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

Marisa's parents are from the Arsa Valley region of Istria, homeland of her Istrian ancestors since at least the 15-16th centuries, possibly there from Imperial Roman times. The family heritage is multi-ethnic and multi-lingual (including Venetian, Austro-Hungarian, and Istro-Slavic), but it is predominantly Istro-Romanian.

Marisa left Istria as a political refugee with her parents and baby sister in April of 1947 after a brutal world war had left family and friends and their entire homeland devasted and an uninvited foreign communist state came into power. 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 deFranza family stayed in the small home of a friend - Giuseppe (Pepi) Chenul. Then  Marisa's parents found a small summer house to rent. They paid the owner, a countess, the required 2-years' rental fees in advance, and so they moved in to 7 Isorelle, Savignone, near the town of Busalla. That same year, the entire region became home to countless other refugee families from Fiume and Istria, and pockets of them remain to this day.

In late September 1951, after several months of processing (including a marathon of health inspections and vaccinations) in two other 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 11 days later, on October 11, 1951 - poignantly, the day before Columbus Day. Catholic Charities had sponsored them to find employment on an anonymous farm in the state of Colorado. In mid-ocean, however, their family's "richiamo" finally went through and their ultimate destination was changed to New York City. For three days, they traversed the country by day train with absolutely no sleeping accommodations. First, they headed North, changing trains in Chicago, Illinois, and then went East to reach Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. There, they were met by her father's brother, Germano, with the promise that they would join family and many known Istrian friends who has settled in New York City, the "melting pot of the world" in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx before, during and after the two world wars of the 20th century, not to mention the latest exodus which came in the 1990s after the breakdown of Yugoslavia.

As corny as it may sound, as the family was crossing the Brooklyn Bridge that connects Brooklyn with Manhattan, Marisa, who was sitting on her uncle's lap in the taxicab, marveled at the giant statue that suddenly appeared on an isolated island in the bay. It was the Statue of LIberty! She had no idea of the singular significance of this symbol of freedom to all immigrants to the United States of America.

Marisa lived with her family in an Istrian enclave in Park Slope, Brooklyn (a borough of New York City) until 1967, whereupon she moved first to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, then to another borough of the city, Astoria, Queens for two years. She returned to Manhattan, this time to the West Side, and has lived there ever since at the same address since 1969. In late 1995, her mother, Giovanna (Nina) Ciceran who was recently widowed, sold her house and left Park Slope to go live with Marisa, her elder daughter.

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 from an academic to business curriculum, and earned first degree was 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 which was awarded to her in 1974 by Hunter College, although most of her coursework had been completed at Columbia University. After having worked many years with architects in mainly administrative positions, in 1975 she accepted a job in middle management at Columbia University and soon afterwards enrolled in architectural courses at the university's School of Architecture at Columbia University, which then precipitated a 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, Marisa changed course again, earned a Generalist Paralegal Certificate from Adelphi University, and then capped off her education in 1990-1 with 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 on the beach, sipping coffee at a bistro, or dancing at a disco, but spent quality time with Istrians from all walks of life, 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

Origin of the name Marisa: Name composed from Maria, derived from the Hebrew Maryam which in turn originated from the Egyptian mrjt "loved, beloved," with the Hebrew female suffix -am, and Luisa, derived from the ancient French male name Loois, later Louis, that came in turn from the German Hlodowig and means "illustrious woman, glorious combatant."

Name Day/Onomastico: March 15—in memory of St. Luisa of Marillac. March 15 is also a festive day in the Roman calendar that dedicated to the god Mars, and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.