For Italian-speaking students returning from study abroad in Italy or just beginning the process of learning the fundamentals of the language, Italian practice at Wesleyan need not be confined to the classroom.
Middletown merchants of Italian origin often speak their native language to family members and sometimes to others, including interested students, who wish to speak. Middletown has a relatively large Italian- American community due to a large influx of Italian immigrants following the conclusion of World War II.
Italian is spoken in stores throughout Middletown. On campus, two stores, run by two extraordinary ladies, would certainly offer interested students the opportunity to converse with them in their first language.
Rosa Aresco, who owns Giuseppe’s Pizzeria on Church Street, values the rapport she has had with Wesleyan students since she opened her store with her husband, Joseph, in 1991.
“I’ve always had students work here,” Rosa said. “I feel very relaxed with students around.”
Rosa takes pictures periodically of students in her pizzeria and she adorns the interior of her place with these pictures so that students are excited to return but also because she enjoys looking at them on a daily basis.
“Some of them stick out for me, I just notice them more than others,” Rosa said.
Rosa speaks to her children in Italian, but English is predominantly spoken in the store. Only if a customer shows a willingness to converse in Italian will Rosa switch.
“I used to speak Italian a lot more with the students,” Rosa said. “The Italian TA’s used to bring in groups of seven, maybe, and we would speak only Italian. Still, I always welcome students who want to speak Italian with me.”
Rosa came to the United States when she was twenty and spent her first fifteen years here as a homemaker.
“It was difficult at first for me to learn English because I was at home most of the time where Italian was spoken with the family,” Rosa said.
Rosa then insisted on going back to school; she went to night school at a local community college and took a course to become a real estate agent.
“I was a real estate agent for fifteen years,” Rosa said. “While I was working, so many Italian people in Middletown didn’t speak English, so I was able to communicate between parties.”
Albina Benzi, who owns the Campus Tailoring and Alterations store at 238 Williams Avenue, may even be more willing to speak Italian in her store that she has owned since 1995. Albina interacts with her customers in English out of necessity she says, but prefers to speak in Italian whenever otherwise possible.
The one room store has a Singer sowing machine against one wall with an assortment of different colored threads above. Straight ahead, in front of clothes hung closely together from a bar, stands a headless female mannequin wearing a 1950’s red and white cotton dress.
While sewing, Albina explains how she was an “apprendista” or an apprentice to “la maestra di cucito,” the mistress who would teach aspiring seamstresses in Italy.
“I did not pay to learn [to sew, knit, and crochet] because I did the work for ‘la maestra di cucito,’” Albina said. “But now it is different and most Italians go on to school after high school.”
Albina has enjoyed working with Wesleyan students, particularly when they speak Italian with her.
“It makes me feel more comfortable when someone can speak my language,” Albina said.
Albina usually speaks a bright Italian on the phone either with her children or with friends, but switches aptly to English when a customer enters. She insists that she does not speak English well, but her business is quite steady with an English-speaking clientele.
When asked about her relationship with Wesleyan, Albina said, “I can’t complain.” She recalls with a smile the time when she was asked by a student to make a cloth cover for a very large sculpture.
“Mamma mia,” Albina explained, remembering the effort involved in making the immense cloth covering.
“I also made a Chinese flag for a student and a Puerto Rican flag, also, ”Albina said.
In 2000, Albina, her husband and three children went to Sicily to visit family.
“All my children can speak Italian,” Albina said. “I think it’s important for them to know the language and they are bilingual.”
Rosa’s three children, one of whom studied in Florence for a year, all speak Italian.
“But one of them only speaks Sicilian,” Rosa said.
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