Lou&APEOPLE

FRA NOI May 2014 25

In Lawrence, Mass., everybody settledinto one specific part of town, and as ourgeneration matured and moved up, peo-ple started moving to the suburbs. Exceptmy suburb now is Sicily: I moved back![Laughs.]

FN: You’ve had some success writ-ing books about Sicily. Can you help givereaders a taste of how you’re approach-ing the narrative with your latest?

AZ: I go on road trips; I take a travel-ing companion with me and against thebackdrop of certain areas, I write aboutthe history. I do it with humor; I juxta-pose Sicily today versus when my gener-ation was growing up. This new bookwill be my fourth on Sicily. People whocan’t get there live vicariously throughme, and people seem to like the way Iwrite. It should come out right aroundThanksgiving.

FN: There’s a very interesting storybehind why you took up a dual resi-dence in Sicily. Would you mind sharingthat?

AZ: I became a dual citizen about 15years ago. In 1996, my father was dyingand on his deathbed, he asked me to dohim a favor and go to Sicily. He’d made apromise to his father, when he wasdying, to go back to the church in his an-

finishing touches on a fourth book, slatedfor a fall release. Fra Noi caught up withZappala to talk about his career, creativeendeavors and his incredible efforts on be-half of Sicily’s young adults.

Fra Noi: Tell us about your Italian an-cestry as it relates to Sicily.

Alfred Zappala: I’m 100 percent Sicil-ian, and both sets of my grandparentscome from the same town. They hailed

from Trecastagni, a village on the slopes ofMt. Etna. Both grandfathers didn’t knoweach other in this town and it only had4,000 or 5,000 people. But they met inAmerica. Isn’t that bizarre? [Laughs.]

People left in a big migration at thebeginning of the 20th century, and mygrandfather Gaetano Torrisi was a heroicguy. He came to the shores of Americawith $12 in his pocket — the equivalent of$263 today — and all his possessionswere in a steamer trunk. He had no sup-port network whatsoever and ended updoing pretty good as a tradesman. Mygrandfather Alfio Zappala was a humbleman. He worked for Prince MacaroniCompany and made pasta. He was a gentleman, and I have great memories of him.

FN: What was it like growing up withthat kind of Italian influence?

AZ: My house was bilingual; wespoke English and Sicilian — not Italian,but Sicilian — and it never really left me.

Some Italian Americans leadthrough their given profession, whileothers excel through the service theyoffer to others. You’ll also find people ineither one of those camps who try some-thing creative and hit the mark. Butrarely will all those hallmarks of successconverge in one person quite like theydo in Alfred M. Zappala.

The Lawrence, Mass., native estab-lished himself in the legalfield on multiple fronts.He was the co-founderand managing partner ofStruffolino & Zappala, afirm that concentrated incivil and criminal litiga-tion, small business ad-vising and corporatestart-ups, along withbankruptcy, domestic re-lations, wills and trusts,and tort matters. He alsowas a founding trustee ofthe Massachusetts Schoolof Law in Andover, Mass., and thefounder of MTS Bar Review, a firm thatprepared hundreds of law school gradu-ates to pass the Massachusetts bar exam.

Yet for all those noteworthy accom-plishments, Zappala’s endeavors outsideof his law career truly set him apartfrom his peers. With Sicily as his ances-tral homeland, Zappala has set up part-time residence there, getting involvedwith the local populace in a big way. Heheads up The Sicilian Project, an effortthat helps Sicilian students become Eng-lish-proficient so as to expand their op-portunities. (Right now, unemploymentfor Sicily’s 18- to 24-year-olds stands ata staggering 54 percent.)

Meanwhile, Zappala has releasedthree books based on his Sicilian experi-ences — “The Reverse Immigrant,”“Gaetano’s Trunk” and “Fighhiu Beddu”— and conducts tours of that fabled is-land. As of this writing, he’s putting the

Mr. Sicilyby Louis R. Carlozo

� ALFRED ZAPPALAAn esteemed lawyer and educator, hemade a pilgrimage to the land of hisancestors, and that has made all thedifference in the world.

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