We Came From Somewhere

In this re-recorded episode, I return to a story that wouldn’t leave me alone. What started as a tribute to my grandfather, Papaco, took on new depth after uncovering surprising threads—especially from Sardinia, where poetry was a lived tradition.

This isn’t just about genealogy. It’s about a burned diploma, a salvaged book of Italian love poems, and what it means to defy the story written for you—and write your own.

I come from people who were told “This isn’t for you.” And we answered back: “Watch me.”

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Chapters

• 0:00 Saturday Morning Cartoons & Aliens
• 3:50 My Grandfather Giuseppe's Legacy
• 8:10 An Artist's Studio as a Portal
• 12:00 Giuseppe's Book of Poetry
• 14:24 Immigrant Labor on Welland Canal
• 17:05 Enemy Aliens During WWII
• 19:22 Not For You: Defying Limitations
• 23:26 Honoring Ancestors Like Romans Did

Transcript

Hi, I’m Pat Benincasa – Welcome to Fill To Capacity- Episode 99- We Came From Somewhere

You’re about to hear a new telling of We Came From Somewhere. After revisiting the story, I realized there was more—especially about Sardinia. So, I’ve re-recorded it. Same roots, deeper branches.

I grew up in a world of thick accents, louder-than-necessary conversations, and the smell of simmering tomato sauce that could make you weep. 

The old ways were alive and well, right alongside the new—sometimes clashing, sometimes blending, always shaping the way we lived. 

Some of my relatives made it here with nothing but luck and grit, while others paid a heavy price for their passage into this so-called land of opportunity. And that brings me to my grandfather, Giuseppe Benincasa—affectionately known as Papaco.

His charred book of poetry, its black-edged pages and taped cover, is always within reach—so he is never far from me. Like his life, it stands as a constant reminder: the match could not consume the book, just as his will refused to surrender to the loss of his left arm.

Me Today

I am an artist with a studio. A studio for an artist is more than just a room—it’s a sanctuary, a workshop, a playground, a battlefield, and sometimes a confessional. 

It’s a space where ideas come to life, where failures pile up and breakthroughs happen, where time stretches and disappears.

A studio can be anywhere, a cubby hole in a house, a kitchen table, or a basement corner.  Wherever you make art is your studio. 

For me, my studio is also a portal—a place where I connected and communed with my grandparents. 

Surrounded by old photographs, letters, official residency documents, military records, birth and death certificates, and passenger manifests, I don’t just see paper and ink. I see the echoes of their lives—the risks they took, the sacrifices they made, the weight of history carried in the creases of a faded document.

In this space, I don’t just create—I channel. I step into their world, into who they were, and bring them forward into mine.

Beyond Records- What An Artist Sees

I look at my grandfather’s life, and there’s still so much I don’t know. Sure, I’ve done the genealogy research—tried to trace his steps,  but records don’t tell you who a person was. They don’t capture the weight of their laughter, the set of their shoulders after a hard day, or the things they never said out loud.

As an artist, I had to find my own way to know him, so I painted him. I painted my grandmother too. I told their stories through brushstrokes, color, artifacts on wood panels. 

My doing this is based on the simple fact that I am hardwired differently. I am dyslexic, so reading is at times a chore -those pesky letters sometimes reverse themselves. They cannot be trusted. 

So, learning for me is multifaceted:  tactile, audial, kinetic- the whole combo plate of the senses!

I have to physically engage in the making to know what I know. 

For his painting, I copied and used the pages from his beloved book of love poems as the background with artifacts about his life. 

And as you know, no way in hell could I do a flat portrait! It had to be 3 Dimensional- it had to breathe, had to feel like him.  

For my grandmother, Mamaco, I wove her world into the piece—a doily she crocheted, with needles, black-bead rosary, her naturalization papers and the birth and death records of her first-born son. Her history wasn’t just a backdrop; it was the foundation of her portrait.

You have to understand, this mysterious alchemy of a documented surface, personal artifacts, and painted likeness fuse together, igniting something beyond the artwork—a presence, a pulse. It’s not just paint; it’s a dimensional life force. A glimpse of their spirit—alive and vibrant. 

These paintings couldn’t just sit on my studio wall. They needed to live with us.To be in the house where we could see them—and, in a way, where they could see us.

Because these portraits? They’re not just images. They’re potent entities that honor and reflect their life force.

A Whole Lot of Unknowns

As I carefully turn the fragile pages of his book, Postuma: Canzoniere, I ask him, "Which ones are your favorites?"
The pages don’t answer, but they hold something sacred—something that mattered enough for him to keep them close for a lifetime.

With AI, I translate the poems, marveling at their beauty, nuance, and depth. 

Each verse unveils a world—love, intimacy, artistic passion, existential doubt, and the relentless weight of poverty. These are not simple poems. They demand thought, they demand feeling. And so, I ask: Who are you, Giuseppe?

It is a compelling question, asked against the brutal backdrop of Calabria’s grinding poverty. 

Sure, the Casati Law of 1859 made education compulsory in Italy, but hardly enforcement, especially in the south—especially in Calabria. By the time Giuseppe was born in 1882, the numbers tell a grim truth:

• Over 70% of men in Calabria were illiterate.
• 84% of women could not read or write.
• Schools were few, poorly funded, and mostly attended by the privileged—nobles, landowners, professionals.
• Children of peasants and artisans were often left out, their days claimed by labor, not learning.

So Where Did He Learn?

If Giuseppe was never meant to be literate, then who defied that fate? Who taught him to read? A priest, or a rare teacher willing to go beyond his duty? 

Or did he teach himself—piecing together meaning from scraps of words, hungry for something beyond survival?

And then there’s the book itself. Where did he find it? When did it come into his hands?
 Did he buy it? Was it given to him? Did he rescue it from a forgotten corner, seeing its worth when others saw none?

Another Thread

There’s another thread I’ve started pulling—one woven not just through time, but through blood. 

My brother’s Y-DNA belongs to haplogroup I-PF4189, an ancient paternal lineage rooted in Europe—with a striking presence in Sardinia, where poetry wasn’t just prized, it was performed, lived, and battled for. For centuries, Sardinians turned village squares into open-air arenas of verse. Poets—men and women—faced off in a kind of lyrical duel, responding in rhyme and meter before a crowd that cheered them like heroes.

Sardinia was poetry slam before poetry slams existed.

And just for context—poetry slams originated in 1980’s Chicago, where poets took to the mic with original work, judged by the crowd. It was where the stage met the page, and the audience decided.who hit hardest.

Back in Sardinia, this wasn’t fringe—it was central. Poetry was culture, it was identity. Sardinia’s oral tradition was so essential, the island was once called a floating island of narration—a place where words carried weight and verse was as sacred as scripture.

Is it so far-fetched to think this poetic instinct—this hunger for words—lived on in family members wired to hear it? That Giuseppe’s love of poetry wasn’t an anomaly, but a genetic echo—a call from ancestors who carried verse in their bones?

I don’t know. But I like to think that somewhere deep in the code of his being, Sardinia was singing.

What Kind of Mind?

What kind of mind does it take to escape the expectations of your time? To be told: “You don’t need this. Reading is not for you.”
 And yet, to persist. To not just learn, but to love words enough to carry a book of poetry through a lifetime.

This book—it is more than a possession. It is a statement, a rebellion, a testament to an intellect that refused to be small.
So I keep asking: Who are you, Giuseppe? And what else did you know that the world never thought to ask?

Shadow Facts

In the first half of the 20th Century, From Calabria to Thorold to Pontiac – the Benincasa Family saga unfolds. I used to think the past was linear—dates, events, names on a family tree. But Papaco’s life unraveled that idea. The more I uncovered, the more the facts felt like shadows—traces of something deeper: what was never said, what got lost, what survived only in gestures and glances.

The Weight He Carried

They say a man is shaped by what he builds. But I wonder if Papaco was shaped more by what he couldn’t say: the pain of a lost arm, the book nearly burned, a son fighting a war for a country that once doubted his loyalty.

And while politicians signed treaties and soldiers marched across continents, my grandfather was in Thorold,  teaching himself how to use a prosthetic hand. No medals. No headlines. Just a man trying to hold a job, feed a family, and keep his dignity during a time that kept trying to take it.

What Endured, What Eludes

From Calabria’s narrow paths to Ontario’s wind-cut fields and frozen canals, and eventually to Pontiac’s family gatherings and slow Sunday dinners—our story is one of movement. Across borders, through languages, across time. Not just surviving, but adapting, building, and becoming.

Each era shaped a new life from the raw materials of the last — brick by brick, word by word. What they carried wasn’t always visible. Some brought tools. Others brought recipes, habits, stories. And some—like Papaco—carried a book of poetry.

What I don’t know—and maybe never will—is how Papaco learned to read and where his love of poetry started.

Not For You

Papaco’s hunger to learn outpaced everything stacked against him—poverty, poor schooling, the rigid boundaries of his station in life. None of it stopped him from cultivating a deep, exquisite love of poetry.

And I get it. I’ve lived my own version of that story.

From elementary school through high school, my parochial education was a source of shame. I had ADD and was dyslexic. Reading was slow, sometimes impossible. When called on to read aloud, I was told to sit down until I could “do it right.”

I was placed in the slow track. Held back a year. Labeled a “flunkie.” But I could draw.

Even then, I knew I was an artist. Not “wanted to be”—was.

By high school, I’d grown an attitude to match my circumstances. I was in non-college-bound classes, and I’ll never forget what one teacher told me: “Don’t think about college. It’s not for you.”  Sound familiar?

I researched colleges on my own, applied, and got accepted. When I graduated, I went to the dean of fine arts to ask about MFA programs. He looked at me and said:
 “Have you thought about selling shoes?” 

Plan B? No. There was no Plan B.

I built a portfolio, applied to ten grad schools. Got rejected from all ten. So, I rebuilt. Reworked everything. Applied again.

Got accepted—on probation. Starting in beginner classes, while my art friends landed scholarships. Reading still made me freeze. So, I studied harder. Worked longer. Drew everything I could.

Eventually, I earned two graduate degrees: a Master of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts.
 I took both diplomas to my studio, lit a match, and burned them. Because only a lifetime of making art will determine whether I’m an artist. And I can report, I am.

Just like Papaco, I came up in a world that said, this isn’t for you. And just like him—I answered back,
“Watch me.”

And sometimes, I wonder—did I have just enough of him inside me? Was he helping me through the hard parts, nudging me forward?
 I believe our ancestors stay close. They walk beside us, quietly. And maybe that’s why, even when I was most lost, most doubted— I never felt alone.

Do Like The Romans

Did you know that in ancient Rome, families kept busts of their ancestors right in the front of the house—on full display in the atrium? You'd walk in and bam—there they were, watching. It wasn’t about decoration. It was about remembrance, honor, legacy.

These weren’t just heads on pedestals—they were a declaration: “We come from somewhere. These are our people.”

At funerals, they’d even parade the busts through the streets—literally walking with their history.

This really gets me. Because maybe that’s what I’m doing in my own way—bringing my ancestors back into the room, giving them space, letting them be seen.

This is why I remember what I must never forget:  I am their unfinished poem, their unwritten story, their voice—finally heard.