My grandparents, having lived through Italian colonization and the subsequent fight for independence, were keenly aware of the erasure that comes with cultural subjugation. They resisted assimilation as a means to sustain within our home the history, knowledge, culture, and traditions of our people as the very real danger of erasure was ever present. The knowledge of our ancestors was encased in the rich, guttural tones of our native tongue, and the preservation of that language was the only way to keep our ancestral knowledge alive. ... I had bended and broken my tongue in order to sound as American as possible, not realizing what I was losing in exchange. I thought I was conquering a new language; instead it was conquering me. In my youthful exuberance and ignorance, I had unwittingly participated in my own erasure, and when I finally understood what my grandmother meant all those years, it was too late. I would never be able to retrieve the memories and knowledge my grandfather carried with him. It had all been lost to the sands of time.
