As I grew up in Highwood, visiting my friends was like being in my own home: the same foods were served, I sat on the same style furniture, and I saw pictures of relatives on their walls posted in a fashion similar to mine at home. The promotional calendars of the local Italian insurance firm hung right next to the pictures of the pope in all our kitchens. My friends’ parents spoke broken English with the same Italian accent as my parents. They imposed identical rules and doled out similar discipline.

We all saw each other at Sunday Mass, after which the boys accompanied their fathers to the local coffee shop while our mothers and sisters went back home to cook the Sunday family meal. The whole lot of us looked and acted alike, our similarities even more pronounced because we Italians all knew each other’s business.