Stories Series on The Becoming Italian Podcast
Back in the day when I was rather fresh out of college, I was unhappy in my corporate job. In order to bring more joy into my life, I thought about what I would most want to do in the world.
That was easy for me to figure out. I had grown up listening to family stories from my Italian-American grandparents. So, of course I wanted to spend time working in Italy.
I figured out how get there and find work to stay a while. In a year, I learned fluent Italian, worked with Italians, and learned to navigate Rome like a local. I fit in so well (so they told me) that many people I met told me that I probably had a path to Italian citizenship.
Well, this was all before Google was a verb. So I didn’t know how to go about gathering information about becoming a citizen. But I did walk past the U.S. Embassy often on my way to work. One day I stopped in an asked them what they might know about it.
They told me that it’s a convoluted process. And if I wanted to trace my heritage back to a female ancestor, I’d probably be denied.
I had a lot of other stuff going on back then and couldn’t be bothered to try to figure it out.
Fast forward to 2017, I had accomplished a lot of my goals and was ready to have a better work-life balance. I had an old friend from Rome who encouraged me (again) to apply for Italian citizenship. This time I was able to use Google to get more information. I was most definitely eligible, and I found a website that would give me a roadmap on how to get there.
So come 2019, I was excited when I saw a Facebook post about the Becoming Italian Podcast. I listened to a few episodes where the hosts tried to make sense of what is honestly a rather confusing process and I felt like I could contribute to the conversation. I reached out to them to be featured as a guest in the case that they wanted to do an interview.
This is the resulting episode: Stories Series #1: Bryn Bonino.
In the podcast, I referenced a few blog posts that I’d written on my reflections on my path toward becoming Italian. Then in the coming weeks and months, I noticed that the most popular posts on this branding website were the personal stories I’d written about my Italian heritage. Later, when answering questions in an Italian dual-citizenship Facebook Group, I was asked if I’m the “Bryn Bonino from the podcast.”
I’m not famous. But this podcast interview has gotten me name recognition. This is an example of when you go granular in your focus to connect with a micro-community, then you can make a bigger impact than if you generalize your message for anyone.
Originally published at https://backstoryfirst.com on November 26, 2019.
