Welcome to America, Where You and I Were Born

This past Monday Paolo Corso, an American poet of Italian descent, held a poetry reading at WCSU. Corso writes poems and essays about her Italian heritage, and the interesting way that she relates to it. She particularly focuses on the idea of Italians' love for cooking, and how she completely disagrees with it and basically thinks it's an awful stereotype.

That evening the theme remained the same throughout; Corso told stories through her poetic voice, which for some reason reminded me of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory, about burning all sorts of food. She would list off all sorts of Italian dishes, in Italian, which I could not understand. She mentions at least two or three times that she knows the audience is not Italian -- this was interesting to me as we are in America. Many people here are Italian, mixed with other things. Just like Paolo, I was born right here in America. I first consider myself American since I was born here and then, I relate myself to the traditions of the Irish, Italian, and Polish. Just like Paolo, I have a parent who immigrated here from Europe. I don't go around saying, "I'm Irish, I eat Corned Beef and Cabbage... and I actually hate shamrocks and wish stereotypes would go away".

Honestly I don't think it's fair of Corso to speak as a primary source on Italian attitudes on cooking. She was born and raised in Pittsburgh, by a mother who already didn't like cooking. It's a personal preference. It's also something that's passed on. I would bet that somewhere down the line one of her great or great-great-grandmothers just didn't want to cook. If that same ancestor loved cooking, well, what would Corso write about?

I just couldn't relate to Paolo Corso on her topic choice. I think people should be proud of their cultural traditions, no matter what they are.