LISTEN UP WITCHES Let’s talk about your flagrant misuse and abuse of the term STREGA.
Fun fact: Italians are only considered white as recent as 1980s, when the first Italian was elected into public offices in America.
Fun fact: My GREAT GRANDFATHER FOUNDED the ITALIAN AMERICAN CLUB of ROCKLAND NEW YORK. Why do you think that was? Because Italians were a bit ostracized - JUST like the Irish were. JUST like the Polish were. They needed to become a formalized community, network, preserve their heritage, move towards the future.
Italians are STILL stigmatized - if we are too dark, too hairy, too ITALIAN we are mocked relentlessly.
Thanks to the Arabic & Mediterranean HATE that has been rampant since 9/11, some of us (LIKE MYSELF) get STRIP SEARCHED IN AIRPORTS & LOOKED AT SIDEWAYS when “embracing my italianness too much”
“Someday you dirty Italians will bow down to the Irish” - A fellow 7th grader to myself, 2004.
Italians are STILL romanticized despite being demonized, Italian traditions are still considered “spooky” - yes I have the hair of my dead relatives! I harvested it myself!
We Italians, we are PROUD of this weird, dark culture - despite being told our whole lives that it’s “archaic” or “weird” or “grim”. We Italians are OVERWHELMINGLY CRITICAL of each other and ourselves - it’s a culture thing, but it’s also something we’ve had to do to fit in to society, to America.
We Italians, especially us Sicilians like my mother and blue eyed Napoli Italianos like my father, keep our family close and our history closer. Our heritage has been suppressed and watered down by things like the Roman Empire, British Imperialism, American Integration. Our craft is all but lost to the world, having had only been passed by word of mouth because we Italians are a secret and untrusting people- and can you blame us?
Can you blame us for keeping our secrets when Strega, an ACTUALLY EARNED TITLE in the craft community, is being used as an AESTHETIC? By fellow practitioners no less?!?!
After all my ancestors struggled for, after all my ancestors worked towards, after ALL THE HATE I RECEIVED FOR MY HERITAGE GROWING UP??!?!?
Get this word out of your mouth, off your blog, out of your username. Unless you are an Italian speaking Italian and talking about witches, referring to a Strega (practitioner of Stregoneria), or referring to an Italian witch, get this word out of your mouth.
It is not your word. It is ours & I’m here to reclaim it.
I am here to tell you that UNTIL YOU KNOW OUR STRUGGLE, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO WEAR OUR HERITAGE- TO TOUCH OUR CULTURE.
lol im italian american and rolling my eyes so much
especially if she lives in ny literally no1currs if yr italian descended or w/e and lots of italian-americans are racist as fuck so lol @ "italians bc yt in 1980" bc W@
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(Anonymous) 2015-07-28 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)Let’s talk about your flagrant misuse and abuse of the term STREGA.
Fun fact: Italians are only considered white as recent as 1980s, when the first Italian was elected into public offices in America.
Fun fact: My GREAT GRANDFATHER FOUNDED the ITALIAN AMERICAN CLUB of ROCKLAND NEW YORK. Why do you think that was? Because Italians were a bit ostracized - JUST like the Irish were. JUST like the Polish were. They needed to become a formalized community, network, preserve their heritage, move towards the future.
Italians are STILL stigmatized - if we are too dark, too hairy, too ITALIAN we are mocked relentlessly.
Thanks to the Arabic & Mediterranean HATE that has been rampant since 9/11, some of us (LIKE MYSELF) get STRIP SEARCHED IN AIRPORTS & LOOKED AT SIDEWAYS when “embracing my italianness too much”
“Someday you dirty Italians will bow down to the Irish” - A fellow 7th grader to myself, 2004.
Italians are STILL romanticized despite being demonized, Italian traditions are still considered “spooky” - yes I have the hair of my dead relatives! I harvested it myself!
We Italians, we are PROUD of this weird, dark culture - despite being told our whole lives that it’s “archaic” or “weird” or “grim”. We Italians are OVERWHELMINGLY CRITICAL of each other and ourselves - it’s a culture thing, but it’s also something we’ve had to do to fit in to society, to America.
We Italians, especially us Sicilians like my mother and blue eyed Napoli Italianos like my father, keep our family close and our history closer. Our heritage has been suppressed and watered down by things like the Roman Empire, British Imperialism, American Integration. Our craft is all but lost to the world, having had only been passed by word of mouth because we Italians are a secret and untrusting people- and can you blame us?
Can you blame us for keeping our secrets when Strega, an ACTUALLY EARNED TITLE in the craft community, is being used as an AESTHETIC? By fellow practitioners no less?!?!
After all my ancestors struggled for, after all my ancestors worked towards, after ALL THE HATE I RECEIVED FOR MY HERITAGE GROWING UP??!?!?
Get this word out of your mouth, off your blog, out of your username. Unless you are an Italian speaking Italian and talking about witches, referring to a Strega (practitioner of Stregoneria), or referring to an Italian witch, get this word out of your mouth.
It is not your word.
It is ours & I’m here to reclaim it.
I am here to tell you that UNTIL YOU KNOW OUR STRUGGLE, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO WEAR OUR HERITAGE- TO TOUCH OUR CULTURE.
#strega fashion#Stregoneria#Italian American#witchcraft
287 notes
no subject
(Anonymous) 2015-07-28 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)lmfaoooo
no subject
(Anonymous) 2015-07-28 11:26 pm (UTC)(link)especially if she lives in ny literally no1currs if yr italian descended or w/e and lots of italian-americans are racist as fuck so lol @ "italians bc yt in 1980" bc W@
no subject
(Anonymous) 2015-07-28 11:29 pm (UTC)(link)i've had people think i was latina and act racist but i have never been pulled aside because someone thought i was middle eastern and thus a terrorist