I come from a family of careworn hands in Italy,

who,

surrounded by a terrible economy said: Che sara sara.

What happens happens.

 

But this continues from Italy, to Brazil,

and it changes,

just a bit.

 

From from sara to seira.  

Que seira seira.

What happens happens.

 

I come from Japan about 6,000 miles east.

I come from measly bowls of rice for dinner.

I come from a family so poor,

with an economy that will seemingly,

never see the light day again.

 

But one day, they see a shining promise:

Coffee. Yes, coffee.

The Starbucks,

Caribou,

Dunkin Donuts,

Maxwell House,

coffee is what saved my family.

A promise to sail to Brazil to work on coffee plantations.

 

And so in Brazil my family fell into place.

 

I come from a young girl in Brazil who wanted to see so much more of world.

A girl who sailed on a sea of dreams to America,

in search of knowledge and happiness.

 

But that's only part of it, only half of the story.

 

I come from a family in Poland, who saw war approaching

like a dark storm that would never end.

A family that fled to Uruguay in search of a chance at a life worth fulfilling.

 

I come from survivors,

now, happy to escape with their lives,

in search of more.

 

Migrants who left Uruguay for Israel,

like a flock of geese,

looking for the most fertile land.

 

And then, I come from a boy.

Hungry for knowledge, and a fresh start,

homesick for a land he had never known.

A boy who came on his own,

determined that America was the place he was supposed to be.

 

It all came together here.

 

The wars,

the bombs,

the fleeing,

the feeling,

the arriving,

the love,

the dreams,

all came together.

 

Here.

I come from here.

 

I come from countless Bossa Nova tunes that my mom sings when she works.

 

I come from Jazz that my dad always has playing,

even when he's not really listening.

 

I come from watching the three stooges every Saturday night so much

I have all the shorts memorized,

I come from I Love Lucy Sunday's and Bewitched after school.

 

I come from "don't slam the car door!"

and, "eu nao posso te entender!"

(My mom pretending she doesn't speak English so that I speak Portuguese to her.)

 

I come from long tropical days spent at my grandfather's pool,

I come from those wired viewmaster things we've had since who knows when...

 

Because through poverty,

through war,

through bombs in Hiroshima that wiped out my family like a footprint on a beach.

We didn't know if things would get better.

 

But we knew that what happened, what was gone,

deceased,

destroyed,

departed,

perished,

and lost, had passed.

 

Che sera sera. What happens happens.