“We would not be who we are today without the grit and grind our ancestors endured,” says Sarah Campise Hallier, whose story we’re featuring on this month’s episode of our Back to Your Italian Roots series.

Along with her mother and siblings, Sarah traveled to her ancestral town, tiny Poggioreale in western Sicily, for the first time last autumn. Then and there, “We learned that we are not just American; we are also Sicilian,” Sarah says. “And we wouldn’t have it any other way”.