My paternal family is 100% Italian. They embody many stereotypes you hear about Italians. They are extremely loud, talk with their hands, and I haven't been to a single family event where there wasn't pasta, fish, or some appetizer. Moving to America with all these traditions at home may seem crazy, but that's exactly what my family did. My father is the first in his family to be born in the United States. He was born in 1959. My aunt Angie, uncle Dom, grandmother (Ninetta), grandfather (Giuseppe) and their aunts, uncles and parents were all born in Italy. My grandmother, uncle and aunt came to America in 1954 or 1959. 1955 on a boat. Aunt Angie remembers that the name was “Christopher Columbus”. She also remembers that while they were on the boat, her brother, who was three years old at the time, had this toy horse that he threw into the sea. At that moment my grandmother was in their cabin, feeling seasick. My grandfather had already moved to Chicago, as had my great, great grandparents. Grandpa had come to find a better job and to be with his parents. He went ahead to arrange everything for his family and fill out all the paperwork for the rest of the family. They came in hopes of having a better and easier life, what's more. Grandma actually thought it was harder because they had to work so much harder. Their first apartment was in Little Italy on Taylor Street. Aunt Angie's grandfather owned a shoe store and when they first arrived they lived back there. Sunt Angie calls them “the good old days.” From here they moved to an apartment on the corner of Loomis. This is where my father was born. They moved here because they needed more space and because my grandmother was pregnant with my father. Aunt Angie describes the apartments as old, with nice big rooms, b...... full of paper ...... to have a stack of bowls of pasta smashed on her head by her mother. My dad also talks about how Aunt Angie would try to sneak into the house after dates and how Grandma would throw things at her. All of this is shared with a laugh, along with a personal experience or two, and my father says that my grandmother was a tough woman. He rode the train to work every day, regardless of the weather, and almost never missed a day. When she went grocery shopping, she would take the bus home with several bags completely filled with groceries. Finally, Aunt Angie says her first words in English were swear words because everyone in the first building, especially her mother, swore. My family came from Italy in the 1950s and have lived here ever since. We have almost totally maintained our traditions. Our family is close-knit and loud, and therefore obviously Italian, and we couldn't be more proud.