My name is Kaeli Leoni and I am a third year Biology major at SDSU. I come from North County San Diego and have lived there the majority of my life along with my parents, a younger brother and sister, and three dogs. Like any San Diegan, I love the beach, dogs (of course), art and science. The picture I have posted is a picture of me in front of one of the many fountains I had came across during my trip traveling around Europe this past summer. This fountain was in a little plaza in Florence, Italy. After undergrad, I hope to become an orthodontist in Southern California.
I am interested in this topic for a few reasons, one of the biggest being that my family is Italian on both sides. I have always loved being Italian and wanted to learn more about the country and culture since my family had come to America a few generations ago. I signed up for this class before I had visited Italy, however actually going to Italy made me even more excited to learn about it’s history.

My experience with migration on a more distant scale comes from my great-grandparents who traveled from a town called Lucca, Italy on one side and a neighboring city on the other side of my family, the latter being Jewish as well. They came to the US and quickly assimilated as I do not have a strong traditional Italian background anywhere in my family. Another set of great-grandparents migrated to the US from Sweden. The last part of my family had come from England in the beginning years of US independence and participated in the Oklahoma Land Rush in 1889. Personally, I had moved to Ohio from ages two to six, came back to San Diego, and have lived here ever since. At San Diego State I am only around thirty minutes away from my family.  If short traveling counts as migration, I have gone to Mexico, Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and Italy all within my trip last summer and each for only a very brief amount of time. I am excited to learn more about where my family comes from and create more ties with Italian culture in this class.