SDSU alumna reflects on how San Diego influenced her work in human migration and language translation

Teresa Fiore is a professor of Italian and Inserra Chair in Italian/Italian American Studies in the Global Cultural Studies Department at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Fiore describes her specialization as human migration, whether that be in the form of traditional border crossing or lesser known identity translations such as international adoption through the foster care system. 

After obtaining her B.A. in Italy, she moved to the U.S. to continue her studies to obtain her master’s degree in English and comparative literature at San Diego State University in 1997. Fiore reminisces fondly on her time in Southern California, its climate and landscape not dissimilar to her Mediterranean home.“I have very beautiful memories of that campus and its people, as well as its intellectual vibrancy” she said. 

As a researcher of cultural and border crossings, San Diego’s proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border and rich history of community work presented Fiore with plentiful opportunities for personal and intellectual growth. “That's the reason why I chose San Diego…I wanted to be on that border.”

She cites the Chicana/o and women’s studies departments on campus as particularly inspiring: “You could tell that there was a history to them, that people had fought for them.” These departments and their faculty — such as professor emerita Emily Hicks of the Chicana/o studies department and director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences (MALAS) program, William Nericcio — had a deep impact on Fiore’s research interests. 

Along with the many academic tools Fiore acquired at SDSU, the lessons she learned in the community with activists and cultural groups on campus prepared her for the variety of work she would take on in her career. “I'm very glad I came to San Diego, because I think it really opened up new worlds to me, new ways of talking about cultural issues,” Fiore said.

Most recently, Fiore has completed a multi-year project translating an autobiographical novel about adoption through the 1990s Russian foster care system. Taking an unconventional but empathetic and collaborative approach, Fiore translated Nikolai Prestia’s “Farewell to Russia: Memories of When I Was in Kola” with her adopted daughter, Daniela Chaudhary Fiore, who saw her early childhood reflected in parts of Prestia’s. 

Prestia and her daughter are both older adoptees. They carry memories of a life both before and after adoption — a rarely discussed way of living in translation itself. Fiore was touched and intrigued by the parallel. Though a slow and personal process, Fiore and her daughter translated the original text to English as faithfully as possible, taking care to preserve its uniquely relatable themes. 

“I've learned that orphanages and the foster care system are actually a lens to read a society,” Fiore said. As such, it was crucial to her that the voice of another adopted child would play a part in the translation. Fiore and her daughter move through the novel’s heavy topics gracefully, without dismissing the weight of the situation. She describes the process as insightful and bonding, while ultimately recognizing  the connection of this project to her specialization in human migration: for what is adoption if not another form of translation across borders?