Roots and Reverence: A Tribute to Our Elders

Roots and Reverence: A Tribute to Our Elders

By Nick Aitroro

As society continues to evolve, we seem to be losing touch with our ethnic identities, cultural roots, spiritual beliefs, and sense of belonging. Nowhere is this more evident than in the modernization of tribal lifestyles. Yet through my work with Native American tribes over the years, I’ve been fortunate to witness the preservation of many of these traditions and values.

Many of these communities still function like extended families, complete with the same challenges and dysfunctions that every family faces, but with one profound distinction: they honor their Elders. Not simply because of age, but because of wisdom. Elders carry stories, some might dismiss as outdated or irrelevant, but within those stories lie truths shaped by generations of experience

.So why don’t we listen more? Why don’t we honor them by absorbing the wisdom they so willingly share? Why do we insist on learning everything the hard way?

In my own life, I only had one grandparent, my paternal grandmother, whom we lovingly called Nanny. I wish I remembered more of the lessons she passed on. What I do recall is that she was loving, strong, kind, and deeply devoted, not only to our family, but to her community.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to better understand the strength it took for her to live the life she did. Widowed with a baby and toddler during the Great Depression, she persevered through unimaginable hardship. I can’t fully grasp what that must have been like, but I long to hear her stories, to know how she endured, how she succeeded, and what she held onto in the quiet moments.

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1912, she immigrated through Ellis Island and settled in Yonkers, New York. She graduated from School 18 and, at just 16, became the youngest graduate of Butler Business School in 1928. By today’s standards, she would be considered a prodigy.

My childhood memories on School Street in Yonkers are filled with warmth. We were the quintessential Italian-American family, everyone living in the same tenement building, with Nanny’s apartment nestled in the basement. Sundays were sacred. The smell of her cooking would drift through the building as she began the gravy early in the morning.
To this day, I still make her gravy, though it never quite smells the same. Those Sundays were more than meals, they were moments of love, laughter, and connection. A time of unity I will always hold close.