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This week’s episode of Ms Marvel (S1E4) resonated with me in a way that I’ve never seen depicted in media. It’s rare that I even have this conversation because – truthfully – my social circle has seldom included other children of immigrants.
Italians primarily migrated to the US in the early 1900s and my father’s side of the family was among them. My mother’s side of the family is a little more complicated, but regardless, my mom immigrated to the US when she was 19. She came with her parents and two of her three siblings. So much like Kamala, a large limb of my family tree remains in Italy
When I visited as a teen, I too was unable to go inside a fancy place because I wasn’t dressed properly. Everyone saw me leaving in a tank top, but not one local person among us thought to inform me that I would be kicked out of the Duomo the minute I crossed the threshold unless my shoulders were covered.
Kamala had to listen to her family complain about the heat and a disappointing patio menu, but mine just waved me off. “K, well, go get coffee with your cousin Cristina or something. See you in an hour.”
I’ve been to Italy twice. Once when I was 15 and the other in 2011 on my honeymoon. For me, returning to a country that is your parents’ home led to the realization that there’s a wild disconnect between who you are and what your family expects you to be.
To them, I was – of course – American, but because I was raised by my Italian-born mother and grandmother, culturally speaking I should be Italian.
I should speak the language (I don’t. I tried, but I knew very little).
I should know the traditions.
I should eat the food.
But all of that is vastly different from the Italian-American culture that surrounded me on Long Island.
Growing up with an immigrant parent you experience their push and pull of holding onto their culture while also assimilating to the new place they live. It wasn’t until I visited Italy that I realized how American I was despite being raised in such a way that my mother would say was more Italian than American.
There’s then a cloud of familial disappointment that hangs over the visit. So it’s not just your living family you’re disappointing, but all of your ancestors too. One grandmother can trace her family back to medieval Florence and everyone else comes from Sicily or vicinity, but we know little about those family lines. Either way, it’s a lot of Italian and Italian-adjacent ancestors to disappoint.
My family’s immigrant story is much different than Kamala’s. I can’t at all relate to her history or the history that she represents to so many Pakistani Muslims. I can relate to her as someone who was once a teenage girl and all the emotions and ridiculousness that come with it. But this aspect of Kamala’s story, the realization that you belong but not quite, is something I didn’t know I needed to hear.
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