Drew Peace? Yeah Let's Just Go With That..

Michael Andrew Pace was almost born on February 19^th, 1997.  Although, a last minute change of heart led to the creation of Andrew Michael Pace, or AMP.  To those who don’t already know, amp is short for ampere, the IS unit of measurement that measures power.  Yes, this may seem as a bleak and useless connotation of my name, but with further research I’ve been able to find out more about my name’s relationship with power. 

Carl Pace Sr., my father’s father, was the youngest and only member of his immediate family to be born in the states.  His two parents Joe and Angela and three other siblings were all born in the kingdom of Sicily—at the time a small yet prominent and wealthy kingdom in the Mediterranean Sea.  This small island receives most of its wealth through the trade of agricultural, sea merchandise, and slaves.  Yes, this beautiful island kingdom wasn’t that beautiful after all.  It was the host of tremendous amounts of mafia control and organized crime.  Most of it held its roots in the city of Polermo, the city where my grandfather’s family grew up.  These mafias held tremendous amounts of power which eventually spread from their small Sicilian districts to the United States. 

The Pace family, ironically, dabbled here and there in mafia affairs and, as a result, was stringed into the business.  I know it’s surprising.  I mean how on Earth can such a nice, genuine child like myself have roots in such a dark and merciless business?  That’s what appalls most people I encounter.

 

This is the point where all irony seems to unfold thanks to another small piece of my name: my surname.  “Pace” may be a nice little adjective describing the rate of time but it is also the root of a much more important word from the Italian language, a word the world has almost deemed impossible to obtain in real life.  Even Plato, one of the founding fathers of philosophy and learning, has stated “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”  By saying this, he was implying that world peace will never be found.  In Italian, the word “pace” (pronounced pa-chi) means peace.  Prior to its Changing at Ellis Island, my surname literally was the Italian word for peace.  There wasn’t even a pronunciation difference.

The fact that my ancestors wore a name meaning peace yet at the same time spent much of their lives within the Sicilian mafias is pure irony in itself.  I’m not exactly a pro-peace sort of person and neither am I a person with a lust for power.  I believe I’ve fallen somewhere in between and, as a result, I’ve realized that my ancestors’ lifestyles aren’t my own and will not affect how I plan to live my life.  They will not define or convict me, and neither will I define or convict any of those who follow me through this everlasting family tree.  Don’t get me wrong, I take pride in who I am and how I came to be.  My name is Andrew Michael Pace and though words like power, corruption, peace, and love float around my name and my roots, I will not let any of those words define me without my initial consent.