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An Italian Immigrant or Two and their Famous Descendants

As an Italian immigrant to the United States or as a descendant of Italian immigrants, you might be interested in learning more about two Italian immigrants (or descendants of Italian immigrants who truly aided in adding their own mark on the molded dimensions of America as we know it today.¹

John Ciardi: The Italian American Poet²
John Ciardi wasn’t exactly an Italian immigrant but since his parents were, in a very real sense he was as well. After all, many immigrants and especially their children would probably agree that an Italian immigrant’s children are likely to act out the finishing chapters of their parents’ experiences. In many cases, it would seem that the parents’ sacrifice becomes the children’s success and very often the children’s success becomes the parents’ story. In many ways, it would seem that this was the case for John Ciardi.

John Ciardi was born in Boston or more specifically in Little Italy. Though he was indeed the embryo of a great and truly flexible literary mind, his mother was illiterate in her native tongue as well as in regards to the English language. She however sacrificed to finance Ciardi’s education as did three of his sisters. He didn’t disappoint his familial female entourage. He did indeed go to college and eventually received a Master’s of Arts degree. He entered the Air Corps during World War II, and after returning from his station, married and later began to teach at Harvard. It was at Harvard that Ciardi translated Dante’s Inferno into English and his translation is thought by many to be very superior in quality (poetry can be extremely difficult to translate). He helped organize poetic anthologies with good poetic taste and encouraged his students to work with traditional methods first when writing poetry, before abandoning those methods for less stringent modern styles.

Robert De Niro
Robert de Niro! Now there’s a familiar name but if you took a look at this guy’s picture you might not find what you are expecting. I’m not referring to the very masculine and famous actor that many modern Americans are familiar with; rather I am referring to his father, Robert de Niro Sr. who happens to be an artist. According to an online source³, de Niro’s paintings have been placed “in the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums and other major institutions.” Also, in the same article, it is said that Robert de Niro “[is] admired for the unusual “physicality” of his painting” which seems like a fitting description once de Niro’s semi-robust and unabashed hale-human images are viewed with their robust pigments and seemingly infantile color schemes. At any rate, de Niro Sr. is the child of “an Irish mother and Italian father,” which can perhaps point to the idea that they are both first generation immigrants although that piece of “data” will not be substantiated in this article. De Niro’s artwork has been a contributory to the natural flow and ebb of artistic energy and output but perhaps one of his greatest contributions has been through his son Robert de Niro Jr. who continues his Italian immigrant and Irish immigrant heritage with his own unique onscreen talents and abilities. His was an Italian/Irish heritage, a combination of two cultures that are thought of as some of the most temperamental, and passionate in the world and perhaps much of his “passion” was passed on to his son.

1 http://www.niaf.org/research/contribution.asp#arts
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ciardi
3 http://www.niaf.org/research/contribution.asp#arts

Article Source: http://www.familyhistoryarticles.com

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