MSI Press Blog

  AN INTERESTING AND INSIGHTFUL READ Says Readers' Favorite about From Tuscany with Love by Lauretta Avina:  Our roots, where we were born, define who we are. But so do the foods we prepare and share amongst family and friends. In Lauretta Avina’s From Tuscany with Love , we follow the author as she shares her life, first in Tuscany and then in the United States. As the family became part of the melting pot of immigrant America, this Tuscan family maintained their love of the traditions they left behind in the Old World. A big part of these traditions revolved around food. As the memoir unfolds, so do the recipes that define the author. “As my family and I embraced our new life in the United States, we also carried with us the rich traditions and memories of our Italian heritage.” Lauretta Avina’s book, From Tuscany with Love: Recipes and Remembrances of an Immigrant Child , is a memoir told in stories and through recipes of the foods the author loves. The author shares her s...

  The courage to begin again in a new country is rarely just personal—immigrant parents often carry generations of hope tucked inside diaper bags, lunchboxes, and late-night prayers. They arrive believing that this move will gift their children a better future. But no one tells them how much loneliness might accompany that hope. For these parents, helping their children thrive means becoming translators—of language, culture, bureaucracy, and belonging. They decipher school forms they barely understand, navigate health care systems with unfamiliar jargon, and smile politely when corrected for their accent. At home, they try to hold onto ancestral traditions while making room for their children’s adaptation. It’s not assimilation they fear—it’s erasure. Meanwhile, their children are growing up faster than expected, acculturating in ways the parents can’t always follow. The child becomes the cultural broker, the guide through systems, the bridge across family dinners and PTA meetings....

  The courage to begin again in a new country is rarely just personal—immigrant parents often carry generations of hope tucked inside diaper bags, lunchboxes, and late-night prayers. They arrive believing that this move will gift their children a better future. But no one tells them how much loneliness might accompany that hope. For these parents, helping their children thrive means becoming translators—of language, culture, bureaucracy, and belonging. They decipher school forms they barely understand, navigate health care systems with unfamiliar jargon, and smile politely when corrected for their accent. At home, they try to hold onto ancestral traditions while making room for their children’s adaptation. It’s not assimilation they fear—it’s erasure. Meanwhile, their children are growing up faster than expected, acculturating in ways the parents can’t always follow. The child becomes the cultural broker, the guide through systems, the bridge across family dinners and PTA meetings....