I can’t remember the first time I heard The Godfather’s opening line, “I believe in America.” I must have been old enough to stomach the prolific violence, but young enough not to grasp the significance of the film in the minds of Americans — especially Italian Americans.
Later, when I read and reread the novel, I thought of my own family. My maternal great-grandparents Theresa and Glorio fled a poverty-stricken town in Southern Italy as teenagers only to find themselves penniless in New York. They brought seven children — one boy and six girls — into the world in perilous circumstances. Five of their daughters, including my grandmother Lucia, survived childhood.
