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Permalink Reply by John C. Turley on April 11, 2010 at 11:25am

Thank you for recommending Frieidman' superb and inspiring article "America's Real Dream Team." As a second generation American of Sicilian descent on my maternal side, I remember how my grandparents instilled in their children and all of their grandchildren an appreciation for the value of a solid education. Math and science were respected disciplines held in awe most likely because we never mastered them. Please forgive me all of you Sicilian-American scientists and mathematicians since no slight is intended. Alas,I cannot count you amongst the LoPiccolos nor the Castagnas, let alone the Turleys(The Irish are another story). My children inherited these gifts thanks to my wife's Polish side, an unbroken line of architects and engineers from the Old World to the New.

It is important for Sicilians to be somewhat in control of their studies, families and surroundings. Our forte lies within the liberal and fine arts and the humanities. These are our areas of specialization and ongoing development. The Sicilian soul is given to reflection, nostalgia, observation and melancholy combined with a passion for action, drama and results.

I speculate that perhaps the Sicilian identity has a lot to do with Sicily's long and colorful political, historical and cultural traditions. Sicily was occupied for many many years by the Mediterranean powers in the dominant position at the time. We were thus raised as students of history,culture and politics since we traced our origins to the indigenous peoples of Sicily as well as the ancient Phoenecians, Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians,Germans,Vikings, Normans, English, French, Spanish, Arabs, Saracens and many other nations. I recall many a Homeric recital on the glories of ancient Sicily around a campfire rendered in Sicilian with not so immediate a translation into English. Understanding was not as important as appreciating the power of oratory Sicilian style.

Based on the Friedman article, America presents new opportunities to legal immigrants at distinct and different points in time. For the Sicilians and people of Southern Italy in the late 19th and early 20th Cenuries, the opportunity to immigrate to America opened the doors for subsequent generations to take their place in American society as business people, chefs and restauranteurs, doctors, lawyers, politicians, artists, teachers, college and university professors, homemakers, farmers and writers, as well as scientists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians. The Lucianos, Gambinos, Colombos and Coreleones offered America a different set of skills and challenges that I will not review in this post. They definitely knew how to organize things to seize and capitalize on new opportunities.

The children of Asian descent, as members of America's Dream Team, are emerging as our future scientists and mathematicians. Without piling on another needless cliche on immigraion, this indeed is a tribute to them and their parents and America's greatness. New immigrants and their children seize the opportunities that America presents to them that we see and acknowledge, but are now differently perceived through the eyes of 2nd and 3rd generation Americans. We no longer choose to work 20 hours a day and sleep and eat in our places of work to make life better for our children and their children. My grandparents once did. We are now assimilated into this unique American society of immigrants. Perhaps, this is the magical element in legal immigration that America will always be sparked and revitalized by the new ideas and achievements of recent immigants from other parts of the globe to inspire and "unfreeze" previous generations of our immigrant nation. This is the "fire" that enables us to continue to rise to the new challenges of the future. In reference to the student in the Friedman's article about America's future, I too am not worried.

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