Post your DCs names and we'll tell you what we assume about you. Snark is obviously expected!

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02/28/2022 11:35

Subject: Re:Post your DCs names and we'll tell you what we assume about you. Snark is obviously expected!

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Anonymous

Lyra: Latin and Greek name referring to the Antique harp-like instrument lyre. And there is a constellation of stars called Lyra in the northern sky. Lyra also means “brave” in Nordic.

Lydia: Greek meaning "beautiful one", "noble one", "from Lydia/Persia"

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Your Italian American family have come a long way since your illiterate great great grandparents emigrated from Sicily in the early 20th century and settled in Swampoodle, which was then considered the outskirts of Washington DC to the north of Capitol. It is the gentrified area near the U.S. Capitol and Union Station, and the Judiciary Square. The then semi-rural and semi-lawless shanty town developed during the second half of the 19th century, providing refuge for Irish emigrants after the Great Famine of Ireland. In the 1840s and 1850s, Irish immigrants came to work on buildings such as the U.S. Capitol, the Post Office, and some of the structures on the National Mall. By the 1890s, Swampoodle also became home to Italian workers who came to the District to work on the Capitol, the Library of Congress, other public buidings, and the railroads. In 1903, more Italian construction workers arrived to build Union Station.

The neighborhood was known for overcrowding, crime and outbreaks of malaria, typhoid and dysentery. But Swampoodle was also a vibrant community. Many Swampoodle residents kept goats and cows in livestock pens among the alleys dividing their modest houses. By the early 20th Century, most of the Irish American population left the Swampoodle neighborhood, while Greek and Italian immigrants and some African-Americans moved in.

The newly arrived Italians didn't have a church or an Italian-speaking priest of their own. So your great great grandparents helped a young Italian-born graduate of Catholic University's seminary, Father Nicola DeCarlo, to rent a small house on H Street NW. There he built a small altar in the parlor and built benches to serve as pews. The priest soon moved to a bigger house on Third Street NW, which became the main gathering place for the District's Italians. The working-class Italian Americans raised enough dough to buy land and build a church, Holy Rosary, at Third and F streets, which opened in 1919.

Holy Rosary is still in existence, but Swampoodle has been gone for decades, yet another victim of DC's escalating downtown real estate values. Like many of the the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Italian immigrant community, you now live in Washington's far-flung suburbs. You still return to worship and play the parish's Casa Italiana SocioCultural Cultural Center. The Casa offers Italian language instruction and courses in Italian cooking, wine tasting, and majolica, the ancient Italian art of ceramic pottery.

In fact, your family attended a cocktail reception last year honoring donors to the Casa Italiana Sociocultural Center’s Capital Founders Fund. You support CISC plans to expand the footprint of Casa Italiana to create an Italian American Museum (IAMDC) which will highlight contributions by Italian Americans in the Nation’s Capital. Your family is assisting the Marconi Project, which is collecting oral histories of Italian Americans in the Washington area. You love to talk, to listen, to laugh, and to feel connected to your ancestral ties in Southern Italy, so this volunteer work suits you perfectly.

Your parents and grandparents played the music of Italian Americans night and day: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Vic Damone, Tony Bennett, Perry Como and Louis Prima. They boasted that two of the four greatest American movies were directed by Italian Americans and explore Italian American experiences. Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull follows the gritty rise and fall of middleweight boxing champ Jake La Motta. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather highlighted the difficult journey of adjusting to USA laws and values as Michael Corleone abandoned his American ambitions to succeed his father as a crime boss. Your Italian church prays to Saint Mother Cabrini, the first U.S. citizen to be canonized in 1946, becoming the patron saint of immigrants.

Your family’s journey from illiterate but devout Sicilian peasants to hard working Italian construction workers in the early 20th century to middle class high school teachers by mid 20th century to highly educated professionals in the 21st century has been a roller coaster ride. It made more loud, fun and bearable by having so many family members and friends along for the ride with you.

You have taught Lydia and Lyra to make their own pasta, to speak Italian fluently, to appreciate music and art, and to enjoy life. They are proud of their large extended family and have many cousins, aunts and uncles in the DC area. The Pandemic was hard on them, as they were accustomed to large family get togethers, but wanted to protect their vulnerable family members from getting COVID. Now you are all triple vaccinated, family get togethers have resumed in scaled down events. In part because Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, is a trusted member of the Italian American community, your family has trusted CDC guidance during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In God, pasta, and science, your family trusts.