How I Started Seeking Asylum In Salerno

The featured photo above looks like a Duomo but no, it's The Gesu Church.

Reasons for Dual Citizenship

Ciao amici !

I’m happy to report I received much positive feedback on the last blog about why I moved to Salerno Italy. Thank you all, and especially to those of you who are interested in obtaining your Dual Citizenship (herein referred to as DC, because, well, I’m lazy…and those extra keys really zap me of all my energy in this heat).

Everyone has a different and personal reason for wanting their DC. Some want it for the emotional and sentimental attachment to their ancestors who they may or may not have known. Some for practical reasons like, their retirement funds are not going to last very long in the States unless they move to Florida, eat dinner at 4:00 and start wearing white belts with matching white shoes (and those are the men). Some of them are fed up with the medical system with astronomically high rates for an unexpected day in the hospital.

But, as my very wise friend Greg said, “it’s more important to move towards something, than away from something.” So even though I did list many negative reasons for leaving, I also wanted to move towards a very personal dream I had for decades.

I have been blessed with so many wise friends, but the one who left the biggest impression on me was my Renaissance friend Ed, who is no longer with us. One of his many dreams/accomplishments was to live in Paris part of the year, which he did. He told me that on his deathbed he never wanted to regret the things he did, but the things he DIDN’T do. That always stuck with me.,,,that and this visceral desire to live in my ancestral country.

Through my mother’s heartfelt stories of living in Abruzzo from the time I was a little girl, I fell in love with her hometown, Caramanico Terme. Although she loved America, I can now understand why she told her stories to me with such a wistful look on her face. She was forced to abandon her life in Italy because of crazy political dictators who threatened her safety and that of her family. World War II took away her dreams for the future. But she never forgot her sensory memories of the first eighteen years of her life, which she thankfully passed on to me.

But I digress…

Patience, Focus and $$

Whatever your reasons are for possibly wanting to or thinking of obtaining your DC, three things you need off the top of my head: patience, focus, and a few thousand dollars, depending on how many prior generations you need to obtain documents.

Then, you need to go to your State’s Italian Consulate website. (I can only speak from my experience with the Italian Consulate in Los Angeles. You can also obtain your DC with other European countries of your ancestry-Irish, German, whatever, whose immigration laws most likely are different). This website was invaluable to me because it spelled out very clearly whether I was eligible for DC, and what documents were needed. I thought for sure I could obtain mine through my mother, but I was wrong…because by the time I was born, she was already a U.S. citizen. So I looked to my father’s side and by the time he was born in NY, his father was not yet a US citizen. Lucky me.
And so the process began. I was eligible through jure sanguine, which simply means through the bloodline. Because I went back two generations (parents and grandparents), I needed approximately fifty documents. Mamma mia! These included birth, death, marriage, naturalization for paternal grandparents and my parents, baptismal (for me-don’t ask=I had to revise my birth certificate to match my passport-that was a nightmare), translations on all American documents, an Apostile for all the American documents (this is just a certification that the information is legal and correct). There are also forms to fill out from the website for your appointment. I also had a problem with my grandfather’s dates of birth and marriage (another don’t ask) and these needed to be substantiated with help from an LA immigration lawyer and the State of N.Y. My cousin Gianrufo in Caiazzo was a tremendous help in obtaining my grandparents’ docs-mille grazie Gianrufo!!

Once you obtain all these ORIGINAL documents either through your family or through a service who will research and obtain your documents for you through church records and/or the commune of the city or town your ancestor came from, you need to go to your Consulate to present all your hard work. BUT THIS CANNOT BE DONE WITHOUT AN APPOINTMENT.
FIRST I WOULD RECOMMEND THAT YOU CALL THE NUMBER ON THE WEBSITE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO PRESENT ALL YOUR DOCUMENTS. THIS APPOINTMENT MIGHT NOT BE AVAILABALE FOR A YEAR OR MORE AS WAS THE CASE IN LOS ANGELES. SO IF YOU MAKE THE APPOINTMENT YOU HAVE ALL THAT TIME TO GET YOUR DOCS IN ORDER (NO PUN INTENDED). YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THE CALL (mine cost about $30.00), BUT I RECOMMEND DOING THIS BEFORE YOU START THE PROCESS OF OBTAINING THE DOCS. IF YOU FIND YOU NEED MORE TIME FOR THE APPOINTMENT, YOU CAN ALWAYS CHANGE IT ON THE CONSULATE WEBSITE. NO CHARGE. My appointment was a year out. I couldn’t believe it because all my documents were ready.
Your situation might be easier than mine. Maybe you have only one generation to go back to or maybe your family in the States has some of the original docs. I had no original documents and had to start from square one in New York and Italy, which was very time consuming.

And then you wait. And wait. And wait some more. After three months, I thought for sure I’d be receiving it any day. I then began to follow up with emails, phone calls and more emails and more phone calls. I begged, I pleaded for any information they might have as to the status of my DC. We know nothing, they kept saying. Your paperwork is in Rome. (I thought of hiring a thug, but…. Instead at the six-month mark, I hired an attorney… they couldn’t help but knew of an attorney in Rome who specializes in these cases. Did I want his number. DUH. Ultimately, you guessed it…no luck. So I put it out of my mind for a while, and then just decided to start de-cluttering my place and strategizing THE MOVE.

Don’t be discouraged

If you were able to read all the above without getting too terribly discouraged, I suggest you take it in parts. It’s a lot less daunting that way. Make the appointment, make a list of what you have to do. I know someone who put it all on a spreadsheet, but that was way to hi-tech for me. The information-gathering process became a kind of game for me. I became a woman obsessed. I’d like to say too obsessed where I stopped eating, but I always draw the line at food. I really did stay very focused and was so grateful to anyone either online or on the phone who was able to help in any way.

As I was planning my exit from Los Angeles, as crazed as I became over all the details, eventually I realized I still hadn’t received the DC. This affected what kind of plane ticket to purchase-one way or round trip, which clothes to pack and for how many seasons. It affected how many months of prescriptions I might need, and most importantly, how long do I book the airbnb – for my three-month tourist visa or longer?? It was now around December. What to do. Hmmm. I decided to stop being a control freak and to forget about the DC. Make a one-way reservation, pack for three months, (a few winter clothes, mostly spring and a few summer pieces in case it got hot early.) The airbnb I chose was available for three months-lucky me. Everything was starting to fall into place once I let go of trying to control the things I had no control over.

So now I’ve arrived, I’m living and loving my new home, my new city, my Italian school and all my excursions to the Amalfi Coast and other nearby beautiful locations. Two months pass and I realized I don’t know what my future holds (does anyone really?) Where is this damn DC already.

I learned about a patronato, which is a person who can help with legal and other issues for immigrants at no charge. I found one subito, who unfortunately was not able to get the information locally. I consulted with a local attorney who told me I could get my visa stamped in the UK to stay legally in Italy for another three months, but it was too complicated. Not to be discouraged, I went to another Commune office in Salerno, and after waiting a couple of hours was told that the papers are in Rome, they couldn’t help me. I’ve now got about three weeks till my tourist visa expires and I’m really getting nervous. I plan to go to Rome to see if I can force my way into the appropriate office wearing a tasteful but low-cut blouse. The patronato gave me all the contact information and I make a plan for the following week.

In the meantime, I’m wondering, where am I going to go for the three months that I have to be out of the European Union? I didn’t want to return to the States because my Italian skills were progressing (my verbs moved into past and imperfect tenses) and I didn’t want to lose all my hard work. One of the Swiss students at school told me about Ticino, Switzerland, which is an Italian-speaking area in Switzerland near Lago Maggiore, bordering Italy. I frantically try to find a place to live that’s not going to break the budget. Good luck to me because all of Switzerland is extremely expensive. Not to mention that I got differing views on whether or not Switzerland is in the EU. Mamma mia! Every day was another adventure.

OK, so maybe I’ll go back to the States, but where? This starts a whole new panic. And then the miracle happened about a week before I was planning to leave Italy. My DC comes through in an email. I was so excited, I couldn’t believe it and had to read the email several times to make sure I was reading it correctly.

Living it up in Salerno

I was walking on air for a couple of days and telling anyone who would listen to my broken Italian of my new status. Within a day or two, I had to go to the Commune in Caiazzo (which is near Caserta, which is near Naples) to get my Codice Fiscale, Italy’s version of a social security number. Success! It didn’t take all day. My cousin Gianrufo was kind enough to help me throughout the process of getting the necessary documents for my grandparents and now was part of the final stretch. We celebrated by going for lunch and having the best pizza in town.

My Italian citizenship has changed my perspective on Italy overnight. I now look around my city to see how I fit in. Do I look American or more Italian now 🙂 I feel more of a sense of stability, like I can plan a little bit more for the future. I joined a gym, I’m in the process of starting a book club, I was invited to an international cultural group of people who want to brush up on their English and enjoy lectures and art events in English, I’m still trying to finish my online certification course for teaching ESL here in Salerno. I was lucky enough to meet Gary and Bill from Little Rock, Arkansas who have become good friends and can also recite their favorite Seinfeld quotes. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I hope this incredibly long dispatch was helpful and maybe even inspirational to those of you straddling the ‘should I or shouldn’t I do this already’ line. Please feel free to comment, ask questions and definitely share with your friends. Salerno is a great place to start out if you want to make the Big Move but don’t know where to start. Plus, selfishly speaking I need to increase my social circle.

On that happy high note, I’ll include some photos of another day trip to Naples, a dinner in Maiori on the Amalfi Coast, another photo of Nutella for relative comparisons, a terrible video I took of artist Bill Pappaleo creating a piece to some avant-garde music (very cool) from my new English speaking cultural group, and a slightly better video from a little fishing town called Cetara (famous for anchovies) on the feastday of San Pietro Apostolo. Specially-chosen devoted parishioners carried around the statue, hopping not walking, and then dipped themselves and the statue into the water three times (ankle deep), walking backwards towards the beach each time. After prayers over the statue and some singing (them not me), we returned to our blankets on the beach for the best fireworks I think I’ve ever seen (at midnight-but why is everything so late here )-we ate our goodies from town-no anchovies for me, thank you very much. My first festa- I was definitely feeling a little more Italian that night.

Stay tuned for more blogs on dating, food, miscommunication, stupid superstitions, beach atrocities and other odd observations in my new homeland.

Ciao for now, amici !

Naples, Salerno and Amalfi Coast

Best fireworks ever.

Carrying the statue to the beach.

Cetera, before showtime.

Bill Papaleo, American artist and Salerno resident, painting to some very contemporary beyond jazz-type music.

Look closer at this façade of S. Gesu chiesa in Napoli. Penance takes on a whole new meaning

And that moon kept following us around town. When I took this photo, I was thinking of the scary movies I’ve seen with the solitary car in the isolated parking lot. Danger ahead😳 But not this night. Tranquil and delicious as it can get in the Amalfi Coast.

Two ceiling frescoes in the commune (city hall). I would go in person to pay a parking ticket if I could look at these beauties.

Another fresco

Archival books and manuscripts inside the cloistered library.

The ceramic-designed courtyard in a Napoli convent.

Fine Italian design does not stop at toilet bowl cleaners. This from the museum bathroom. I 💋l’Italia !

Guarda la luna! Who remembers that movie? ... yes...Moonstruck. The grandfather walking the dogs. Anyway, this is in the sweet little town of Maiori on the Amalfi coast...the day after the lunar eclipse. Fyi...the Italian word lunatico means a goofy/crazy person.

A man without a name... a pop up exhibit on loan from the Naples Museum of Archeology. And in our very own Salerno piazza!

Short video of Bill Pappaleo painting to some eclectic vibes.

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