I Love You Like a Tomato
Bing.com
Cover of "I Love You Like a Tomato"
Sam Giambra, Photo Editor
January 11, 2012
Filed under A&E, Books
Stories of immigration have been passed down through generations of families, tales of trying conditions experienced all for a taste of the enthralling ‘American Dream’. Legends of Polish, German, Asian, Irish, Italian, and other immigrants have made their way through the attention of those who were already apart of the strenuous formation of America and of those who additionally enriched United States to make it the thriving country it has is today. Marie Giordano expresses her fable from the point of view of a little Italian girl named Leticcia Sapponata Maggiordino, nicknamed ChiChi, who’s journey to America meant more to her than discovering her father. ‘I Love You Like A Tomato’ signifies the love that Chichi holds for her sick fratello, Marco. Marco’s health can be compared to that of a bruised tomato, the exterior glosses over the main damage beneath the surface.
Midway through the novel, the audience learns that along with Marco’s preexisting medical issues, doctors also discover a tumor the size of a golf ball in Marco. Upon receiving such ominous news, ChiChi sings to her brother, “Io ti amo, Io ti amo. Com’un promodoro,” closely translated in English to, “I love you like a tomato.” The love that Italians experience comes from the very roots of their entire culture: food and family. Food is the very staple that keeps tradition and culture secured tightly together through the industrious effort that goes into preparing such cuisine. Carrying the responsibilities of an Italian also entails an instinctual sense of loyalty towards members of one’s family, friends, and neighbors.
Sunlight beaming hard onto already olived skin, ChiChi begins her tale Praiano, Italy, where the ending of a Sisyphean battle had just ended by the demise of an intolerably obstinate orchestrator. While Marco’s vibrant life had freshly arrived, their mother Giuseppina hung onto the hopes that ChiChi’s father, who was returning home to Italy, would take her and ChiChi to America to become a family with a future unbroken by war. Reluctantly, Marco is allowed on the journey, as well as his Nonna and sister. ChiChi’s father sends a single letter to Giuseppina with regards of their family moving to Minneapolis. Thus began the treacherous odyssey known as their emigration from a land and way of life that would soon dwindle in its existence.
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