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| Re: What's Sonia Sotomayor's racial background? (457669) | |||
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Re: What's Sonia Sotomayor's racial background? |
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Posted by SMAZ on Thu Jun 4 01:15:03 2009, in response to Re: What's Sonia Sotomayor's racial background?, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Wed Jun 3 06:34:25 2009. My grandmother did learn English, and spoke it well, although as she aged, she began going back, and spoke sort of half Dutch/Half English, but that had to do with age, as she did speak it well until she got into her 90's.My grandmother was already in her 50's when she came here. It's hard at that age to learn a new language. She understood it OK but could never really speak it properly. Her circle of friends were mostly other Italians or first-generation Americans who could speak Italian. She always spoke to me in Italian even though I would speak back in English as a kid. In later years, after I had lived in Italy for many years, I started speaking in Italian to her since I had become fluent by then. She lived to 98 years old. All my aunts and uncles, as well as my mother and grandfather became citizens....my grandmother is the only one that didn't. Same here (including my brother) except for my grandmother (for language reasons) and my mother who stayed an Italian citizen for the purpose of strange property laws in Italy and to smooth me and my dad's transfer to Italy since we were both US Citizens (my dad being naturalized) as she served as our immigration sponsor. The others all renounced their Italian citizenship. I became a naturalized Italian citizen at 18 and retain dual citizenship. That's the most ironic part of all! My mother's side of the family left Holland because it was pretty bad there after the German occupation during WWII, and the aftermath of the war. They had it "pretty good" there compared to others, but still chose to come here. Interestingly, while they worked like dogs, they were quite poor here. Strangely, Holland began to get better right around when they left, as did much of Europe, but they struggled hard here, but they did eventually make it. Hard workers. Yes times were bad then. It was sink or swim. My grandparents (with my aunt who was still their dependant child) came under similiar circumstances. My grandfather died at only 67-69 and I hardly remember him. My grandmother kept working well into her 70's. The newer generations will never know how tough it was. |
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