Every year, my family would always take a vacation, whether it was domestic or international. The vacations were always focused on building a tighter bond between my parents and my siblings. A bond that would always stay true, through hardships and happiness. Yet I’d always thought that my parents had another reason for taking my siblings on this trip. Perhaps it was to experience different cultures or to grow closer to our relatives who, surprisingly, live around the world, whether it be in Africa or Australia. Or maybe it was for us to find a country where we would want to settle down in the future. Regardless, it was a way to connect with a variety of cultures and family members.
The vacation had been a tradition since my parents got married in the sunny city of Messina, Italy. Once my oldest sister was born, her love of experiencing new cultures and reading books from across the world began. The moment she turned three years old, my parents were surprised to find out that she was gifted in reading books and they decided to enroll her into a Catholic school in Rome, where she studied for eight years. After further discovering that she was outstanding in every subject, my parents decided to take her on a trip to visit some family members in Asia. There, she loved learning the history behind each cultural landmark she visited and the cultural norms and ideals of each country. That’s when my parents decided that giving their children the chance to visit different countries would give them a more authentic understanding of the world through a lens of cultural exchanges, ideals, music, and how different cultures celebrate different holidays, rather than learning about it through the biased ideals of white folks in the US.
The first time that I’d personally experienced this annual vacation was when I was four years old and had just finished my second year of school. My family had decided to let me visit Messina and Salzburg in Austria for the family significance and experience of learning new ideas about the world. We’d taken a flight from San Francisco to Florence, Italy, and another flight from Florence to the Catania-Fontanarossa Airport in Sicily. Once we got there, my dad had called an old family friend who lived in Messina to pick us up from the airport and drive us to the house that we had rented for two weeks. My oldest sister showed my younger sister and I pictures that she’d taken when she was in the Tuscany region of Italy while we were waiting for the car to pick us up. Throughout the two weeks in Messina, we became immersed in Italian culture and history. Once I came back to the US, I started to become more culturally aware.
The vacation had been a tradition since my parents got married in the sunny city of Messina, Italy. Once my oldest sister was born, her love of experiencing new cultures and reading books from across the world began. The moment she turned three years old, my parents were surprised to find out that she was gifted in reading books and they decided to enroll her into a Catholic school in Rome, where she studied for eight years. After further discovering that she was outstanding in every subject, my parents decided to take her on a trip to visit some family members in Asia. There, she loved learning the history behind each cultural landmark she visited and the cultural norms and ideals of each country. That’s when my parents decided that giving their children the chance to visit different countries would give them a more authentic understanding of the world through a lens of cultural exchanges, ideals, music, and how different cultures celebrate different holidays, rather than learning about it through the biased ideals of white folks in the US.
The first time that I’d personally experienced this annual vacation was when I was four years old and had just finished my second year of school. My family had decided to let me visit Messina and Salzburg in Austria for the family significance and experience of learning new ideas about the world. We’d taken a flight from San Francisco to Florence, Italy, and another flight from Florence to the Catania-Fontanarossa Airport in Sicily. Once we got there, my dad had called an old family friend who lived in Messina to pick us up from the airport and drive us to the house that we had rented for two weeks. My oldest sister showed my younger sister and I pictures that she’d taken when she was in the Tuscany region of Italy while we were waiting for the car to pick us up. Throughout the two weeks in Messina, we became immersed in Italian culture and history. Once I came back to the US, I started to become more culturally aware.