Throughout my life, I have been curious about the stories of my family’s journey from Italy to the United States. Around my Nana’s kitchen table, I have asked my mom, Nana, and Great Aunt Janet about our ancestors’ lives in Northern Italy and their migration across the Atlantic. Each story, though often fragmented by bites of nut bread and hearty laughter, has helped me appreciate how Italian heritage connects me across generations of family members and continues to influence how I live my life. My Nana’s grandparents immigrated from Northern Italy in the early twentieth century. My great-grandfather, Silvio Rissardi, emigrated from Coredo to avoid being drafted into war. His family lived in deep poverty, and it was his sister—who had already immigrated to the United States—who sent money home that changed the course of his life. Her letters and financial support showed him that there were opportunities for Italians in America. Like so many others, he entered through Ellis Island, worked long hours in New York subway stations, and eventually settled in Lafferty, Ohio, a small Italian mining town. Their grit, sacrifice, and character inspire me. My family’s history also has gaps. Poverty shaped my mom’s family several generations before me, and as a result, questions about the past seem often both unasked and unanswered. Over time, memories faded, and details were lost. My Nana, my mom, and I share a dream of spending a summer researching migration records, talking with relatives, and piecing together our family’s story. My mom spent several months in Italy when she was my age, and I would love to do the same. We hope one day to travel to Coredo, Italy together to walk the same streets my ancestors once did and perhaps reconnect with distant relatives. Honoring my heritage, for me, means actively seeking to explore it. In our daily lives, large family dinners filled with food, laughter, and storytelling are at the center of Italian tradition that we practice. Polenta is a staple. My mom tells my younger brother and I childhood stories of her and her siblings gathered around a pot twice the size of their heads, taking shifts for hours stirring the pot of polenta that would anchor a lively family dinner. While my family appreciates the richness and simplicity of standard polenta, we now also get creative with our polenta, at times frying it with maple syrup in the mornings or baking it with spinach and eggs in a clay pot. In this way, polenta stands as a small, delicious symbol of how some of our Italian heritage has persisted and transformed through several generations of our family. My closest relative born in Italy was my great-grandfather, Silvio Rissardi. I have applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (accepted), UC California Berkeley (accepted), University of Virginia (accepted), and several other schools I have not yet heard back from, including Stanford University, University of Michigan, and four other University of California campuses.