In September and October, Ana Monica Formica Chiazza and her husband arrived in Italy for the first time and from Pescara, where a daughter lives, they reached Rome, Venice, Milan and, before Florence, Mombaruzzo (AT), Turin and Genoa.

And the small village of Asti, where they were guests of some relatives, was a particular and important stage of their journey. In fact, Ana Monica’s maternal family is from Mombaruzzo: great-grandmother Teresa Gaggino, great-grandfather Bernardo Chiazza and grandfather Alessandro.

In 1906 Alessandro was the first of the family to leave for Argentina and his great-grandmother Teresa in 1935 the last to leave to join her children, all of whom were already living there.

Alessandro Chiazza embarked in Genoa on October 10, 1906 and the “stop” in Genoa (followed by Italea Liguria) will be on the same day, 116 years later, seeing – as Ana Monica told us – the same sea that my grandfather saw when he left his beloved land at the age of 17 and arrived in Argentina to work in the fertile lands, to make the town that welcomed him great and raise a large and beautiful family. As grandson and great-grandson of Italians, who gave life to Argentina and rest there forever, It’s a great feeling for me to be the first in the Argentine family to achieve this.

In Turin, at Palazzo Taparelli D’Azeglio, home of the Centro Studi Altreitalie, Ana Monica donated some of her family’s documents to the Museum of Emigration in Frossasco (TO): the passports of her grandfather Alessandro from 1906 and her great-grandmother Teresa from 1935 and the Personal Booklet of the Italian Army of her great-grandfather Bernardo from 1880.

It was a warm and intense meeting and moment: Alessandro and Teresa were never able to return to their homeland – said Ana Monica – but it is an honor for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren that these documents, a treasure we love very much, have returned to Italy and are part of the Museum.

The simple gesture of handing over these three booklets was actually an important moment of connection between past and present. Papers and documents that remind us of names, hand down and tell stories of lives and hopes and, guarded, become a common heritage.