Who Am I?

Felt the two sides of me -- the American and the Italian -- so keenly last night.
Who am I? Who is anybody?
Went out to a movie and dinner with my old American friend, my new American friend, and an Italian friend of my old American friend.
The movie was an Italian film set in the late 1950s, the time my parents left this country to move to the United States, just three years after I was born.
I kept thinking of that, of them, as I watched the film. This was the Italy they left. This was the Italy I was born into. And such an Italian Italy it was then. Not diluted by anything yet.
And again, just how hard it must've been for them to leave everything here, turn their back on this glorious country with its deeply ingrained traditions, values, and ways, and move to the States, such a different country in every way.
After the movie, we went to dinner.
After a bit of wine, we three American ladies, got, well, a bit American. Loud, boisterous, cracking jokes, making fun, reveling in our shared histories, in the ties that bind us.
"You can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can't take Jersey out of the girl," my old friend joked.
We all laughed, all East Coast girls sharing an old American joke.
The Italian friend and I ordered the same food, a pasta dish with clams and zucchini.
He and I were both hungry, like Italians get. We told each other that. We both understood.
After we ordered, he looked at me and asked if we should order something to start. We agreed immediately on what.
After we ate, he said to me, "it was okay, but not as good as it should have been."
I knew exactly what he meant.
And why.
Without him even saying it.
I mean, mostly, it was excellent, certainly would've been considered excellent in either the U.S. or England.
But there was one thing slightly wrong.
And in Italy, it needs to be perfectly right.
Or Italians comment to each other.
Like he was doing.
To me.
I told him what was wrong.
Precisely, he said, nodding.
Who am I? Who is anybody?