Focusing on the Italian culture here-and-now, not there-and-then

This is the story of the executive director of the America-Italy Society of Philadelphia, whose name depends on the culture and law of where she is. “In Italy, I am Elisa Schwab. In the United States, I am Elisa Clewis, middle name Schwab. In Brazil, I am Elisa Caterina Schwab. In Switzerland, I am Elisa Clewis-Schwab,” she said. “But if I have to describe myself in one word, I say I am from Italy.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF ELISA SCHWAB

Her parents are Swiss and Italian; she was born in Brazil; and she has lived in the U.S. since 2005.

Her family moved to Italy when she was 6, and she grew up in Brescia, east of Milan. After graduating from the Università di Bologna, she earned a master of arts in cooperation and development at the Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori at the Università di Pavia.

She moved to the Philadelphia area after her husband, philosophy professor Robert Clewis, was hired at Gwynedd Mercy University.

Her first job was as the international programs director at BuildaBridge, an art-based intervention and educational organization in Philadelphia. After teaching Italian at Montgomery County Community College, Gwynedd Mercy and Arcadia University – and creating Gwynedd Mercy’s first study-abroad program in Italy and running the Italian program at Arcadia – she started at the America-Italy Society of Philadelphia in the fall of 2024. “I like to work,” she said, adding that she’s pleased that she’s applying more of her academic background in international relations in her current job.

The Clewises have three children: Sofia, Giulia (whose names were selected to sound both Italian and English) and Lawrence (close, and “I love the name Lorenzo”). They insisted on raising them with Italian values – albeit in Montgomery County. “They had to be fluent in Italian. And they say I’m the scariest mother because I’m not as nice as the American moms.”

Really? What scary mother would take her children to Italy for two years during the pandemic? What scary mother would take them to Italy every summer (“it’s fundamental for my family, and for my well-being”), to hang around Lake Iseo with their cousins and let them go on lengthy side-trips to Croatia and Germany? What scary mother would fill her luggage from her last trip to Italy with herbal teas, Parmigiano, pure-sugar Haribo candies and Nutella cookies?

The America-Italy Society of Philadelphia was founded in 1957 as a nonprofit to promote friendship between Italy and the United States. It has a cash flow of about $600,000, three full-time staffers and about 15 teachers leading lectures, films, concerts, programs and classes.

“We promote Italian culture,” she said. “We are not a heritage organization. We are not nostalgic about our past. We are here to bring the Italy of today, the language of today, the culture of today and the society of today to everyone who is interested.” It has about 350 dues-paying members, and the society offers six to eight programs a month, “about 70 percent in English and 30 percent in slow Italian.”

And it is “the school of Italian in Philadelphia, and we also support the teaching of Italian in public schools, through an annual grant from the government of Italy.” The grant comes from the Italian Consulate in Philadelphia, which covers all or part of seven mid-Atlantic states.

It then passes along grants to about a dozen schools a year, mostly high schools, but also elementary and middle schools to enrich in-school teaching, clubs and field trips, sometimes to Philadelphia.

The society itself offers about 50 classes of different levels and focuses, for about 300 students, including vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, literature and Italian society.

During a Zoom interview, she talked about a few classic Italian gestures. She ended her discourse discussing an upraised hand, with the thumb touching the gathered fingers, which Emojipedia.com calls “pinched fingers,” the “finger purse” or “ma che vuoi?” “Americans don’t understand what this means,” she said. “This means ‘What are you talking about? This is stupid. This doesn’t make sense.’ Americans think they are emphasizing ‘How clever I am,’ which is the opposite of that.” 

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