by Marlon Saucedo
Every Friday afternoon in The Union’s Cactus Cafe, the Italian department hosts an event that invites Austin’s Italian community to interact with UT students and participate in a group conversation with the purpose of practicing Italian speech.
Antonella Del Fattore-Olson, the head of UT’s Italian department, created la tavola in 1984 with her friend and fellow UT student David Simpson when Simpson asked Olson to teach him Italian.
“It was the two of us for like three weeks and then after a while we had 20, 30, 40 people. So I was overwhelmed. I finally realized, ‘No, no, this is good for the students because then we could maybe talk about things that were too controversial to be talking in class,’” Del Fattore-Olson said. “All of the students were very engaged and motivated. They wanted to speak Italian but they also wanted to speak within a cultural context, not just what the textbook would give you.”
Olson says that her various attempts at unifying Austin’s Italian community have been successful and that she approaches the weekly event with the similar intention of creating relationships between the students and Italian speakers to entice students into learning the language faster.
“I think that the idea of creating a community, it’s important. Especially when you are learning a foreign language. When you probably feel like you are a little child, to start from scratches and you can’t express yourself in writing as you would in your own language. You really have to deal with your ego, a lot,” Olson said.
La tavola features local Italians from all walks of life, including musicians, owners of local ice cream parlor, “Dolce Neve” and local boutique, “Cotone.” The most prominent Italian presence in la tavola comes from UT’s own graduate students like Ettore Marchetti.
Marchetti considers himself to be a part of a recent migration movement out of Italy that was caused by the country’s worsening economic state.
“The economy is not going very well. There’s a high grade of unemployment and people are getting more and more angry with everything and everybody. However, it still is, I think, one of the most beautiful places in the world,” said Marchetti.
Other Italian immigrants, like graduate student Elisa Valentini immigrated to the U.S. in 2011 so that she and her husband could pursue a graduate degree in UT.
“I will say the first year was hard [to settle], but I think the atmosphere here in Austin was and is very good. It wasn’t too difficult to settle here,” Valentini said.
Valentini believes that la tavola has been a great tool for her and her husband to assimilate into an American lifestyle and believes it to serve students with more than just language learning practice.
“I think it’s a great way to kind of, form a community. Not just between professors and students but people that share a passion about Italy,” said Valentini.
Marlon C.S. 