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| Alessandro also received an award for his editorial cartoon (above). |
L’Interrogazione
Sassi, Alessandro
Grade: 12
School: Fargo South High School, Fargo ND Educator: Kelly Sassi
AWARD: Honorable Mention
In September of my junior year, I flew off to the mother country. I left my small town of Fargo, North Dakota and arrived in the metropolis of Rome. As a second generation Italian-American, I was familiar with the day-to-day phrases my father spoke to me at home, but this was something completely different. I wondered if I, the goldfish, was ready to swim in the big pond. Would I be able to succeed at one of the most selective high schools in Italy with the skills I possessed? I was not here for the normal reasons students study abroad for a year. I was here to see if I could bring out that Italian blood in myself, if I could reconnect with my father’s family, my language, my culture. Or would I lose my identity?
In the middle of the year, my class was studying Dante’s Inferno. Even my Italian classmates struggled with the old Florentine dialect in which this masterpiece was written, so for me, it was an especially painstaking endeavor. Furthermore, our understanding of the book was tested in a manner unlike anything I’d experienced in America. It’s called l’interrogazione (the Interrogation). The menacing name of this oral exam is an accurate description of its function. A student is called at random before the class and without the aid of any books or notes, he or she must answer questions posed by the teacher. Italian students fear l’interrogazione as Dante fears Cèrbero.
I was horrified that I might be called on.
