A Gonzaga in Florence Alum Returns…as a Professor!
Jessica Maucione, PhD
Gonzaga University
English Department
A Gonzaga in Florence Alum Returns…as a Professor!
A ¼ Italian-American growing up in a mill-town in the Inland Northwest, I convinced myself that any dissatisfaction I felt or troubles I faced were largely to blame on my being cut off from the land and culture of my Italian ancestors. American popular culture was rife with images of what those ancestors might have been like—warm and happy and always wanting to feed me. So at twenty years old, when I came here as a Gonzaga-in-Florence student, I was finally coming home. Despite the naiveté inherent in this very American indulgence in nostalgia—I really did feel “at home” in a way that I had never before.
Twenty years later, returning to teach at Gonzaga-in-Florence at forty years old, I have the opportunity to reflect on what this is about. Week one I heard Giuseppe’s voice booming from Alessandro’s office. The man, whose pensione I lived in in 1997-98, must have been a world-famous announcer in another life—the voice is unmistakable! Full of the celebration of shared memories and the wonderful coincidence of our reunion—Italian style in other words—we caught up and he extended a sincere offer to feed me at his new hotel where he continues to host GIF students. I head to 85 Cavour for lunch every chance I get. When I lived at his old pensione, Grazie e Giselda, he converted me from a Maucione (ma see own) to a MAUCIONE (ma oo chee OH nay). He made of my American stumbling block of a name an Italian declaration of pure joy. He shouted it out all of the time—I would come running and he would tell me the news: “MAUCIONE…today we become communists!” or “MAUCIONE…you have received a package!” To hear my name in his voice again makes me realize what that has meant to me. He has no idea that he has been feeding me all these years.
In addition to rediscovering Giuseppe, I have the surreal honor of being now a colleague of three of my former professors: Professoressa Carrara whose Art History class demanded my attention beyond what I had ever known and whose year-long Florence of the Medici brought the city’s history alive for me; Professoressa Lastrucci whose willingness to be vulnerable in the classroom helped make me more brave in my effort to learn and speak Italian, and Professore Batterman, living proof that through language and cultural adoption an American can become a Florentine, whose conversational Italian courses helped me carve out my own corner of Florence. These professors continue to invite Gonzaga students into a Florence that few outsiders will ever know—and they stay so young doing it: 20 years has not aged them!
As always, my greatest honor is to be in front of the classroom. This semester I am awed by the honesty and courage of my Writing Traveler students who are so boldly exploring the ways in which their identities and inner lives intersect with new geographies and experiences through poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction writing. The students in my The North and the South: Italy and Beyond literature course surprise and impress me constantly with their intellectual curiosity and rigor as they investigate how contemporary literary and cinematic texts map migrations and register conflicts between north and south (Italy’s as well as “the Global North/South”) through engaging literature and films of the Italian and African diasporas.
I have the pleasure, too, of introducing my 4-year-old son, Enzo, and my almost 2-year-old daughter, Ani, to a culture that absolutely adores bambini. May my son grow up to be a man who at the sight of a young boy’s tears on his way home from school, exclaims, “poverino!” and changes directions to buy a chocolate at the nearest café to present to the “poor little boy.” May my daughter become a better citizen of the world through the hours she spends here with her Venetian bambinaia who sings to her in three languages, gives her foot massages with full admiration for the distances those tiny feet already traverse, and cooks her a variety of local fare for pranzo. May they be present, direct, live slowly, enjoy food, may they approach all work they do as art and take the kind of pride in it that lends itself to generosity and longevity.
May my students and children, like me, have the opportunity to return to Florence—to revisit who they are in the spring of 2018 and to remember everything they are and hope to be and what it means to live well.