99%: A Reflection on Ancestry and Interconnection

When asked about my ethnic heritage I have always said I am 50% Italian and 50% Northern European mutt, with the mutt side coming down my mother’s line. There was never a question that my father’s family was anything but 100% Italian.

My great-grandfather, Salvatore Castagnola immigrated to the United States from Genoa, Italy with his brother in the early 1900s. Commercial fisherman, they both established successful fishing enterprises here in Santa Barbara. Salvatore sent for my great-grandmother, Cesira Ghio, soon after his arrival in Santa Barbara and they married in 1906. He was 30 years old. She was 16. The couple had 8 sons and 3 daughters. My Grandma Eva was the middle daughter.

I never knew my great-grandfather, but I did know my great-grandmother, whom everyone in the family called Nannie. As a child I spent many Sunday afternoons at her house on Santa Barbara St., in what is now the Funk Zone, with my Grandma Eva and her sisters, eating raspberry filled cake from Henning's Bakery and drinking cups of coffee my grandma would pour for us. We kids felt very grown up as we heaped tablespoons of sugar into our milky cups of coffee.

Sometimes we sat at the kitchen table at Nannie’s house listening to the grown ups share family gossip in both English and Italian -- Though Nannie came to this country when she was 16, she never became fluent in English. -- Often though, my cousin and I would play outside among the lobster traps or in the giant ice room in the fish processing building, or we’d sneak into the closed Castagnola Brothers fish market right next door to the house, pretending we worked there. Later, both of us would.

My Grandpa Joe’s parents also immigrated from Italy to Santa Barbara, where they leased land on the Riveria to farm Lima beans. My Grandma Eva says my Grandpa Joe was a show off as a teenager. But show off or not, Eva Angelina Castagnola married Joseph Bregante in 1933 and had eight children together including two sets of twins. My dad is the oldest. And I was the first grandchild -- some would argue the spoiled favorite grandchild. I have many, many memories of my Grandma Eva’s tiny kitchen, watching her make homemade ravioli or gnocchi for holidays, eating her “green spaghetti” (long before anyone knew what pesto pasta was). My grandma could usually be found either in her kitchen or on her knees digging in her yard, planting and tending the flowers she loved.

My Italian ancestry was always something I took pride in. Then my dad sent me a little kit in the mail, a genetic test kit from a company called 23 And Me. I spit into a little vile, slapped a bar code on it, and mailed it off to 23 And Me for analysis. Here are the results from my Ancestry Report:

British and Irish 26.8% - no big surprise there

French and German 19.2 % - interesting

Scandinavian 6.1% - not sure where that comes from

Broadly Northwestern European 34% - ok

Italian 5.1%...

Now wait a minute. 5.1% Italian? What about my great-grandparents? How about my Roman nose? What about all those homemade ravioli my grandma learned how to make from her mother, who was born and raised in Genoa? This is not at all who I thought I was. I have more Scandinavian genes than Italian genes? I don’t know how to be Scandanavian!

But there you have it. DNA doesn’t lie and mine is not nearly as Italian as I thought. But does that really change anything? Who I am is shaped by more than my genes. So I started thinking about where I came from. And I came across a project by poet George Ella Lyon called “Where I’m From: A Poetry of Place.” Adapted for classroom use, you can go online and download a “Where I’m From” poetry template. I decided to try my hand at one.


Where I’m From

I am from East Gutierrez Street and a house full of olive skinned aunts and uncles.
I am from ranch hands from Oklahoma and house cleaners from Missouri.

I am from large battered cast iron pots and smells of tomato sauce and turkey soup.
I am from fresh-baked dinner rolls, fried chicken, and sweet tea.

I am from 7-Up and Vicks VapoRub when you’re sick.
From Dr. Pepper and Lawrence Welk on Saturday night.

I am from Ravioli for Christmas Dinner and opening presents youngest to oldest.
From Eva and Joe, Effie and Vern.

I am from “just a little ‘t time” and “oh fiddle.”
I’m from impatiens and begonias, and from sheets snapping on the clothesline.

I am from lapsed Catholicism.
I am from evangelical alter calls, speaking in tongues, and “in Jesus’ name we ask it.”

I am from Uncle Ronald who died at 21.
I am from Grandma Eva who died at 102.

I am from my Nana on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and “I just don’t know why people make such a big deal out of him.”

I keep a photo of young Grandma Eva all dressed up like I’ve never seen her.
I keep Nana’s hankies in my sock drawer.
I light candles for them all on The Day of the Dead, inviting them to visit.

I look at their faces and see my own.
***

So I have my genes, and my ancestors, and my stories that make me uniquely me. But in this time of divisiveness and tribalism, maybe that’s not what I should be concerned about. Rather than what makes me unique, maybe I should be looking at what connects me with everyone else.

According to my DNA, I am just 5% Italian. But maybe what’s more interesting is that I share 99% of my DNA with every other human on Earth -- not to mention 98% with Chimpanzees! Maybe it makes more sense to stand in awe of the fact that I share 99% of my DNA with a refugee fleeing  El Salvador, a man experiencing addiction and homelessness, and even a narcissistic politician. Maybe I need to help mend the tears in our interconnected web by first focusing on our connections rather than my uniqueness.

Some time ago I went to hear a lecture by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit Priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. He said many things that inspired me and gave me hope. He spoke of compassion and kinship. Here is a quote from his book, “Tattoos On the Heart:”

“No daylight to separate us. Only kinship. Inching ourselves closer to creating a community of kinship such that God might recognize it. Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.”


I am 5.1% Italian, but I am 100% human. I want to us to stop throwing away our brothers and sisters.