Tarantella & Me

I have always felt disconnected from my heritage. I am from upstate New York, I am white, and a cis woman–that’s all I know for sure. I know my lineage and my ethnic makeup, and I know where my grandparents hail from. I’ve got the where, when, and who down, but not the how or why.

My mother’s mom was Ashkenazi Jewish, but I never got to meet her, and my mother tends to keep information about her to herself.

My mother’s dad was a mix of Irish, Scandinavian, and German, but he never knew his father, and his own mother tended to be like my own when it comes to the past. Unlike my mother’s side of the family, I am more informed of my father’s heritage. My father’s mother immigrated to the United States from Noci, Italy (in the Puglia region) when she was a teen. To this day, she still has a heavy Italian accent. My father’s dad’s parents (my great grandparents) immigrated to the States from Sicily–all of this makes me half southern Italian.

I rarely see my father’s parents, and when I do, being Italian never comes up. My father never talks about any aspect of being Italian except for the food (though his Italian mom hates cheese), religion (specifically Roman Catholicism which neither of us practice), and his wonderful summer tan (I did not get so lucky on that front…).

I don’t necessarily feel “Italian.” I may look “Italian” and have Italian relatives, but I do not feel authentically “Italian.” There is currently little tangable that connects me to this side of my heritage, and I want to change that.

As a blank canvas, I have a lot to learn about myself, my family, and the people that came before us. I can admit my ignorance when it comes to my Italian and other heritages, and I am willing to grow. To dive into a small part of my culture such as the Italian tarantella is to demonstrate my openness and desire to view myself as more than just a female white New Yorker.

However, the question lingering in my mind asks, “Can I perform tarantella authentically?”