Forgiveness is Freedom, with Giovanni Ruscitti

For the past twenty years, I’ve been the father of triplets and so much of my identity is tied to my role as father. But what happens when they fly the nest and begin living independently? I’ll admit it, I had a bit of an identity crisis when they went off to college and it took me some time to identify with other parts of my identity that I had suppressed or even forgotten.

Today’s guest, Giovanni Ruscitti, only discovered a significant part of his identity later in adulthood upon visiting his father’s ancestral town in Italy. His father fled Italy in 1943 after the Nazis came in and, after surviving in the mountains for a while, managed to immigrate to the United States where he worked a series of odd jobs while beginning and raising a family.

Meet Giovanni Ruscitti:

Giovanni is a first generation Italian-American who grew up in Frederick, Colorado, a small coal mining town that his parents and grandparents immigrated to in the 1950s and early 1960s. He is a nationally recognized attorney, arbitrator, and mediator, as well as a frequent speaker at national legal events and was named as one of the most influential business leaders in Colorado, and has served on numerous non-profit boards. Giovanni joined me today to talk about his memoir, Cobblestones, Conversations, and Corks: A Son's Discovery of His Italian Heritage.