The Beacon Theatre on Broadway in Manhattan is seen closed on April 14, 2020
(Photo by Christopher Monroe)
Margaret Kazancioglu, June 220
So powerful was the rage after George Floyd’s death that people protested in the streets regardless of the coronavirus risk. The anger seemed to be everywhere. It even erupted in my own life.
After my mother had meniscus surgery, I returned to Nutley, New Jersey, the town of my youth, to care for her. Since she couldn’t cook, I picked the garden vegetables and prepared my favorite childhood dishes—zucchini blossom fritters and fava beans with bay leaves.
Before my shift ended and my sister arrived to take over, my husband and sons came for dinner. We all ate with my mom in the backyard, keeping a safe distance. As we finished our meal, my uncle called.
“Stop by and eat with us,” my mother told him. It was a simple offer.
“No!” exclaimed my son, a recent college graduate. “Tell him not to come. I don’t want him here. I saw him on my Twitter feed protesting against Black Lives Matter. He’s embarrassing!”
“Nobody knows he’s your great-uncle,” I replied, “so what does it matter?”
“I just don’t want him here.”
“He’s your grandmother’s brother,” I said, “and she has the right to have anybody she wants in her house.”
My seventy-four-year-old mother was visibly upset. As my uncle entered the backyard without a mask, my son grabbed his from the table and went out the front door. I’d just witnessed my two worlds almost collide.
The night before my uncle had joined other members of UNICO, the largest Italian-American service organization, outside town hall. They’d heard rumors that a Black Lives Matter protest was going to tear down a small bust of Christopher Columbus. Another Columbus statue had recently been removed in Newark.
About a hundred UNICO members and other residents had circled the statue to protect it from vandalism. Barriers and police officers kept the two groups apart.
Although Christopher Columbus has become a symbol of oppression for Hispanics and indigenous people, he had been the hero of my childhood—the only Italian I could find in history books until I reached high school. The youth of today, though, see him as a terrible person not worthy of a statue. But older Italian-Americans, who fought against their own forms of racism despite the contributions they made, don’t see it that way. They haven’t forgotten another piece of American history—the lynching of eleven Italian immigrants in New Orleans, an event so brutal that it strained relations between the governments of Italy and the US.
And so in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison conceded the celebration of Columbus Day as a one-time national holiday. The recognition was a way for Italians to become part of the American civic fabric. They lauded Columbus as a courageous explorer who defied public opinion and sailed westward, where he stumbled upon what we now know as the Dominican Republic. For many, the story of Columbus reached mythic proportions; today’s younger generation doesn’t buy any of it.
Shortly after my son had left, I told my mother, sister, niece, and uncle that it was getting late and I had to get home. On the drive back, my son asked why I would tolerate my uncle’s views on Muslims, his support of President Trump, and his supposed other transgressions.
“There’s more to him than his political views,” I explained. “In the past we shared a relationship that transcends political differences. There are memories and there is love.”
I told him that when I was a little girl, I wanted ping pong paddles. I couldn’t explain them to my parents, though. They didn’t speak a word of English. So my uncle bought them for me. He was also the first person who brought me to a restaurant. He picked me up when my car broke down and fixed it for me.
When I needed to review a Broadway show for my drama class in college, my world was very limited. My uncle drove me to Manhattan, paid for the tickets, and even watched it with me even though he fell asleep during the fourth act.
I saw my son soften.
“How would I know about this?” he asked.
Now he did. Perhaps my two worlds didn’t have to collide. Perhaps there was room for understanding. And perhaps, post-coronavirus, Italian-Americans won’t need a statue of Columbus—if the world would just be more inclusive.
Margaret Kazancioglu is an Italian-born educator who currently teaches ESL in the Glen Rock Public School District. An avid reader, she loves learning about different cultures and traveling with her husband and sons. She lives in New Jersey.
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