Dina Prato
dprato@udel.edu

My name is Dina Prato and I am an Elementary Education major. I am an Italian-American, born and raised in Queens, New York. Both my parents were also born and raised in Queens. They grew up in Astoria, Queens which at that time was predominately Italian. Today, there are people of many different cultures living there.

Both my grandmothers were born in the United States but, their parents were born in Napoli, Italy. My mother's father was born and raised in Napoli and my Father's father was born and raised in southern Sicily. When my two granfathers came over their families found it important to stay close to their family instead of traveling in the country they just arrived in.

My grandfathers' families all lived within a few blocks of eachother. They did everything together from eating to working together. These families remained this way until my parents and theircousins reached their late teens. They realized it was time to start their own family so they all began to move to different parts of New York. This caused many of the relatives to grow apart.

Today, I still consider myself Italian but I don't feel that my ties with my culture are as strong as my grandparents would have liked them to be. My family and I still keep up some of the traditions for example, sitting all together for an early Sunday dinner, eating fish on Christmas Eve and getting together to decorate our Christmas tree. However, I would still like to know more about my heritage so I hope to visit Napoli and Sicily one day. In doing this I could learn more about my grandparents and be able to continue traditions and find other ones that have disappeared through the years.