Join the University Sunrise Rotary Club for a program featuring Joseph Thomas, attorney in Mexico and author of ‘My Nonna.’
The program will be presented on Zoom on Thursday morning with the Zoom line opening at 7 a.m. The formal meeting including the program runs from 7:30-8:30 a.m. No registration is required, and the program is free.
The meeting will be available via Zoom. Click here to join the meeting Thursday morning. The Zoom line will open shortly after 7 a.m.
My Nonna: True legacy stories shared by dreamers who gave freedom to their children.
A century ago, the author’s Tuscan grandparents took an irreversible decision. With an infant daughter, Grandpa was offered work if he became a black-shirted squadrista. Instead, they chose for him to emigrated alone, leaving his loved ones safe with their families while he gained their American citizenships.
Nearly six years later he did, sending the document and money for them to join him. But, Nonna needed a permit with the Fascist seal to leave on a ship. As a single mother, Nonna spurned the ‘Facta’with the power to keep her as his lover and have her daughter to breed five soldiers for the dictator. He brutally stole their travel money by ordering the village idiot to violate her younger sister in front of the family, forced to remain seated to watch.
With faith and determination she took them across an ocean before the immigration registry filled its yearly quota of family members. If so, she would have to pay to go back to Italy on the same ship to try again the following year.
When finally she got both of them through the immigration gate, there was still the cost to cross half the new country to reunite their family. Despite a massive snow storm delaying arrivals, they were able to give thanks and celebrate Christmas morning as a reunited American family.
The author, Joseph Thomas, was the protagonists´ first grandchild and the only one who understood Italian, remembering when they shared their experiences escaping Fascism. Growing up immersed in literature, he worked on four different newspapers to pay tuitions to graduate with Journalism and History degrees awarded by Bradley University
He became an Army lieutenant with paratrooper wings in the famed 82d Airborne Division. These highly motivated soldiers are called on to enter any world troubled spot after just an 18-hour notice as combatants or peacekeepers, by force if necessary. He was appointed the commander’s news media spokesman.
Later in the U.S. Forest Service, his writing, paralegal, and communicator abilities led to protecting large tracts of pristine land from undo commercial development. After a catastrophic volcanic eruption, his public information bulletins helped survivors avoid entrapment, threatened by an raging river of ash and mud.
Immigrating to Mexico City, his multi-lingual skills served in the selection of local bilingual executives for international corporations entering under the then new Free Trade Agreement. In 2023, he became the first U.S: citizen in 25 years to be licensed as a Mexican attorney, protecting all with the rule of law, most particularly the 100,000+ Americans seeking full-time residence.