Benvenuti!

An image of author Gina Solatura, a woman with dark brown, shoulder-length hair smiling and sitting on a beige sofa.
Gina as a young girl sitting outdoors, smiling and covering her mouth with her hand,

Why Fichidini.com? Fichidini (pronounced "feek-ee-dee-nee"), or prickly pears, translates as "figs from India." However, fichidini are native to the Americas, especially Mexico, dating back to as far as 7,500 BCE. It spread worldwide after the 1500s as a New World plant and grows prolifically in Sicily, where my ancestors lived.

As a very young child, I remember a family member visiting from Sicily planting a cactus leaf in my parents' backyard as a good luck gesture, or what Americans call a housewarming gift. He cut it from his prickly pear plant and carried it with him on the plane. A few years later, that splintery single-leafed transplant grew six feet high and five feet wide. Right next to our olive tree.

That plant’s history of being shuffled trans-continentally is analogous to my family’s history.

Welcome to Fichidini.com.

A domani,
Gina

A variety of prickly pear fruits, including sliced and whole pieces, on a white table top.
A close-up of a prickly pear cactus plant with pink and white fruits growing in clusters.

Author Gina Solatura is a first-generation Sicilian-American who has researched, written, edited, and curated content for web and print for over fifteen years. She writes on a broad range of subjects, including lost and found histories, natural disaster recovery, and human interest stories. 

In her current project, “You’re In America Now,” Gina humorously explores the Italian immigrant assimilation experience of the 1960s and 1970s, inspired by her family's 100-year photojournalistic history, well-preserved by her mother.