L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2024 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS English and never became an American citizen. What is my culture? For Italian-Ameri- cans, if one can generalize, life is a lesson in Italian. Most of us take pride in our Italian- American identity. Why did you return to Puglia? I first came to Bari in 2017 when I was invited to give a s e m i n a r o n t h e " F a m i l y Records" photographs I had taken of my family and my wife's family in Akron, where my grandfather had arrived from Capurso. My father told me that he used to work in the fields, orchards, or vine- yards, but American factories offered better pay, enough to buy a house and feed a family, so he left like many others in the Italian diaspora. Better a well-fed dago than a starving contadino. During that visit, I went to Capurso, from where my grandparents had depart- ed just a few years before my father was born. The exhibition was a way to connect with your o r i g i n s , b u t t h e p h o - t o g r a p h s e x t e n d e d beyond familial ties by capturing the essence of the territory. I came to Puglia to learn more about the place my fam- ily came from, not necessarily to uncover familial connec- tions. I spent last Christmas in Capurso with the family of my cousin, who is keen on genealogical research. I want- ed to better understand the place, I'm very interested in the culture of a place and the people who live in it. Although it might be described today more as a t o u r i s t d e s t i n a t i o n , Puglia was deeply agri- cultural in the past. Today, it is still an agricul- t u r a l r e g i o n , a n d I p h o - tographed it as it is now, even though it's much different from the past: I wasn't look- ing for things from the past, I wanted to show the current situation. For example, the traditional landscape disap- peared, but not completely. You can see it in Alta Murgia: the land is the same, but in the background, there are wind turbines. It's very differ- ent from what Puglia was a few years ago. There's a photo of people making tomato passata: it could have been taken a hun- dred years ago because it's a very traditional image. There are still people in the coun- t r y s i d e w h o f o l l o w t h i s process, while in Bari, you go to the supermarket and buy good industrial passata. I like the idea that in the country- side, some still keep the tra- dition alive, preserving and not forgetting the past, and their culture. Then there's the photo of the sunflower with the wind turbines: I took it because I liked the idea that turbines move to follow the wind just like sunflowers turn to follow the sun. Nature tells sunflow- ers what to do, as it does with wind turbines. There are many faces in your photos, old and young together... T o n i n o a n d h i s g r a n d - daughter is a beautiful photo- graph; it shows the strong family relationship across generations. I have grand- children myself, but I don't have the same luck as Tonino because they live in Pitts- burgh. In our country, dis- t a n c e s a r e h u g e , w h i l e i n Puglia, families are close and people live near each other. It's an opportunity, life goes quickly. C a n y o u c h o o s e a photo that represents the s o u l a n d l a n d s c a p e o f Puglia? A t y p i c a l , o f t e n i c o n i c c h a r a c t e r i s t i c o f I t a l i a n - Americans is religion, and this is because it's part of our culture. My generation is C a t h o l i c a n d a t t e n d e d Catholic schools, and religion is part of our family culture. I r e m e m b e r g o i n g w i t h m y father Salvatore from Akron to Cleveland and Lake Erie f o r a p r o c e s s i o n w i t h t h e Madonna, an important cele- bration for the Italian-Ameri- can community and for us. In Puglia, I took a photo of the Madonna del Bosco in Panni, near Foggia, not because the procession was folkloristic but because it was heartfelt. There was a deep connection with the event, just like the connection people had with the land. In Panni, a place where earthquakes are com- m o n , t h e V i r g i n M a r y i s deeply venerated: twice a year, they carry their statue from the church to a chapel 5 km away, in the woods, to receive blessings so that she w i l l p r o t e c t P a n n i f r o m earthquakes. Then they bring the statue back to the church. In the photo, the Virgin's head is missing, not out of disrespect on my part but because I focused on the men carrying her as they struggle to do so. I stopped taking photos to carry her myself for a part of the procession. It was important to me. You describe Puglia as "numinous." What does that mean? Puglia is "numinous," not luminous because there's a deep connection between the people and the land, a dia- logue between the soul of the people and the ancient spirit of the land, the numen of the Romans. As I write in the exhibition catalog, if you were t o l d t h a t t h e s t o n e w a l l s , pens, and shelters that divide and punctuate fields are nat- urally occurring, you could almost believe it, they seem to grow from the earth so organically. Likewise, the people who work and shape t h a t l a n d c a n s e e m t o b e manifestations of a rich and ancient spirit that permeates the region. As challenging as daily life can be in the coun- t r y s i d e , t h e s t r e n g t h a n d grace of its stewards and the poetry of the spaces they cre- ate through cultivation can p r o v i d e a g l i m p s e o f t h e numinous for those who are looking. Beautiful Puglia. Beautiful people. Where poet- ry has become the earth. There is also a connec- t i o n t o t h e p r e s e n t i n your photos, as seen in the portrait of the expec- tant mother in a field: does she represent the "mother earth" that links t h e a n c i e n t a n d t h e future? Yes, exactly, but you can find the same connection in the photo of the young man with the ancient Senatore Cappelli wheat, or the girl who looks like she stepped out of a Botticelli painting, holding bunches of almonds. They represent the "future" of Italy. Today, many young people are taking an interest in the land and returning to farming after attending uni- v e r s i t y . T h e c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n t h e p a s t a n d t h e future is very important to me. My photos are neither those of a tourist nor those of a native Italian: they are from the perspective of an Italian- A m e r i c a n . I c o m e w i t h humility, but I come to make observations. The distance h e l p s t o s e e P u g l i a m o r e clearly: for example, the pres- ence of foreign workers in the fields was significant to me, so I made sure to include the agricultural workers because today, most shepherds are no l o n g e r I t a l i a n b u t N o r t h African or Indian. "In Puglia, there's a deep connection between the people and the land, a dialogue between the soul of the people and the ancient spirit of the land," Vitone says CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 A young woman in her orchard and, bottom left, the ancient tradition of making passata: the bright, rich red of Apulian tomatoes never changes (Photos courtesy of Joe Vitone)

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