My name is Rose Romano. There is an essay about me
(“The Scum of the Scum of the Scum”:
Rose Romano’s Search for Sisterhood) included in Chiara Mazzucchelli’s
book The Heart and the Island, which
was published by your press. According to your description, the book discusses
Sicilian-American literature.
I don’t belong in this book. I have never
identified as Sicilian-American and I am not a part of Sicilian-American
literature. If Mazzucchelli had bothered to do her research, she would have
known that.
She talks about my “notion of
Sicilian-Americanness” and how I used my “Sicilian heritage.” I have no notion
of Sicilian-Americanness and I have no Sicilian heritage to use. In fact, I
don’t even know what “Sicilian-Americanness” means. Sicilians have always been
foreigners to me. I have always identified as Neapolitan.
In her article, she says : “According to the
family history, her grandparents on her father’s side “were Neapolitan /
nobility, owned property on the bay, named [her] / father Victor, after the
king—they knew him / personally” (“Just Two More,” Vendetta 10). Ironizing on
the self-aggrandizing family mythology, the poet wonders why no adequate
explanation has ever been provided to her as to the reasons that pushed this
allegedly rich couple to leave its
fortunes and titles—count and countess—behind in Naples to become in the United
States just ‘two more / wops’.”
Mazzucchelli knows absolutely nothing about my
family history. She seems to be basing her ideas on her own prejudices and stereotypes
and her need to further her own career by publishing.
My poem does not ironize on “the self-aggrandizing
family mythology.” It simply reports the truth, although that truth, within the
poem, is incomplete. My “allegedly rich” grandfather was the ward of King
Vittorio Emanuele II. He was a count; his wife was a countess. My Neapolitan
grandparents went back and forth between Naples and New York and happened to be
in New York when they ran out of money. But they had enough money left to buy a
house and to open a business. Only a rich person would think he was poor
because he couldn’t afford to live in a castle. And, considering what was going
on in Italian politics at the time, there were good reasons for a count to want
to stay in New York, reasons that my grandfather would not have wanted to tell
his children.
But, instead of checking her information or
admitting that she’s guessing, she just presents her guesses as though they’re
facts and calls my aunt a liar.
She says: “The contestatory potential of Sicilian
Americanness as a discourse in Romano’s hands is easy to discern when one
introduces the element of choice in the poet’s process of self-ascription.”
This is the entire poem:
Just Two More
My aunt, keeper of the family history, says
my grandparents were Neapolitan
nobility, owned property on the bay, named my
father Victor, after the king—they knew him
personally. They seem to have come over
accidentally. My aunt can’t offer a satisfactory
reason why they would leave a home of
respect and riches—a count and countess—
to come so far to this classless
society, where they were just two more
wops. I try to imagine the bay, the hills
rising in green steps around it,
Mt. Vesuvius smoking. But when my aunt
explains that my grandparents owned a
villa in Castellammare, which she describes
as a suburb of Naples, all I can see
is my cousin at his barbecue in his backyard
in Staten Island.
If you can show me a “process of self-ascription”
as Sicilian-American in this poem, I will eat my computer. This
“self-ascription” is Mazzucchelli’s own invention. Instead of doing research,
she presumes to read my mind and concludes, according to her own stereotypes
and prejudices, that I wanted to be Sicilian in order to escape the lies of my
Neapolitan family—something which I, myself, did not find “easy to discern.”
She backs up nothing that she writes.
A self-ascription is a yes to oneself, not a no to
others.
The only time she recognizes my being Neapolitan,
which she manages to ignore at the same time,
is when she tries to use my “Neapolitanness” to back up her claim that I
identify as Sicilian, in the process making me and my aunt look bad. The
expression double-think comes to mind.
I’ve met people who are under the impression that
venting and writing poetry are the same thing. Some people seem to think that
every poem a poet writes is about her and gives an accurate account of some
event in her life. But a poem is the same as any other piece of literature—some
of it is real, some of it is symbolical, some of it is true of other people,
some of it is just made up to make a point.
But a literary critic can be expected to be more sophisticated
and to know better. Mazzucchelli should at least be honest enough to know that
she has no idea whether this story of my family is true or not. She should be
educated at least well enough to know the difference between a poem and an
autobiography. She should have enough understanding of literature to know that
the authors of murder mysteries aren’t necessarily murderers.
I’m betting Mazzucchelli doesn’t even know what
this poem is about. It’s not about my family. If I’m remembering the
terminology correctly, this story about my family would be the “occasion” of
the poem, not the subject.
The poem is about assimilation, particularly in
the way it’s accomplished within Italian-American culture, a culture born of
Italian culture. The first generation, arriving in the United States, would
have left half their culture behind and lived in what they were able to salvage
and to hide in their hearts, even from their own children. The second
generation, who typically wanted only to be American, would not have investigated
much, only dropping a few crumbs to their own children. The third generation is
already replacing Italian images with American images.
You’d think an Italian literary critic who’s
qualified to evaluate English-language literature would have seen that very
easily. I think the meaning of that poem is pretty obvious.
I wrote to her to ask her why she wrote these
things. She said she tried to find me but couldn’t. Is that the general practice
of academics—if you can’t do the research, you just make things up to suit your
own purposes?
She could have found me if she tried hard enough.
I have always had my residenza at the address where I live. It’s been my
experience that many Italians believe anyone in authority. If she had presented
herself as an authority, even the police would have given her my address. In
spite of the privacy laws, the police have handed out my personal information
on more than one occasion.
She even quotes one-third of my dedication to Vendetta, calling it “bitter-sweet.” My
dedication was not bitter-sweet. It was intended to show gratitude, as all
dedications are. Mazzucchelli uses this partial quote to read my mind. And what
does this dedication have to do with my work?
This article is about me, someone she knows
nothing about, and not my work.
If a critic thinks my work is crap and backs it up
with reasons that make sense, that doesn’t bother me. But this article is about
me and not about my work and it’s just a list of lies.
I’ve written several e-mails to Mazzucchelli who
always responds with brief, curt, dismissive messages, sometimes suggesting that
she’d like to discuss these things but never discussing anything. She seems to
think I’ve disappeared forever and she takes advantage of that to invent me as
she pleases.
My last e-mail to Mazzucchelli was sent a week and
a half ago. I haven’t received a response.
As I said to Mazzucchelli, I don’t like being in a
book about Sicilian-Americans. I’ve very uncomfortable about it and I think
that any real Sicilian included in the book, if she believed Mazzucchelli,
would think I’m being presumptuous and ridiculous in trying to get points as a
Sicilian, and would be resentful. If I were Sicilian, I would be resentful. As
a Neapolitan, I’m ashamed to be presented as someone pretending to be something
she’s not.
In fact, I found, on the internet, another article
about me and others, that says I’m Sicilian-American. It’s copyrighted 2015
State University of New York Press, Albany and was written by Michaela Baldo
called “Italian-North American Women Writers.” It discusses Sicilian-American
writers and includes me. The author apparently got information from articles
like Mazzucchelli’s. People believe these things.
A lot of people believe what a literary critic
says because, they think, literary critics know everything and writers are all
a bunch of assholes who don’t know shit from Shinola.
What is your policy at SUNY Press? Don’t you check
information or at least require your writers to back up what they say? Don’t
your historians and biographers do research or do they all just make things up
to suit their own ideas?
I think Mazzucchelli only included this article in
her book to make it a little fatter. I know academics have to publish and
apparently some of them don’t care what they publish—they’re more concerned
with their own careers than they are with scholarship.
If this book is print on demand, please delete the
article about me now. If not, please keep it out of any future editions.
Being remembered as something you’re not means being
forgotten.
I don’t like being invented. I don’t like people
claiming to know something about me when they know nothing. I don’t like
bullshit.
Rose Romano
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