“Tell Your Story” – Marta Massimino and the Happy Return to Her Homeland

We are collecting testimonies from descendants of Italians who tell us the story of their family, from the painful departure for distant lands until today. Stories that are sometimes beautiful and other times very painful, but all of them are incredibly moving.

Today we tell you the story of Marta Massimino

“I am the daughter of an Italian born in Anacapri, Capri Island. We are making his return home together. He, 40 years later, I, his youngest daughter asked him to accompany him and so we left on the ship Augustus from the port of Buenos Aires on December 5, 1970.

We arrived at the port of Naples on the morning of December 24, and from there another ship took us to the island of Capri. I remember my father with eyes full of tears telling me “Do you see it? That is my land, the land that saw me born and that I have told you so much about!”

The grandparents were already dead but Aunt Maria, a sister of his mother, my grandmother, was waiting for us, with a long dress, braids in the shape of a crown on her head and a sweet little face. Dad entered a large courtyard that was just across a door and began to whistle a little song, from another door Aunt Maria appeared and shouted "Antonuccio mio?" And he ran, that long hug full of tears and laughter lasted a long time, I don't know how long though it was the meeting of the past and the present with many shortcomings.

It was their moment that I couldn't interrupt. I think that this journey accompanying him was the most beautiful gift my father gave me, knowing his origins, his family, his childhood friends, his land.

On March 5, 1971 we were on the ship arriving in Buenos Aires again his eyes filled with tears and he said to me "daughter, you see this land, it is the one that opens its arms to me, it has given me work, peace and a new family, this is my place in the world"

In homage to a great man who was my father Antonio Massimino

We thank Marta from the bottom of our hearts for telling us this wonderful story, and we invite you to send us more, because these testimonies deserve to be given the right attention.

If you also want to tell your stories and participate in keeping wonderful memories alive, click here: Tell your story