans—E Pluribus Unum—“Out of the Many, One.” Our country, a melting pot of nations, has allowed America to be the envy of the world.

But it requires effort to sustain the tradition of being a refuge for those seeking a better life, both by those who have been citizens of America for generations, as well as by those who have moved here from different parts of the world.

My parents missed an opportunity to expand their world when we lived in Italy. They shut themselves off from what could have been one of the most enlightening and enlarging periods of their lives. They are not all that unusual. It is instinctive to congregate with people who think, speak and look like we do. It takes effort to reach out to those who are different.

When we miss an opportunity to welcome the stranger into our neighborhood or church, when we hear a strange language and walk away or when we see a person from a different culture and move hurriedly past, we become smaller, our hearts shrink, our minds become dimmer and we become less human. Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when he said that you must enter the kingdom as a child, for childhood knows no cultural barriers!