Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Sicily is Luring Americans - Why?? - Boston Globe

The ANNOTICO Report

Sicily is an irresistible lure with its abundance of archeological and religious shrines, beautiful beaches, an active volcano, year-round temperate climate, zesty cuisine, and gregariously friendly people.

But before we delve further, remember that Italy has produced THREE Great Epochs:

(1) Magna Grecia,  (2) Rome, and  (3) The Renaissance.

Magna Grecia,("Great Greece" as opposed to "Lesser" Greece) encompassed only Southern Italy and Sicily, and NONE of Greece. Southern Italy and Sicily served as an escape and incubator for colonist "creative" types who found the Hellenic City States too stultifying. At that time, there was No Unified Greece. In fact the Colonist, were neither unified, but instead spent a greater part of their time in conflict, much like their home cities.

Magna Grecia is Italian, and I would argue no more Greece, than New England can be considered England.

New England was colonized by English, and named after England.  But it is American

Magna Grecia was colonized by Greeks, and named after Greece. But is Italian

But, back to our subject, Sicily

Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, with an area of 9926 square miles, is about the size of New Hampshire, but its population of more than 5.1 million is about 4 1/2 times that of the Granite State. More than one writer has called Sicily -"the cradle of invasion". It was first overrun by the Sicels (thus the island's name), then by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Saracens, the Normans (which accounts for some blond, blue-eyed Sicilians), the French, and the Spaniards -- all preceding the Italians.

By far, Sicily's number one tourist attraction is the resort town of Taormina, high on a terrace of Mount Tauro with a spectacular view of the Ionian Sea and the occasionally fuming 11,053-foot-high Mount Etna.

Syracuse, founded in 734 BC was once the most dominant seaport on the Mediterranean.You can walk the same paths that Archemedes and Plato trod in the years Before Christ when Siracusa  was the island's capital, and which today has a well-preserved archeological complex to match anything Athens has to offer.

Gela, which was the striking point of the last of the many invasions of Sicily,during WWII, that involved about 60,000 American soldiers led by General George Patton in July 1943. What the American soldiers found was not resistance but a friendly welcome by Sicilians, many of whom had relatives in America. By the second day of the invasion, Sicilians were inviting American soldiers to their homes for spaghetti dinners and volunteering to fight on the American side.

One could go on with Aggregiento, The Valley of the Temples, Palermo, and  ancient stone tombs, Greek temples, Norman castles, Roman amphitheaters, Byzantine missions, Baroque churches, and Arab cloisters, all reflecting Sicily's storied past.

In the early 1900s, all "well bred" English  nobility had to take the arduous, horse drawn "tour" around the perimeter of Sicily in order to have a "proper" cultural education.

Thanks to Tom Bruno and Itam_Wi, edited by Bobby Tanzilo

Why Sicily is Luring Americans

Some have family ties, and all love the beauty and the people

The Boston Globe

By James Calogero

Globe Correspondent

SUNDAY, January 4, 1998

PALERMO, Sicily -- An increasing number of American tourists are being lured to Sicily by its archeological and religious shrines, beautiful beaches, an active volcano, year-round temperate climate, zesty cuisine, and gregariously friendly people.

Many of these travelers are Americans of Sicilian heritage who as kids in the North End and East Boston used to say, ``Boy, am I glad my father (grandfather) took the boat,'' but now want to see where it all began for them. Other visitors are Americans born in Sicily who go back to visit relatives left behind.

Typical of these is Maria Rizzo, an attorney in Everett, a frequent traveler to her native land, who says she sees something new in Sicily with every trip. She says, ``Most of my fellow travelers go there for family reasons. Their snapshots and stories of Sicilian wonders encourage a lot of others to go there.''

Rizzo says the beauty of Sicily is such that few people would ever emigrate from there if it weren't for an unemployment rate that reaches as high as 30 percent, and a stagnant economy that depends heavily on farming.

She quotes an anonymous source as having written, ``Take the Sicilian out of Sicily and he will achieve.'' That, no doubt, accounts for the emigration of more than 3 million Sicilians since the unification of Sicily with Italy in 1860 -- 80 percent of them to America.

Another type visitor, travel agents say, is the history buff aware that in Sicily, you can walk the same paths that Archimedes and Plato trod in the years Before Christ when Siracusa (Syracuse) was the island's capital and which today has a well-preserved archeological complex to match anything Athens has to offer.

For those of literary taste, there is in Agrigento, the birthplace and lifelong residence of author Luigi Pirandello, who in 1934 won the Nobel Prize for literature. His classic was ``Six Characters in Search of an Author.''

For others, there are resorts by the dozen, some of them, like Taormina, world famous. There are also mountains to climb, including Mount Etna, twice the height of New Hampshire's Mount Washington, which still emits an occasional belch of smoke, and the mountain at Montelepre outside Palermo, where the Italian Robin Hood, Salvatore (Turiddu) Giuliano, not long ago hid out for months while robbing the rich purportedly to give to the poor. And for everybody there are ancient stone tombs, Greek temples, Norman castles, Roman amphitheaters, Byzantine missions, Baroque churches, and Arab cloisters, all reflecting Sicily's storied past. For beauty and scent, there are groves of lemon, orange, almond, pistachio, and olive trees, and fields of wheat everywhere.

You will find that Sicilians love and warmly welcome Americans, with whom they have a strong affinity, and for good reason: More Italian-Americans in New England stem from Sicily than from any other region of Italy, according to Giovanni Germano, Italian consul general in Boston whose jurisdiction includes all New England except Connecticut. ``There are about 1.5 million Italian-Americans in the five states my office covers, of which about 300,000 have a Sicilian background,'' he said. ``Ten to 15 thousand of them are first generation Americans born in Sicily.''

Germano also said that in New England the greatest concentration of Sicilians in proportion to the total population is in Gloucester, many of them from the fishing village of Porticello, just outside Palermo.

Sicilians are particularly proud of such Sicilian-Americans as Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, movie directors Frank Capra and Vincente Minnelli (Liza's father), and uncountable political and business leaders. For all that, though,... when we mentioned that we were heading for Sicily, the typical comment was along the lines of ``Uh-oh, be careful -- that's Mafia country.''

In our recent travel through big cities and little villages in Sicily, we never witnessed or heard of a Mafia shootout or ever felt threatened, even on late-night walks. It was common to see women travel alone at night on public transportation without fear.

A cab driver in Parlermo tells us, ``Certamenti, the Mafia exists in Sicily... Defy the Mafia and you or a family member incurs the penalty of death. Mind your own business and you are perfectly safe anywhere you go in Sicily. The Mafia is not unaware of the importance of tourism to the Sicilian economy and goes out of its way not to bring harm to tourists. If a tourist's handbag is snatched that's not the work of the Mafia but that of delinquents.''

Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, with an area of 9926 square miles, is about the size of New Hampshire, but its population of more than 5.1 million is about 4 1/2 times that of the Granite State. More than one writer has called Sicily the cradle of invasion. It was first overrun by the Sicels (thus the island's name), then by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Saracens, the Normans (which accounts for some blond, blue-eyed Sicilians), the French, and the Spaniards -- all preceding the Italians.

By far, Sicily's number one tourist attraction is the resort town of Taormina, high on a terrace of Mount Tauro with a spectacular view of the Ionian Sea and the occasionally fuming 11,053-foot-high Mount Etna. The locals say it was one of Winston Churchill's favorite vacation spots, not to mention much of Europe's jet set. The wedding scene in ``The Godfather'' was filmed in Forza d'Agro near Taormina.

If there is a drawback to Taormina, it's the town's preoccupation with the tourist trade to the extent that you can't turn in any direction without facing yet another glitzy souvenir shop.

In Taormina, we heeded the recommendation of our cousin, Armando Lunetta, a public relations executive in Catania, and headed for Ristorante Il Corsaro (The Pirate) off the beaten track at the base of the mountain. We knew we were in for a treat when we learned that the owner, Giuseppe Caltobiano, for 22 years had been private chef in Los Angeles for Gaylord Hauser, who wrote extensively on food and health and served as a consultant on those subjects with a long list of Hollywood stars as clients. There's good reason that Caltobiano has been host at Il Corsaro to such dignitaries as Fred Astaire, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Rita Hayworth: The food was superb.

After dinner, Caltabiano graciously walked with us down a nearby lane shaded by fruit and olive trees to point out the villas once occupied by Greta Garbo and Caltabiano's old boss, Gaylord Hauser. Hurry before the tourists discover Il Corsaro.

From Taormina, go south along the east coast until you come to Syracuse, founded in 734 BC and once the most dominant seaport on the Mediterranean. Not only does it boast Archimedes and Plato as its sons, but natives say that the apostle Paul stopped there long enough to convert the city to Christianity before continuing on to Rome.

Highlights in the city's well-tended archeological zone are the Greek Theater with its seating carved out of rock in the fifth century; and an artificial grotto measuring about 25 yards high and about 70 yards long in the shape of an ear and known for centuries as Dionysius Ear. Legend has it that Dionysius, the tyrant ruler, took advantage of the grotto's extraordinary acoustics to eavesdrop on his prisoners kept in the Ear -- leading one to believe it was the first case of bugging a prison cell.

Along the southern coast, just east of Agrigento, is the town of Gela, which was the striking point of the last of the many invasions of Sicily. The assault landing involved about 60,000 American soldiers led by General George Patton in July 1943 when Italy, under Mussolini, was allied with Hitler in World War II. What the American soldiers found was not resistance but a friendly welcome by Sicilians, many of whom had relatives in America.

By the second day of the invasion, Sicilians were inviting American soldiers to their homes for spaghetti dinners and volunteering to fight on the American side. By the third day, women were crowding into Patton's headquarters asking when the Army would start schools so their children could learn English to go to the United States. On the sixth day, Gios Connero, a farmer who had volunteered as a litter bearer, was hit by a shell fragment and was evacuated to the United States with the wounded Americans. He lived in the United States for 14 years. By the 37th day, Italian soldiers were giving themselves up to the Americans by the thousands and there wasn't a German soldier left in Sicily.

In 1947, Sicily was established as an autonomous region under the Italian Constitution with nine provinces, a parliament of 90 members each elected for four years with power to legislate, and Palermo as the capital.

Sicily has come a long way since the days of the early emigres. Don't expect to see straw-hatted donkeys pulling gaily decorated Sicilian carts, or many old women all in black, either in mourning or, as comedian Pat Cooper used to say, ``ready ina case somebody die.''

Here's what today's Sicily is really like:

``You have a cousin, Maria LaTorre Fretto, in the village of Pietraperzia,'' I was advised. ``She's 84 and a widow. It would be nice if you went to visit her.'' I had the vision of a little old lady, black stockings, black shoes, black dress, black shawl over her head sitting on a kitchen chair outside her front door, peeling fava beans.

When I looked her up, Maria looked as though she had just stepped out of a Milan fashion house wearing a sharp gray suit, sheer, flesh-colored hose, neatly coifed tinted gray hair and high heels. She told me she goes dancing just about every Saturday night and, more than once recently, won prizes for her adeptness on the ballroom floor. That's Sicily today. One thing American tourists are sure to learn: Sicilians know how to celebrate. Every city and town has a patron saint and there is no better time to celebrate than during the festa on that saint's day. And Americans are welcomed to join in the festivities.

And you don't even have to know the language. Sicilians still talk with their hands, their shoulders, their heads and their eyes. Every little motion has its own meaning.

Capisci?

SIDEBAR:

Is it Porticello, Sicily -- or is it Gloucester?

PORTICELLO, Sicily -- People in this picturesque fishing village on the Bay of Palermo say there are two Porticellos -- one in Sicily and the other in Massachusetts, the latter better known as Gloucester.

The double identity is popular locally because of the large number and the importance of Porticellians in the Gloucester fishing industry.

In Gloucester, Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association, concurred with Giuseppe Germano, Italian consul general in Boston, that in New England Italians with a Sicilian background outnumber those from any other region of Italy with a heavy concentration of them in Gloucester.

Sanfilippo, who has headed the Gloucester fishing industry advocacy group for 20 years, said in an interview that she has found that about 32 percent of the city's population of about 29,000 are of Italian heritage, 98 percent of them Sicilian by birth or parentage. ``Many of them, like me,'' she said, ``are from Porticello.'' When we told her we were heading for a tour of Sicily, she practically demanded that we visit Porticello. ``Its beautiful,'' she said, ``and it hasn't yet been discovered by tourists. Look up my cousin. He'll show you around.'' She told us that he runs a restaurant called Francu u Piscaturi (Sicilian for Frank the Fisherman), right at the water's edge. It was a suggestion well worth heeding.

Porticello, a 20-minute drive from Palermo, offers a stark contrast to the traffic, the noise, the hustle, the crowds, and the somberness of old buildings in Sicily's capital city. In Porticello, one sees low-slung homes and apartments, many of them painted in bright pastel colors on a hillside leading down to Largo Pescheria, the town's main square, off which more than 400 fishing boats are moored.

The boats, too, are painted in gay colors with names on them, many crudely hand-drawn, of the wives or children of the owner. One of the colorful scenes in Porticello is the blessing by the parish priest with a Mass when a boat is named. We find Sanfilippo's cousin, Francesco Crivello, on a dock negotiating the purchase of fish for that evening's restaurant menu. Most of the fleet is already in after venturing out on trips ranging from part of a day to a month, depending on what they hope to catch. Porticello fishermen generally come in with tuna, swordfish, anchovies, squid, and red shrimp. Porticello supplies most of the fish consumed in Palermo. The daily catch is as much as 20 tons, we are told. Crivello tells us that more than 80 percent of the men in Porticello are involved in the local fishing industry. ``Even the children,'' he says, ``they play on the square near the water and often their toys are play boats, and broken fishing gear and nets. Our mayor, though, Sa l! vatore Roccopalumbo, was not a fisherman, but his father was.''

On a tour of the village, not yet despoiled by tourists, he points out a Norman castle and an ongoing archeological dig near a hilltop as evidence of the town's historic significance. Then he points to a modest house in the adjoining hamlet of Sant Elia and says, ``That's where Joe Alioto (former mayor of San Francisco) was born. His people were fishermen. He was a baby when the family moved to the United States.'' Crivello says the link between Gloucester and Porticello was established more than 50 years ago when Porticellian fishermen emigrated to Boston and then found Gloucester and its fishing industry better suited to them.

Peter LoCoco, whose business in Porticello is to supply ice to the fishing boats to keep the catch fresh, and who for many years lived in the Boston area, says the link between the two communities continues strong, a lot because of amore.

He explained: ``It is quite common for a Porticello man living in Gloucester to come home to marry a Porticello girl, and vice versa. There is a lot of traveling back and forth.'' LoCoco said the one time in the year when most emigres from Porticello try to return home is the first Sunday of October when the village observes the feast in honor of its patron saint, Madonna del Lume (Madonna of Light).

LoCoco, chairman of the festa committee, says it is a time for religious reflection, family reunions, and celebration. It is the one day in the year when the image of the Madonna on a slate is taken down from a wall of the church named in her honor and paraded through the village on the shoulders of barefooted men. During the celebration, many games are organized, one of the most popular of which is the competition to see who can climb a 10-foot-high mast, greased with fat or soap, and capture the flag at the top.

On the following Sunday, families, friends and guests climb into fishing boats for a colorful procession at sea to nearby Capo Zafferano to bring flowers to a little chapel where there is a copy of the sacred image of the Madonna del Lume. LoCoco says the chapel is located where legend says the slate with the Madonna's image had washed ashore hundreds of years ago. He adds that the festival ends with a fireworks display that attracts people from all the surrounding hamlets. He said there is also a festival for Porticello's Madonna del Lume in Gloucester, but it's a smaller observance and thus made a part of the city's festival in honor of St. Peter.

Crivello sent his regards to all the Porticellians in Gloucester and says is sorry he can't visit because he goes to Japan for several weeks every year.

Why does a Sicilian travel to Japan instead of Gloucester, where so many of his relatives and paesans are? I ask. He replies, ``I go there to teach Japanese how to cook Sicilian style under the auspices of a local winery. We Sicilians use a lot of wine, you know.''

Right.

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