The United States is comprised of many cultures, traditions, and beliefs. Each person that lives here has her cultural origin somewhere else. Along with this knowledge of a "homeland" comes a certain sense of pride. Why, then, does my family, in general, seem to know so little about their background? Does that mean they are embarrassed about their past? Or does it means that because their assimilation into American society and culture was so smooth and complete, they naturally forgot about their past?
The tidbits I have acquired about my family's history leads me to believe that the latter is true. My mother's grandparents, or my great-grandparents, seemed to try so hard to become true Americans that they put aside their Italian heritage. In the late 19th century, immigrants from all over came to America and learned English very fast because not knowing the language meant they were outsiders: they did not belong here. The stories that managed to survive in my family are the ones that were passed on through the women. As mothers worked in the kitchen with their daughters kneading dough or scrubbing clothes, they told the young girls the stories of the "old country."
The telling of these stories can be interpreted as the women's way to express their yearning for their old lives. Why, then, did they come to America in the first place? Italian women may have came here with the intent to support the men in their lives, but what they found was far more significant. Coming to America brought my female relatives, and all Italian women, a new definition to their role: it combined the home and the world.
My mother's paternal grandmother came from Palma, Italy which was a small suburb outside of Naples. Naples and the surrounding areas were known to be the prime location for peasants to do "extensive market gardening" (Mangano 52). Popular products to be sold included cauliflower, tomatoes, lemons and oranges. These peasants were hard working and thrifty, but, nevertheless, illiterate, trying to pay their rent, and very fearful of their greedy landlords (Mangano 52).
My great-grandmother's family name was Francese. Concetta's father was a sheep herder working out in the pastures while his daughter ran their canteen in the local marketplace as a young woman. She was not well-educated like many other young women and the peasant population in general, but she had common sense and was practical (Caliendo). Besides the family role of care-taker, in this case by earning money, there existed a specific role for women in Italy. Being a prayerful woman, joining in novenas, as well as being pious and humble--"lady-like"--was deemed for Italian women, as reflected by the older Italian American generation today.
Besides the distinctions between the roles of men and women in 19th century Italy, there existed differences between northern and southern Italy. It could be defined as "great refinement and intelligent beauty at one extreme and life only a little better than that of the animals at the other" (Mangano 41). Those in the north were well-educated and highly intellectual individuals as compared to their southern counterparts who were considered ignorant because of their belief in superstitions and in the ritualistic practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The more knowledgeable and rational northerners believed the massive power of the Catholic Church was due to the support it received from the un-educated south (Mangano 74). Southern Italians needed to believe in a hope to carry them through their difficult ordeals, while northerners had money to carry them through. The wealth in northern Italy was a by-product of their expanding industrialization in the late 19th century (Mangano 66).
Just as the wealth of Italy was not distributed evenly, neither was the political power. The political structure of Italy in the second half of the 19th century was rocky. Before 1871, Italy was not even a united country. It consisted of four city-states: the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, Lombardy-Venetia, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The only independent state was the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was made up of the island of Sardinia and the provinces of Nice, Savoy, and Piedmont. The other areas were controlled by outside powers, such as the Roman Catholic Church and Austria. It was Sardinia's prime minister, Camillo deCavour, that pushed for a completely unified Italian peninsula. Through a series of small wars, he was able by 1866 to incorporate all areas except Rome into a single entity. The center of Catholicism and the home of the Pope remained separate until 1870 when the city was conquered by force. This occasion became the date of the formal unification of Italy (Edler 136).
Even before that final date, unified Italy was a constitutional monarchy. The pitfalls to this system were that only a small percentage of males had the right to vote and this number was dominated by southern Italian landowners (Edler 136-137). The poor farmers of the south wanted better financial opportunities while the northerners yearned for a place to be heard in government and in the intellectual forum. Both groups generally believed they would find what was missing in Italy in the United States. Italians, like many other ethnic groups, believed that "you've got to have luck in this world" (Kerklan). With this mind-set, southern Italians easily fell into believing the American Dream: to start with nothing and become something. After a week-long journey on a cramped ship, the sight of the Statue of Liberty reinforced their faith. For all immigrants, not just the Italians, it stood as a symbol of hope, freedom, and economic prosperity (Kerklan).
My great-grandmother, Concetta, at 25 years old, came to the United States in the 1890's for the financial opportunities. She came with two of her sisters who were already married and one brother. My great-grandmother lived with her sisters in Williamsburg, Brooklyn until she was married. Concetta worked in factories like many other immigrants had to during her stay with her sisters to pay the bills Once she was married she would give up factory work for something much more familiar to her (Caliendo).
My grandmother's mother, Mary Falcone's, circumstances for coming to America were much different. She was never born in Italy. Her parents lived in Montevideo, Uruguay were she was born. The rumor in my family, although no one knows for sure, is that they lived there for many years because the warm South American climate aided my great-grandmother's father's failing health. According to my oldest Italian relative, 88 year old Aunt Floss, her mother's family came here for a better life, but I can only estimate that their migration was at the turn of the century (Faraldo).
Masses of immigrants entered the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Kerklan). Immigrants, in general, tended to cling to their family--their traditions and their values--to help ease the transition of becoming Americans and assimilating into American society. In Italian families, women played a central role. What seemed to be a patriarchal family structure could clearly be seen as a matriarchal family structure. Women were the center of the home which was the center of Italian family life. Besides cooking and cleaning, it was the wives, often solely, who were responsible for rearing of the children. In addition, women took care of all the social obligations that existed. For example, the mother was the one to arrange the marriages of the daughters (Kerklan).
Besides their role in the home, Italian women often worked to aid the family income. Mostly older daughters and young wives with few or no children worked outside the home in factories. In the shoe-making factory in Endicott, New York during the 1920's "fifty-five percent of Italian women had no children" (Vecchio 69). Women with a growing family often did worked at home to supplement the family income. Particularly popular in cities such as New York and Philadelphia, "homework," as it was called, included industries that relied predominantly on hand labor. The garment industry and the making of artificial flowers were two common examples (Vecchio 69). Regardless of the kind of work women did to help their families, it was in no way intended to be a means for Italian women to achieve economic independence: "Even as workers, most Italian women clung to a primary identity as wife or mother. Their work was meaningful in that they were contributing, not competing, with their husbands for the collective good of the family. Most women gained satisfaction knowing they were aiding the family financially and contributing to a better standard of living for all" (Vecchio 78).
My great-grandmother Concetta's motive for opening a grocery store was to better her family as a whole. She married Andrew Caliendo at the age of 30. Because he was not a well-established man with clear career goals, she wanted to open a business in which he could make a name for himself. And what a better to enter than the one she had some experience in on involving retail and marketplace like knowledge. With her knowledge from the Italian marketplace, she ran the business, although she was not able to read or write in English. During the winter, her husband helped her run the store, while during the summer he peddled grapes in the streets for wine-making. Much like the distance he kept from the business, he was rarely involved in the raising of the children. He like many men, my Aunt Tess recalled would not care for the children because "men would never be seen wheeling a baby carriage" (Caliendo). Concetta had nine children of which five lived (my grandfather being in the middle). Lucy, being the oldest, helped to raise her siblings behind the store front while her mother worked (Caliendo).
Italian women, like Concetta Caliendo, were clearly not timid. Having a distinct sense of themselves allowed them to express themselves freely, as compared with their Anglo-American counterparts. Italian families were more democratic than other ethnic groups because the decision-making process was shared by the husband and wife as exemplified in my great-grandmother's story where it seems that my great-grandmother dominated. Italian wives, in essence, possessed a power because in general their are voices that we, being men, never observed (Kerklan).
However, this sense of power did not always include Italian teenage girls. Between the immigrant parent generation and their American born children there was a definite generation gap and conflict. It existed between what a young woman's father expected her to do and what she wanted to do. While their mothers could arrange marriages and run businesses, teenage girls were not even allowed out of the house by themselves. Going out, they had to be with a chaperone. "The weight of the reputation of the family rested on the good behavior of the women, the daughters, and the wives" (Kerklan). With this rationale, second generation Italian American women had more limitations placed upon them.
It was my Aunt Floss who saw this aspect of Italian families. Her mother, Mary, married Joseph Faraldo at the age of 17. He owned a scrap metal business that she took no part in. Instead, she took care of the house and raised the twelve children. Sadly, she died at the young age of 40, leaving her oldest unmarried daughter to follow in her footsteps--my Aunt Floss.
Aunt Floss grew up very quickly. She was only about 16 years old when her mother died, and she had to assume the role of "keeper of the house." Her responsibilities included cooking, cleaning, caring for the young children and, even at times, accommodating family that was just arriving from Italy. With all of these family responsibilities, her father forbade her from getting a higher education than grammar school (Faraldo). Like many other Italian fathers, he feared schooling would tear her away from her roots (Kerklan). She wanted to study nursing, but unfortunately never was able to pursue it. Like her mother, she tried to be proud of her role in the family that was necessary for its stability.
My Aunt Floss did, however, become cynical towards marriage. Her bitterness was a result of doing her mother's work for so many years. My Aunt Floss explained it was like she was "on the curb of a street and the parade is passing. The parade has passed you by" (Faraldo). Besides feeling like the opportunity to marry had passed her by, she also resented marriage: she did not want to become a slave to her husband's house as she was in her own for many years (Faraldo).
Being a slave to the house was not the case for my Aunt Tess, Concetta Caliendo's youngest daughter. Being very aware of her mother's much more independent role, she aspired towards the same. My Aunt Tess never married. During the 1930's, she worked in a factory to pay the bills. Having studied accounting in high school and being that many men were off fighting in World War II, she was able to find a job through word of mouth that gave her experience in the field. With that knowledge she was able to apply and "catch" a position advertised in the newspaper: the job she stayed with for 32 years. Her older sister, Lucy, was the one to take over the grocery store and watch it prosper for many years. When she was ready for retirement, the area was renovated into apartments for rent which, again, were managed by my Aunt Lucy (Caliendo).
Seeing and understanding both side of my mother's family helps to explain my Grandma Anna and my Mom, named Concetta after her grandmother. Grandma Anna was a "family woman." Her husband and two children were her main priority. She, however, did not remain solely in the home. There were two occasions in which she worked outside the home. The first occasion was when my Grandpa Willie was enlisted and served in World War II. To make a little extra money for the family and to help her keep her sanity, she went out and found work with her sister, Mary. Years later, when my uncle was enlisted in the Vietnam War my grandmother worked at a candy factory with her sister Theresa (just picture Lucy and Ethelle in the candy factory episode of I Love Lucy) to help her keep from worrying. Clearly my grandmother combined the family and worldy aspects into her life as was exemplified by those around them.
Just like her mother, my mother values her family, but is in contact with the outside world too. When I was young, she did not work: my mother stayed at home to raise me. As I got older and entered school, she began working part-time to keep in the "swing of things." Now that I am grown, she has returned to full-time work, but I know that my father and I still remain her number one priority. In fact, she works, not for herself, but for the benefit of her family, like early Italian immigrant women did. Living with the family centered intentions that she does, my mother shows her respect for and pride of our family background.
Likewise, I am proud of all the Italian women in my family. They did not have it exceptionally harder or easier than other Italian women, but what they did was noble, nevertheless. The Caliendo and Faraldo women sacrificed of themselves to better the lives and situations of their families. Aunt Floss took care of her family instead of going to school or getting married. Concetta Caliendo worked hard to run a business and raise five children, so that her husband had a name made for himself. Each of them suffered in different ways, but their survival is key. They survived because they had each other--family.
The sense of togetherness Italian women brought to their families and their ability to balance the growing demands of family and world inspire me. As I move through college into the business world and will someday marry, the lives of my Italian women ancestors will be an example for me. Their love and dedication, whether regarding work or home, will be something I will never forget.
Let us return to my original question, "Why does my family seem to know so little about there background?" Clearly it is more than not caring and being embarrassed. It is more or less no one ever asking. My grandmother passed the stories of her family to my mother, but until I asked my Aunt Tess, both my mother and I did not know about the great accomplishments of my great-grandmother Concetta. As I pointed out earlier, men like my grandfather do not pass on their history. Italian women will continue into the 21st century to juggle their many roles, including historians, very successfully.
Caliendo, Tess. Personal Interview. 15 Nov 1998
Eder, James M. AP European History. New York: Barron's Education Series, 1994.
Faraldo, Floss. Personal Interview. 15 Nov 1998.
"Italians in America." Writ. Laura Kerklan. A&E Special Presentation. Dir. Laura Kerklan. Prod. Craigg Haffner and Donna E. Lusitana. A&E. Channel 16, Yonkers. 11 Oct 1998.
Mangano, Antonio. Sons of Italy: A Social and Religious Study of the Italians in America. Jeromes Ozer: New York, 1971.
Vecchio, Diane C. "Italian Women in Industry: The Shoeworkers of Endicott, New York, 1914-1935." Journal of American Ethnic History. 8.2 (Spring 1998): 60-82.