Marisa is the registered owner of istrianet.org, istrians.com and istro-romanian.com, as well as the primary creative and technical force behind the respective internet projects.

Like the vast majority of Istrians, she is of mixed ancestry, but her family's cultural and linguistic heritage is Istro-Romanian first, Istro-Venetian second and Istro-Slavic last. Her family left Istria as political refugees in 1947 when her younger sister was still an infant, and after a few weeks' stay in Silos, a refugee holding station in Trieste, Italy, they proceeded to their planned destination, the bucolic suburbs of Genoa, Italy. For about a week and until their furniture arrived by train, the Ciceran family and the de Franza family stayed in the small home of a friend near Busala, Genova - Giuseppe (Pepi) Chenul. Housing being scarce, Marisa's parents found a small summer house to rent which had  no heating or bathing facilities. With money from her mother's brother who subsequently came to live with them, they paid the owner, a countess, the mandatory 2-years' rental charges in advance. Being already fully licensed in the merchant marines, Marisa's father went to sea to support his family until they left Italy for good, rarely seeing his wife and children. (Those who coined the saying that "cicio no xe per barca" never met a hard working Istro-Romanian sailor.)

The late 1940s to early 1950s were difficult years for  everyone who took part in the mass Exodus, especially in the immediate aftermath of the signing of the Peace Treaty in 1947 which drove countless of families of political refugees out of Istria and Dalmatia and from other parts of the newly-formed Communist Yugoslavia and corralled them into overcrowed refugee camps and later parceled out to foreign countries all over the world.

In late September 1951, after several unpleasant months of administrative processing (including a marathon of health inspections and vaccinations) in two additional refugee camps - first Campo Bagnoli near Naples, Italy and then Camp Lesum in Bremen, Germany - the family crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the General S.D. Sturgis, an American troop ship that arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA approximately two weeks later, on October 11, 1951. Later immigrants had the luxury of making the same trip by airplane and arriving within twenty-four hours of departure, but what is more symbolically significant is that the Ciceran family set foot on American soil the day before Columbus Day which, until a few years ago, was celebrated on October 12.

With one cardboard suitcase for a family of four and about $100 to their name, Catholic Charities had otherwise sponsored the Ciceran family and guaranteed them housing and employment on an unnamed farm in the state of Colorado. In mid-Atlantic, however, their family's appeal ("richiamo") finally went through and so their ultimate destination was changed to New York City. For three days, they traversed the country by day train with absolutely no sleeping or dining accommodations - first heading north to Chicago, Illinois, where they had something to eat at the train station and where they boarded another train that took them to their final destination, Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. They were met there by Germano Ciceran (always known to close family and friends as Mano), Marisa's uncle. and in a taxi the headed to Park Slope, Brooklyn. Already in the late 1940s, there were well-established Istrian communities both in Brooklyn and Queens, and smaller ones in Manhattan, the Bronx and neighboring states, where almost all became blue collar workers.

It may sound corny, but it is true, that as the family was on the Brooklyn Bridge that connects Brooklyn with Manhattan, Marisa, who was sitting on her uncle's lap in the taxi, was thrilled to see a giant statue that suddenly appeared on a tiny island in the bay. It was the Statue of LIberty! At the tender age of 7-1/2, she had no idea of the singular significance to immigrants of this symbol of freedom from tyranny and oppression.

Marisa lived with her family in a very tight Istrian enclave in Park Slope, Brooklyn (one of the five boroughs of New York City) until 1967, whereupon she moved briefly to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, then lived two years in Astoria, in the borough of Queens. She returned to Manhattan in 1969, this time to the West Side, and has lived at the same address ever since. In late 1995, her mother, Giovanna (Nina) Ciceran who was recently widowed and had lost her sister and family dog that same year, sold her house and left Park Slope, too. She lives with Marisa, her elder daughter, in one of the most vibrant parts of the City today.

Education and Work

Marisa's educational background is diversified and, as is the case with many immigrants, was mostly undertaken as a parttime student while working fulltime. After graduating with an Academic degree and high honors from Bay Ridge High School in Brooklyn, the sister school to Brooklyn Tech High School, she set aside a private scholarship and began her college education at Brooklyn College. After one year, she switched temporarily from an academic to business curriculum, and earned an Associate's Degree in Accounting and Business Management - a detour made necessary to help support her family and to become financially self-sufficient. Next came a Bachelor of Arts degree in Romance Languages and Art History from Hunter College of C.U.N.Y. in 1974, even though most of her coursework had been completed at Columbia University. After having worked many years with architects in primarily administrative positions, in 1975 she accepted a job in middle management at Columbia University and soon afterwards enrolled in architectural courses at C.U. School of Architecture, thereby triggering a major career change.

Having previously worked as a senior accountant at the Controller's Office alongside consultants from the accounting and management firm of Coopers and Lybrand, she was hired in 1979 by the Vice President for Facilies Management to do the research, and to then be a major player in, the installation of a computerized space management system from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She jointly supervised the implementation project with outside consultants and then was put in charge of a newly created department. In the process, she earned several certificates in Computer Technology and Space Management from M.I.T., and one from the American Business Association. In 1982, she set aside her middle-management position at Columbia University to complete her Masters in Architecture with a goal to later pursue her PhD.

With the architectural and constructions fields slumping into a serious recession in the mid-1980s, Marisa changed course again, earned a Generalist Paralegal Certificate from Adelphi University, and then capped off her education in 1991 by completing a year of law school, thereby acquiring more than routine exposure and knowledge to what is commonly referred to as "the paper trail"! 

Marisa's first trip back home was in 1973, and she made several other extended trips to Istria and surrounds in the late 1990s-early 2000s, during which time she spent her time not basking in the sun on the beach, sipping coffee at a bistro, or dancing at a disco, but spending quality time in libraries and museums and meeting with Istrians from all walks of life. She captured over 1,600 photographs and collected many books, articles, and brochures on the rich cultural heritage of that magical land called "Istria". You will find excerpts of many of these on this website.

See also:

• Enrico Bartolo Ciceran
• Fiume: Parents' Wedding, June 6, 1942
• Fiume: 1944-7
• Isorelle: 1947-51 (under construction)
• Our Darling Starlings