Before this class, I never thought much of my ethnic background. After asking my grandparents and parents I gathered a little more information about our ethnic background. Although my maternal grandmother was born a mixture of English and Italian, she was raised in a household that was a blend of Italian and French. Her mother, who is my great-grandmother, who was a mixture of English and Italian, remarried after giving birth to her first son. Her new marriage was to a French man who had also brought on his two children. Growing up in this household influenced not only the foods she would cook, such as homemade ravioli, lasagna, spaghetti, or her famous homemade chicken noodle soup; but, also established a multigenerational line of caregiving. Being one of the oldest out of eight children, my grandmother had cared for her and her younger siblings all while caring for her children. She then transferred this type of nurturing down to her grandchildren. Its common for me and
my siblings to be taken care of by my grandmother for months at a time, to help my parents while they worked. I remember being dropped off at my grandparents Sunday evening around dinner and not being picked up until Friday after school. Italians are huge family people. Family is everything to us, we make sure to spend time with each other at every chance we can. Me and my family express our culture and ethnic background by making sure to cook a huge dinner on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. We started prepping the night before these major holidays because when we were growing up my grandmother would start rolling out her homemade noodles for ravioli, and chicken noodle soup. She would be baking all day making cannolis, cookies, and brownies. As we all grew up we looked forward to these holidays because of my grandmother’s cooking. Since she has passed we keep that tradition going because we know how happy it made my grandmother to cook for all of us on those days.