Capisce? (Or growing up in New York - the Brooklyn years)

When my family moved to New York, we lived in the predominantly Italian neighborhood of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn for a short time. I was around 10 years old. The area was rumored to be under the Mafia's control, but I have no idea if this was true - it was certainly the subject of constant discussion at my school. My classmates' surnames sounded like a list of the city's major crime families - my best friend was Phyllis Gambino - but their fathers all had average-sounding blue-collar jobs.

Life in Bensonhurst was a cultural collision course for my mother, to be sure, but my sister and I adjusted fairly easily. Because I did not belong to any of the area's other major ethnic groups - I was not black, Jewish, or Puerto Rican - I was mostly left alone. Fitting in required some effort, though, and my mother was both amused and appalled to hear me switch to a convincing Brooklyn accent when talking with my friends. I would have fit in even better if she had let me wear purple mascara and matching nail polish, like the other girls at school, but on this point she would not budge.

One odd consequence of living in Bensonhurst for three years is that I learned some Italian. Not from all the older folks in the neighborhood, though many of them spoke nothing else, but in school. In most New York City public schools, students have the option of learning either Spanish or French, and Spanish is favored overwhelmingly for sheer practicality. But in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, the options were Spanish or Italian. My parents were delighted - there was no question that I would take Italian. They met in Italy and spoke Italian to the landlord and his wife, and to their son who lived down the street.

Italian turned out to be much easier than French would ever be later on. And the cutest boy in school was in my Italian class - Michael Lorenzo, who at age 10 was already starting to grow a mustache.

I have forgotten most of what I learned back then, but I did manage to order coffee in Italian on a trip to Italy after high school, and I can still understand a lot of what I see in Italian magazines or on simple television shows, like cooking shows for example. I could also follow the scene in Amarcord when the crazy uncle climbs up a tree, but that's because it's mostly narrated by a child yelling "albero," which is one of the first words you learn.