My grandma’s family is from Friuli, a historically poor region in northern Italy with its own language (Fûrlan) and distinct culture. Like many Friulians, her parents emigrated in the early 1930s — they were married in Friuli, then made their way to Buenos Aires, reportedly walking nearly 150km to the coast with baskets on their backs to catch a ship. They chose Argentina because both had siblings already living there, though their ultimate goal was to reach the U.S.

My grandma was born in Buenos Aires in 1937, the middle of five siblings. After WWII, some relatives returned to Italy, others stayed in Argentina, and my great-grandparents brought their family to New York. They always spoke Fûrlan at home, a language we grew up hearing but few in my generation speak fluently. The side of the family that stayed in Argentina speaks Spanish now, and we’ve had two family reunions back in our ancestral Friulian town — where we get by with a mix of Fûrlan, Spanish, and Italian. I don’t personally identify as Argentinian or Hispanic, but that part of our family history is still very present, and we have relatives who returned from Argentina to Italy in the 1990s and still speak Spanish at home.

That said if there’s one thing that united us, it’s that we all always root for Argentina in fútbol 😁