Festa In Famiglia - Keiko's Compleanno (Birthday) Party

Sapete che la famiglia Italiana sta crescendo a Los Angeles? (Did you know that the family of Italians is growing in Los Angeles?)

Actually, I am not referring to Italians per se, but to would be Italians, those who love the culture and the language.

Specifically, I am referring to a community of Italian students. I have a friend, Elisabetta Missinato, who teaches Italiano here in Los Angeles. I interviewed her for a Valentine's Day Show a couple years ago on the Filippo and the Chef Show. On that show we learned about some of the fun things she does with her students to help them learn the language in an entertaining way.

She has developed a large student base because of it and is having great results. Besides private lessons, she also teaches in groups, and there again, it is so fun, that the group classes are turning into more like family gatherings. Never is that more evident than when the gathering is an actual party.

A group of Elisabetta's Italian students threw a surprise party for another of her friends and finest students, Keiko. That is a picture of Keiko and I above. Keiko is Japanese, born and bred, but if you ask her, she will say she is Italiana. And she is starting to speak like a native, with a Japanese accent.

The Italian students came out in droves to wish Keiko a Buon Compleanno, and to speak Italian as much as they could. Not only does Elisabetta's growing family of students support her every event, but so do her immediate family, and me too, whenever possible.

Elisabetta's brother Marco Missinato supported the festivities by providing some entertainment for the night, to which you see me dancing above with Elisabetta, or rather, acting more silly than dancing in the picture below Keiko and I.

Elisabetta's mother, Anna happened also to be in town from Rome, and came to the party. This was very fortuitous for all of us there because Anna ended up cooking up a storm. What could have been better, the food was delicious.

Above is a picture of me dancing with Anna and here with yet another one of these friends and students of Elisabetta, Grace, who now speaks Italian so much like a native, it makes you stop and ask, "are you Italian?." Though "technically" the answer would be no, she answers "yes," as do all these lovers of all things Italian. And here are a few more pictures from the party.

Incidentally, the family is growing on the Internet too. Elisabetta has started an internet connection service for all her growing family of lovers of the Italian language. You can find it yourself at http://italian.meetup.com/508/

And so, la famiglia cresce, (the family grows).

Filippo

P.S. Writing about learning Italian, I am reminded of a cousin of mine who came from Italy and told me that he learned English by watching American cartoons. As a gag, a friend sent this video from Youtube.com just in time to make it on this blog post. Here is Donald Duck and family and friends dancing the Tarantella, sort of. I thought you would get a kick out of it.