From the desk of AMC Bodoira
Without prior public discussion, on 27 March 2025, the Italian government submitted Decreto-Legge 29 marzo 2025, n. 36, an emergency decree that imposes sweeping new restrictions on the recognition of Italian citizenship jure sanguinis for descendants born abroad. The decree introduces generational limits and retroactively applies these restrictions to any cases not already filed with a court or actively in process with a consulate or comune by midnight on 27 March. Now under parliamentary review through Atto Senato n. 1432, the measure has created widespread confusion and distress for thousands of applicants. It follows an October 2024 circolare issued by the Ministry of the Interior, which disrupted long-standing precedent by reinterpreting the “minor issue” and declaring that a citizenship line is broken if a parent naturalized before the child reached majority—even if the child was born before the naturalization, as previously accepted. The letter below is not a plea for special treatment, but a respectful appeal to reaffirm Italy’s legal predictability, its moral commitment to fairness, and its duty to honor those who, in good faith and with deep ancestral ties, acted before the decree entered into force.
With respect to having my own Italian citizenship recognized, the publication of the October 2024 circolare, which abruptly reinterpreted the “minor issue,” rendered my previous, administrative path to recognition nonviable. In response, I pivoted to a 1948 case through my maternal line, beginning with my great-grandmother Valeria De Giorgio. A “1948 case” refers to a judicial petition filed in Italy on behalf of descendants whose citizenship transmission was interrupted solely because of gender-based discrimination in the law prior to January 1, 1948—the date when Italy’s republican constitution established legal equality between men and women. To pursue this route, I hired Marco Mellone, a leading Italian attorney and scholar on citizenship law, and submitted all documentation in early March. The case was filed in the Tribunal of Trieste on 28 March—just hours after the government’s decree and cutoff came to light.
At this moment, the case—and the more than $13,000 USD invested to prepare and file it—hangs in limbo. All it takes is one decree, or even one bad actor, to undo nearly eight years of diligent research, planning, and personal sacrifice. Truth be told, the current degree of uncertainty, and the looming possibility of losing a meaningful legal right as well as years of effort and savings knots my stomach with anxiety and leaves me utterly grief-stricken.
I’m crossing my fingers and saying my prayers: in boca al lupo!
What follows is the letter I emailed to the Senatori of Piemonte, the region from which my grandfather Bodoira hails. For reference, I am also including beneath it select excerpts from the version I tailored for Senatori representing Friuli, which highlights my Ziraldo and Sabbadini ancestry from that region.
Open Letter to the Senators of Piemonte
Dear Senators,
I write to you with profound respect for the Italian Republic and for the values of justice, continuity, and family that are deeply rooted in our shared heritage. I am an Italian descendant whose family comes from San Maurizio Canavese and Cirié in Piemonte, as well as from Friuli. I have dedicated my life to connecting with my ancestral roots, devoting most of the past decade—with significant emotional, financial, and sustained effort—to obtaining recognition of my Italian citizenship according to the principles of jus sanguinis.
My grandfather, Francesco Antonio Bodoira, was born in 1894 in San Maurizio Canavese. He served in the Grenadier Regiment during the First World War, defending Italy’s northern border, where he was captured by Austrian troops and held prisoner for three years. During his service, he played in the regimental band, and we inherited his collection of sheet music, some of which still contain his handwritten arrangements. This collection, which includes various pieces performed by the band, is now preserved as the Francesco Bodoira Music Collection at Appalachian State University. After receiving an honorable discharge in 1919, he emigrated in 1921 to Colorado to help his brothers establish a ranch, regularly sending remittances to support his widowed mother and sister in San Maurizio. Attracted by Henry Ford’s promise of five dollars a day, he soon moved to Detroit, where he worked for Ford and eventually opened his own used car dealership. In the 1950s, after one of his visits to family in Italy, Francesco told my father that, thanks to the money he had sent, “our Italian relatives now live better than we do.”
Like many Italians who emigrated during difficult times, he never severed ties with Italy. He owned and maintained the family home and land in San Maurizio throughout his life, ensuring that his mother and siblings always had a place to live. He remained deeply faithful to the values of work, family, and tradition. Although he died a year before I was born, the legacy he left us—through his values, his music, his stories, and the winemaking tradition he passed on through my father—continues to shape my life profoundly.
Out of respect for my roots, I studied Classical Studies as an undergraduate, receiving honors in my concentrations on Ancient Rome and Latin. I have spent extended periods in Italy, reconnecting with living relatives. I took Italian language courses through the Italian Cultural Society in Washington, D.C. I promote Italian history and heritage through my website, Ancestorally.com, and I began the citizenship process, in 2017, as a natural continuation of my family’s story—not out of convenience, but out of commitment to my inheritance.
Due to insurmountable documentary obstacles related to the Bodoira line, I had planned to request administrative recognition of jus sanguinis through my maternal grandfather, Luigi Sabbadini, who was also born in Italy. I was prepared to move to Italy in 2023, with all my documentation in order and a residence already secured, when my parents fell ill. In keeping with the values instilled in me through my Italian Catholic upbringing—that family comes first—I chose to remain in the United States to care for them physically and financially, giving everything I had. Once they were well and independent again, I worked intensely—over 120 hours a week across multiple jobs—to rebuild my savings and prepare for my move to Italy, postponed from 2023 to early 2025 due to the family health crisis.
Naturally, I was devastated when, in October 2024, the Ministry of the Interior issued Circular 43347, which eliminated my administrative path to jus sanguinis, because my grandfather Luigi had naturalized after my mother’s birth but before she reached adulthood. I did not give up: I initiated a civil case under the 1948 ruling through my maternal grandmother, Anita Ziraldo, whose father, Quirico Ziraldo, was born in Fagagna (UD), the same town where her husband—my grandfather Luigi—was born and raised. Her mother—my ancestor in the 1948 case—Valeria De Giorgio, was born in Plasencis, Mereto di Tomba (UD). I also included my brothers and their children in the case—even though I knew it would have been easier and faster to file alone—because I was raised to believe that family is not something to leave behind, but a bridge of continuity between past, present, and future that demands care and respect.
The documents for our citizenship recognition proceeding, under the 1948 ruling, were delivered to our attorney on March 17, 2025, and the case was formally filed on the morning of March 28, 2025, at the Tribunal of Trieste (no. 1494/2025). However, that very day, a legislative decree was issued which retroactively invalidated all cases filed after 11:59 p.m. on March 27. I had acted fully within the law and in good faith, trusting in the integrity of the Italian legal system. I invested over $13,000 USD—my life’s savings—into this petition, the result of eight years of sustained effort, only to see it invalidated without any advance notice. Surely this is not the treatment that either of my grandfathers, Francesco or Luigi, would have wanted for their granddaughter from the homeland they loved, worked for, and contributed to through years of sacrifice.
In Piemonte and throughout Italy, it is taught that the law should be predictable, that justice should reward diligence and integrity, and that tradition must be respected. I am not asking for special treatment. I ask only that those who submitted in good faith by March 29—the date the decree entered into force—be “grandfathered in” under the previous rules or, ideally, that the decree be applied only prospectively, thus honoring the longstanding principle that the citizenship law in effect at the time of birth determines eligibility. Even if my administrative path were restored in the future, such a change would not return the $13,000 USD I invested in the case filed in Trieste on March 28, 2025.
The adjustment I implore your office to consider would not compromise the State’s right to reform its citizenship procedures. On the contrary, it would reaffirm Italy’s moral commitment to fairness and to the hardworking, honest, and faithful members of the Italian diaspora who, by blood and heritage, are an integral part of Italy.
With Respect and Hope,
Anne Marie Champagne Bodoira
April 6, 2025
Friuli Version (excerpts)
My maternal grandfather, Luigi Sabbadini, was born in 1920 in Fagagna, the youngest son in a sharecropping family. Like many Friulian boys of that generation, his older brothers were sent to Germany to haul coal and send money home. At the age of 17, Luigi left for America with no money and no knowledge of English, but with the hope of lifting his family out of poverty. He arrived in Detroit and was welcomed by another Friulian family, the Ziraldos, headed by Quirico Ziraldo of Fagagna and his wife Valeria De Giorgio, of Mereto di Tomba.
Quirico, my great-grandfather, had fought with the Alpine Corps in Libya and in the Great War, where he lost a brother. When peace came, he emigrated not to abandon Italy but to serve her from afar. In the United States, he worked in a factory by day and made wine for Valeria’s beloved Sunday dinners, which brought together the Italian diaspora of Detroit. Together, they created a home—not only for their children, but for the entire community—continuing to send money to Italy so that their relatives might one day own land of their own.
In 1942, Luigi married Quirico’s daughter, Anita, and the following year their first daughter, my mother, was born. Quirico and Valeria took care of my mother while her parents worked. Their home was full of Friulian and Italian—the first languages my mother spoke. Although my great-grandparents died before I was born, their presence lived on through frequent family gatherings, often with more than 20 people, where their stories and sacrifices were kept alive.