The words that we use determine how we see the world and an ambiguous word in the Italian language explains why many descendants of Italian migrants have a limited concept of our country. All too often we blame the lack of schooling as the reason for the ignorance of Italy, as well as of its habits, history and Culture of migrants and consequently their children/descendants. But a particular word reveals that the reason is even more primordial because it touches a deep chord in our soul.

This word is “paesano” but the ambiguous word of the introduction is “paese” from which it is derived because it has two meanings in Italian (https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/paese/), in short, the country and the city/town of a person. However the word “paesani” (https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/paesano) does NOT refer to the former meaning but to the latter, that is to a person from the same city/town.