It was exactly two years ago today that I met my family in Sicily for the first time. It was pretty exciting to find out that I had so many relatives in a different part of the world, and I never expected that we’d form such a close bond after meeting so late in life! While we only met two years ago, the story actually started much longer than two years ago…
Let’s go back to 2006. My parent’s first trip to Italy. They went on a big bus tour where they covered the mainland of Italy + Sicily. As most tours provide, they had some free time for an excursion in Sicily, where they hired a private guide to take them to the small town my father’s grandfather emigrated from, Castelbuono. Castelbuono is a medieval town in the Madonie mountains. It’s about an hour and a half east of Palermo and only 25 minutes south of the picturesque beach town, Cefalu. Their guide, Giacomo, was on a quest to find my dad’s family–“Michael, we gonna find you papa!!” is how my parents always described in their version of the story. Giacomo took my parents to the church where they found the baptismal records of my father’s grandfather, Vincenzo DiStefano. Through these records they were able to find our oldest living relative in Castelbuono, my dad’s father’s first cousin, Giuseppina. After lots of tears and photos, that was it, we never kept in touch.
And who could blame them? My parents do not speak Italian, Giuseppina was over 80 years old and didn’t speak English. It was 2006, when Facebook barely existed in the capacity it does now for connecting people. She did tell them that there were younger relatives that owned a photography studio in town. Studio Fotografico DiStefano. My parents took a business card as a keepsake and again, that was it. I visited Sicily for the first time in 2009 but decided Castelbuono was too hard to get to and didn’t try to find my family. It seemed impossible.
Fast forward to 2018. Joe and I were planning a trip to drive the northern coast of Sicily. This is when I decided a stop in Castelbuono wasn’t too far out of reach. We were going through my parents scrapbook from 2006 and found the business card from the photography studio–Studio Fotografico DiStefano. I gave it a quick google, found an email on their website and started to write in basic Italian. Subject: “Ciao from NY!”. I explained who I was, attached a picture of my father with Giuseppina and shared that I was coming to Sicily. I asked if he was open to meeting up with us. Certo! (of course!). My cousin, Marco DiStefano, welcomed me with open arms and I was excited to see where my ancestors came from. As third generation Italian American, it is important to recognize that our culture is much different than Italian culture in Italy, and Sicilian culture has unique characteristics of it’s own. Although I had spent a lot of time in Italy prior to this trip, I knew there was so much more to learn about my Sicilian heritage. When we arrived at the hotel in Castelbuono, Relais Santa Anastasia (on beautiful vineyard!!), the staff recognized my surname as Castelbuonese and knew of my family immediately. They were excited for us that we were meeting for the first time!
Marco and his wife, Patrizia, greeted me and Joe at the hotel and took us for a full day of sightseeing in the historic town, a very big, long lunch (in Italian fashion) and then introduced us to the rest of the family who had been waiting for us. I learned that my great grandfather had one brother that remained in Castelbuono, and my family there are his descendants. He had five children, all of which had children of their own, including one daughter who had 7 children! I have a lot of family in Castelbuono! It was so amazing to connect with everyone so strongly, even with the language barrier. We spent the entire night partying with them in the piazza–getting back to our hotel at 4 AM!! It was a wild 20 hours together and we knew we had bonded for life. Every holiday we make sure to video chat and we visited them the following year for 5 days in Castelbuono during their big festival, La Festa di Sant’Anna. We cannot wait to return with our baby Marco and teach him all about his Castelbuonese roots. I am so grateful to Marco DiStefano for being so inviting and introducing me to my entire Sicilian family. La vita è bella!!
