Although my last name is Yapchanyk, make no mistake: my heritage is as rich an Italian heritage as any other Italian-American’s.  If you were to spend just one day in my house, especially around the Christmas holiday, you would see this rich heritage as very clearly.  If you were to visit a few days before Christmas, you’d smell the fresh tomato sauce, or gravy, as we Italians call it, cooking on the stove; you would also see my family and my uncles’ families diligently mashing meatballs and grating cheese for our homemade Christmas Day lasagna.  On Christmas Eve, you would see my family all gathered around the dining room table eating many types of fish, following the Italian custom of abstaining from meat on Christmas Eve.  No matter when you decide to visit my house, you would be guaranteed to see a pantry filled with pasta and hear at least one Italian phrase like “Che belle!” or “mangia!”

My Italian heritage comes from my mother’s side of the family.  Her maiden name is Liberatori; she is one hundred percent Italian and takes full pride in her heritage.  Her father, my grandfather, Louis Liberatori, was born in Italy and immigrated to the United States when he was only three years of age.  He came to America with his mother, my great-grandmother, Virginia, in the early 1930s to meet my great-grandfather, who had immigrated earlier to find work.  Louis would be raised as an Italian-American in the land of opportunity.  My grandfather and his wife, Louise, had three children: Louis, Barbara, my mother, and Joseph.  How quickly time passes – unfortunately both my grandfather and grandmother are now deceased.  All three of their children are now married and have children of their own.
The three families of my grandfather’s children are still very close.  We often gather together and practice Italian customs such as the ones described earlier.  The bond my Italian side of the family holds is so strong that even my father, who is proud of his Polish and Ukrainian background, has sort of assimilated into an Italian; he too takes some amount of pride in practicing the Italian customs of our family.  No doubt that if you lived in my house, you would be Italian at heart, too.  The strong bond evident in the Liberatori family would affect you, too.

When reflecting on my Italian heritage recently, it dawned on me that the Liberatori’s are bonded by more than just our blood.  We share more than the great history of our Italian ancestors, especially of my grandfather and his family, our family’s American pioneers.  We share more than the great Italian customs we practice.   Yes, we share more than just a last name.  Going back to my Italian-born grandfather, we all share in an Italian heritage rich in musical talent.  I can trace this musical talent and inclination through my family in every generation going back to my grandfather.  It may have been evident in generations preceding my grandfather; but unfortunately, I am unable to trace it back any further due to the fact that my grandfather was an only child and that both he and my grandmother are both deceased.  In my generation, I am proud to say that the musical talent seems most evident in my immediate family, in my two brothers and in myself.

Before I go into detail about music in my family today and the effect it has had on my family, it is important that I go back and describe how and when the Liberatori’s came to America.  In doing so, I will ultimately show how this hereditary love for and talent in music all originated.  Let me start with the immigration of my great-grandfather.  Joseph Liberatori immigrated to the United States around 1930 from Anagni, Italy.  This was a very unstable time in Italian history.  After losing the First World War, Italy was “plunged into deep social and political crisis.” (“Rise of Fascism”)  This instability led to rise of the well-known dictator, Benito Mussolini, who was transforming Italy into a Fascist State.  The rise of Fascism began in 1919 and was reaching its peak just around the time my great-grandfather left for America.  Mussolini used violence to get his way in everything he did.  He used violence to destroy civil liberties, ban other political parties, and impose a totalitarian state on Italy.  Despite Mussolini’s violence and manipulation, he and the Fascist Party were still receiving increased support mostly due to “shrewd political maneuvering and widespread violence perpetrated by Mussolini’s Black Shirt Squads” (“Rise of Fascism”).  The foolish Italians who supported Mussolini only saw what appeared to be order; they did not see what Mussolini was really doing to the country.

 But Joseph Liberatori was no fool; he saw what was truly going on in Italy due to Mussolini’s regime and he did not like it.  Although, Mussolini was stabilizing the country’s economy, there was much of domestic political strife and unrest in Italy.  The Italians who were anti-Fascist were being harassed for not joining the Fascist Party (Barzini 134).  The anti-Fascist Italians were concerned that their country was headed toward big problems with Mussolini at the helm.  Their concerns proved to be valid because in the mid-1930s, Mussolini began his aggressive attempt at expanding Italy by attacking countries like Ethiopia and Albania.  Not soon after, Mussolini established the Rome-Berlin Axis and later, the Pact of Steel, alliances with Adolf Hilter of Germany.  These alliances “inevitably dragged Italy, in 1940, into the Second World War” (“Italy b/t World Wars”).  Even though these Italians, like my great-grandfather, had valid concerns for their country in the early 1930s, there was nothing the anti-Fascist Italians could do to change the situation because “anti-Fascist Italians critical of Mussolini’s Italy found their views offset by praise from ambassadors…tourists, and newspapermen” (DeConde 204).  Joseph, being anti-Fascist, did not want to live the rest of his life in Italy under these harsh conditions and fearing for the future; further, these were definitely not the conditions in which he wanted to raise his son, Louis.  So, he decided that now was the best time for immigration to the United States, an immigration he had been considering for quite some time for economic reasons (Interview).

Joseph had been considering immigration to America because of Italy’s heavy economic trouble.  The poor Italian economy affected my great-grandfather’s pay; he was barely making ends meet and running out of money fast.  He had heard stories from friends about the great opportunity in America.  They said that people can start life anew there and that everyone had money.  They were referring to the Roaring Twenties.  Although Joseph did not completely accept these stories because he felt that they were exaggerations, he did believe that life was better in America than Italy; yet still, he was unsure if it was worth the risk (Interview).  Mussolini’s rise to power added another reason to immigrate to America.  Joseph’s feelings about Mussolini were so strong that because of Mussolini’s rise to power, Joseph was willing to take the risk of immigration (Interview).

Initially, Joseph immigrated to the United States alone, leaving his wife, Virginia, and his son, Louis, in Italy.  He knew immigration was a big risk and he wanted to make sure he could find work and get settled before he called for his wife and his son.  This proved to be a wise move because having come to United States amidst the Great Depression, work was very scarce especially for an Italian immigrant.  Even in the great city of New York, where he originally settled, Joseph had problems finding a job.  So, he decided that he must look elsewhere for work.  Remembering stories from Italians in Anagni about the great number of Italians in Brazil, Joseph went to Brazil in hopes of finding work amongst his fellow Italians.  He settled in S?o Paulo, “the [Brazilian] metropolis of the Italians…[where] they were at least a third of the population” (Foerster 315).  My great-grandfather lived in S?o Paulo, Brazil and worked as a construction worker for almost a year (Interview).   In 1930, Joseph felt that he made enough money to pay for his wife and son’s trip to America and a few months rent back in New York.
As a result, Joseph moved back to New York to give the United States another chance.  This time, he had better luck; he found a steady job in the familiar field of construction and an apartment in the heavily Italian Belmont section of the Bronx.  Having received some degree of financial security, he sent for his wife and son.  He could not go back to Italy to retrieve them and then return to America together because the Fascist government was “forcing into its army Italian-Americans who had returned to Italy to visit friends and relatives” (DeConde 193).  Nevertheless, they were soon reunited and the Liberatori’s, freed forever from the dictatorship of Mussolini, began their new lives together in America, the land of opportunity.

Just because America was called the land of opportunity did not mean that life there would be easy.  My grandfather and his family learned this quickly because he immigrated to the United States amid the Great Depression.  But, the Liberatori’s were a family and as Louis Barzini said, “The first source of power is the family.  The Italian family is a stronghold in a hostile land…No Italian who has a family is ever alone” (190).  The Liberatori’s, being native Italians, believed this and helped each other adapt to the new society around them and build new lives for themselves.  Their strong sense of family helped the Liberatori’s overcome discrimination and all the economic hardships of the depression.

My ancestors arrived in America during a time of great discrimination towards Italian immigrants.  They arrived only a few years after the end of the famous Sacco-Vanzetti trail.  This case in Massachusetts, which lasted from 1920-1927, charged Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti of theft of about $15,000 from a shoe factory in South Braintree and the murders of the paymaster and a guard (Encarta).  Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian immigrants who arrived in the United States in 1908.  The case against the two Italians was based on what many called inadequate evidence and contradictory testimonies.  Yet, the two were found guilty and “the judge…and the jurors were accused of bias” (Encarta).  This accusation of bias proved to be correct because all requests for a re-trail or appeal were denied.  In fact, after suppressing a move for a re-trial, “the judge allegedly said to a professor at Darmouth College, ‘Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards the other day.  I guess that will hold them for a while…’” (DeConde 167).   Furthermore, Sacco and Vanzetti were both executed in 1927 despite a convicted murderer’s confession in 1925 to having been part of the gang that committed the crimes in South Braintree.  Fifty years after the executions, after the bias had passed, the governor of Massachusetts officially recognized the faults of the case and cleared the names of Sacco and Vanzetti.  This murder case is a prime example of the anti-Italian sentiment that existed in the United States around the time my great-grandfather and his family settled in New York.  All Italian immigrants in America at that time faced the hardship of discrimination such as the example described above, although many experienced it on a smaller level, of course.

Yet, because of their strong sense of family, the Liberatori’s overcame the hardships they faced, whether they were economic troubles or discriminations.  My grandfather faced these hardships from a very young age.  This was especially evident when he was forced, at age 12, to get an after-school job at the chicken market.  Life was very hard for my grandfather as a boy; but he took refuge from these hardships in music.   When Louis was six, the Liberatori’s visited the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York City.  They visited the Opera House to enjoy a part of Italian culture that was becoming a part of American culture, because it was Italians like Giulio Gatti-Casazza and Enrico Caruso who brought opera into the mainstream of American society (DeConde 170).  My grandfather was mesmerized by the beautiful music of that night and loved music ever since.  Louis’ parents, seeing their son’s love for music, “bought him a used violin from their friend Gianni Turzini and gave it to him as a Christmas gift when he was 12” (Interview).  They could not afford anything expensive and the violin was fairly cheap and in good condition.  Louis loved the violin and played it often for fun and relaxation.  This gift and my grandfather’s recreational playing of the violin would be, although he did not know it, the beginning of a new family tie: talent in and love of music.

The family tie truly began to take shape as my grandfather became more serious about his violin playing.  His love for the instrument only made his life more hectic than it already was but to him, but it was a small price to pay to do what he loved.  When he was 13, he started to take lessons at a local music school in addition to his schoolwork.  At age 14, Louis also began to work for his father, who had put enough money together to build his own small apartment building.  Louis helped his father with the running and maintenance of the building. That same year, my grandfather started attending Commerce High School in Yonkers.  It is amazing, even to me, that between his schoolwork and his job, he still found time to take lessons and play the violin.  He later told his children that he continued to play the violin because it helped him to escape from his problems for a little while; he said that “when he played the violin he felt like he was in another world – a more peaceful and stable world” (Interview).

My grandfather’s real world began to resemble the stable world of his music.  He graduated from high school in 1945 by which time the Great Depression was long over.  The Liberatori’s economic trouble subsided, due mostly to the success of Joseph’s apartment house, and they began to enjoy their new lives in America.  Their economic troubles truly diminished when Louis was hired by the Alexander Smith Carpet Company to work in the business offices (Interview).  The Liberatori’s had survived the hardest years of the family’s history and they did it through their strong sense of family, Italian culture, and music. The Liberatori family expanded in 1948 when Louis married Louise Bova, a second generation Italian-American.  Louis and Louise bought their own house in the Park Hill area of Yonkers, where there were numerous Italian-American families.  Louis, because of his strong sense of family did not want to move any further away from his parents than Yonkers (Interview).  In fact, Louis and Louise often visited the Liberatori’s because of Louis’ strong bond with his family.  Soon, the Liberatori’s and the Bova’s were sharing each other’s company for holidays and sometimes for no reason at all.

Throughout all this change in his life, Louis still managed to keep up with his music.  He still played the violin frequently and was becoming very good at it.  He became so skillful at the violin that in the early 1950s, Louis was accepted into a symphony in New York City (Interview).  After playing in the symphony for about six years, Louis left in order to help raise his son Louis Jr., who was born in 1951, and his daughter Barbara, who was born in 1953 (Interview).  Although my grandfather left the symphony, he did not abandon his love for music.  He continued to follow his favorite Italian-American singers like Louis Prima and Frank Sinatra.  In addition, he never stopped playing his violin for recreation.  Because of my grandfather’s never ending love for music, the Liberatori house was like a jukebox.

The constant exposure to music had an effect on Louis’ three children Louis, Barbara, and Joseph, who was born in 1961.  Barbara and Joseph agree that the talent in and love for music present in all three of Louis’ children “stems from the way we were raised” (Interview).  My grandfather, who was now at People’s Savings Bank working his way up the corporate ladder to eventually become Senior Vice President, was always whistling and humming around the house or in the car.  Even I can recall him doing this when I was with him.  It was only a matter of time before his children started to hum, too.  Their seeds for music were just starting to sprout.

It is obvious that the love for and talent in music grew and matured in all three of Louis’ children.  Louis Jr., the oldest, was the first to develop his musical abilities.  At age eleven, he began to take accordion lessons and continued all through high school.  Having a good musical intuition, Louis Jr. was able to take his knowledge of the accordion and teach himself how to play keyboards.  While he was in high school, my Uncle Louis joined a band that played at local clubs and dances.  He continued to play the keyboard in this band until his graduation from Manhattan College.  After his college graduation, he stopped playing in the band to concentrate on getting a job and making a living but his love for music has always stayed with him.

My Uncle Joe actually used his musical talent to create a job and a living for himself.  Being the youngest of the three children in his family, he was not only exposed to his father’s musical attraction, but also his older brother and sister’s.  When he was a young boy, about seven years old, he used to “sneak into [his] brother’s room and play with the piano end of the accordion” (Interview).  My grandparents quickly noticed this and, like my grandfather’s parents did for him, they bought Joe a small keyboard.  My uncle used to play the keyboard for fun all the time, but it took him a while to decide that he was really serious about playing and that he wanted to take lessons.  He finally decided when he was fourteen and attended the Febbriao School of Music.  This decision prompted my grandparents to buy him a real piano to practice and play on.  My Uncle Joe took lessons through his college years, but he had already started to form his own band in high school, which performed at places similar to his older brother’s band.

After his college graduation, an agent heard my uncle’s band play and hired them to be a part of his agency because of their great feel for music.  They had to learn countless “popular” songs because they would be playing at weddings, clubs and other special occasions.  The agent was confident that my uncle and his band would get everyone out of their seats at these occasions due to his passion for music.  As the band gained experience, my uncle expanded the band’s business by playing for several agencies.  Eventually, Joe filed business papers and made the band his own private business.  He was now in charge of everything including hiring and firing, payroll, and advertising.  He has turned his musical abilities into a well-established band and now DJ company.  My Uncle Joe does this in addition to working as an engineer in a nuclear power plant; a job obtained as a result of receiving and Engineering Degree from Manhattan College.

My father also attained his Engineering degree from Manhattan College; in fact, he graduated in the same class as my Uncle Louis.  That is how my father and mother met.  After knowing Louis for years, it was no surprise to my dad that my mother also had some musical talent and appreciation.  The only extent of any true musical involvement was in high school where my mother was in the glee club.  But, just because she wasn’t in any bands or never took any professional lessons doesn’t mean she doesn’t have love for and talent in music.  My mother can always, even up to this day, be heard humming or singing one of her favorite songs.  If you heard her sing, you would ask why she is not out making CDs; but my mother wanted to raise a family and she put this first in her life.  It proved to be the right choice because all of her children have inherited the musical abilities started by my grandfather.

It seems that in my generation, only my immediate family has carried on the Liberatori tradition of having a knack for music.  The musical spirit is alive and well, however, in all three of my mother’s children: Chris, Bobby, and myself.  Just like my mother’s generation, we too were influenced by the constant reappearance of music throughout our childhood in various ways, such as my uncle’s band. Chris, my older brother, always had an interest in my Uncle Joe’s band.  Whenever we would see my uncle, Chris would always ask about the band.  But it took my brother a while to realize that he too had talent in music.  In high school, he tried out for the musical and was cast in a choral part.  From there, he realized that, like my mother, he loved to sing.  He began to take voice lessons from Lester Ottinger, a former Broadway performer who now teaches voice privately.  He continued his lessons through his freshman year of college.  With his voice training, Chris began to land big parts in high school, community theatre, and even college musical productions.  At Marist College, where is currently a senior, Chris is President of MCCTA, the college’s student-run theatre club.  In addition, he is a member of the Marist Singers and Time Check, the college’s a cappella group.  His memberships in the Singers and Time Check have led him to sing in Rome in front of Pope John Paul II and record two CDs with Time Check.  He certainly has done well for himself already, especially considering that he is only 21 and that he had such a late start.

My younger brother, Bobby, got the earliest start of the three of us.  Since he was about six or seven, my mother heard Bobby humming the tunes of the video games he played.  He was not simply humming the melody line, however, he was humming the harmony lines and the bass.  Upon hearing this humming, my mother realized that Bobby also inherited the Liberatori musical talent.  Like both my great-grandfather and my grandfather, my parents bought Bobby a keyboard when he was eight because they saw his musical capabilities.  Even at this young age, Bobby would hear a tune and quickly play it on the keyboard.  When he was ten, he began taking piano lessons at Febbriao School of Music, the same music school as my Uncle Joe, where he is still currently studying; and, also like my Uncle Joe, my parents bought Bobby a full-sized piano.  His teacher says that he is advancing rapidly.  I know this is true because today, if Bobby hears a song, he will not only play the melody, but the bass and the chords that go with it.  My brother’s musical talents do not end there, however.  He recently was accepted into his school musical as a freshman.  Music is huge part of Bobby’s life; he loves it and he is extremely talented.

I noticed my musical abilities by watching Chris and since then, music has been a part of my life also.  Once I saw my brother singing on stage, I knew that was what I wanted to do.  I started studying voice with Lester Ottinger as soon I began high school.  By the end of high school, I was landing lead roles in the school musicals.  In addition, I was asked by the President of the school to sing solo at special occasions such as Mass, graduation, and football games.  I have also played lead roles in some community theatre productions as well.  Most recently, I played the role of Daniel in Iona College’s Summer Theater production of Once on this Island before I even attended a day of class there.  At the present time, I am still currently developing my voice through my lessons with Mr. Ottinger.

After beginning to develop my voice, I began to teach myself the piano under Bobby’s guidance.  The presence of music in our lives has brought us three brothers very close.  When the three of us are together it is not a strange occurrence for us to start making beats and little tunes with our mouths.  Bobby and I have become especially close because Chris is away at college for a good part of the year.  We share our musical ideas and successes.  We both enjoy listening to certain musical groups and appreciating their work.  Recently, Bobby and I have begun to write our own music.  We play our songs on the piano for each other and then we critique each other’s songs and add things to them.  For example, after one of us is done playing our song the other would say something like, “What if you played this note up a step?”  The suggestion usually makes the song better; so that in the end, it is like we both wrote the song.   More recently, Bobby and I have bought a guitar and have begun to teach ourselves this instrument.  We love music immensely and are always looking for new ways to use our talents.

All three of us have developed and used our musical abilities well.  We will all continue to develop our musical talent because of our strong passion for music.  We do not know what the future has in store for us in terms of our music talents.  But what we do know is that we must look to our past to see our future.  We do know that we are part of a great family tradition; we do know that our children will most likely continue this tradition.  Because of this, we are grateful to the Liberatori’s for giving us the opportunity to be part of this special tradition and for our talent in and love of music.

Although my grandfather passed away in 1993, he left a legacy for his descendants to follow; he left behind the Liberatori spirit for music that would be carried on for generations to come.  This spirit fills the house when the Liberatori’s get together, especially for holidays like Christmas.  The strength of this spirit is what makes our Italian heritage so strong.  Conversely, our Italian heritage is what makes this spirit so strong.  If Joseph and Virginia had not taken their son Louis to the opera that day to celebrate their Italian heritage, there might have never been any relationship between the Liberatori’s and music.  Our Italian heritage and our inherent musical aptitude go hand in hand so much so that music has become part of our Italian heritage.  Not only is music a part of our heritage, but like the high note in any song, it is the most powerful and exciting part of our heritage; everything else either leads up to or follows from music in our lives.  The strong bond that every member of the Liberatori family shares is rooted in the power and excitement in of his/her Italian heritage due to the tradition of music in the family.

When you visit my family during Christmas, you will undoubtedly see that our source of our pride in our Italian heritage does not derive from the phrases that we use from the Italian language and Italian food, like lasagna.  When you visit my family, you will hear what the Liberatori’s are most proud of in their Italian heritage.  As you walk through the front door, the first thing you will hear is either “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey” or one of the songs from the “Mob Hits” CDs, perhaps a Louis Prima song.  If these songs are not being played on our sound system from the CDs, it is being played on the piano by one of my uncles and/or Bobby and being sung by the whole family, led by my mother, Chris and myself.  When you witness the unity of my family caused by music and our Italian heritage, you will know what I mean when I say that music is the high note in our heritage.  Though you may not be Italian, the excitement and power of the Liberatori’s will bring a smile to your face and send a shiver of joy throughout your body.  You will not be able to resist joining in the festivities and celebrating our Italian culture with us; my father will be the first to tell you that.

Barzini, Luigi. The Italians: A Full-Length Portrait Featuring Their Manners and Morals. New York: Touchstone, 1964.

DeConde, Alexander.  Half Bitter, Half Sweet: An Excursion into Italian American History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971.

Foerster, Robert F.  The Italian Emigration of Our Times.  New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1969.

“Italy Between the Two World Wars.”  Windows on Italy – The History. <http://www.mi.cnr.it/WOI/deagosti/history/wars.html> (7 December 2000).

“The Rise of Fascism.”  Italy – Culture and History.  <http://www.defusco.ch/en2_italy.html> (6 December 2000).

“Sacco-Vanzetti Case.”  Microsoft Encarta 1998 Multimedia Encyclopedia.  CD-ROM.

Yapchanyk, Barbara, and Joseph Liberatori.  Personal Interview.  25 Nov. 2000.