Monday, May 07, 2007

Book: "The Boston Italians" by Stephen Puleo - Breaks New Ground, Dispels Old Myths

The ANNOTICO Report

"The Boston Italians" is a story of eventual success against large obstacles. All immigrants face disadvantages, but the Italians' were different from those of the Irish and the Jews of Eastern Europe.

The Irish spoke English, and came 40 years + earlier, and were firmly entrenched.

The Jews even though coming from Different Western European Countries, benefited from engaging in greater Solidarity than the Italians who came from the SAME country , but allowed their Regionalism to divide them.

Virtually all Italians came from insular poor rural villages, in regions with their own dialects.So localized were the immigrants that they did not think of themselves as Italian -- Italy was not a unified country until 1861 -- until they arrived in America.

That localism continued in Boston. Puleo found that in the North End, where most of the Italians settled (along with East Boston), people from Sicily clustered on North and Fleet streets, while those from Abruzzo were found on Endicott and North Margin streets. Avellino people settled near Copp's Hill. "My father's people were from Sicily," Puleo said, "and my mother's were from Avellino. When my father was courting my mother in 1952, my grandfather was giving my mother a hard time for dating a Sicilian."

The gulf between southern and far-fewer northern Italians in Boston was even greater.  "Of 20,000 marriages in the North End between 1875 and World War I, 82 percent were between people from the same region. There were only six marriages between northern and southern Italians but 18 between Italians and non-Italians."

Also, the Italians didn't depart for America and never look back. For decades, many were known as "birds of passage," coming to America for a while, then returning home, in some cases repeatedly. The sojourning pattern made many of the Italians less likely to put down roots in America, and therefore build their connection with the Italian or General Community. 

The Southern Italians did not find a warm welcome. American officials saw them as racially inferior to northern Italians. The 1931 naturalization papers of the writer's grandfather, listed his nationality as "Italian," and his race as "Southern Italian."

Nor did religion make things easier. Though Italians and the Irish were all nominally Roman Catholic, the Italian variety of Catholicism, with its street processions and casual attitude toward churchgoing (the women went to Mass, while the men socialized on the street outside), was considered heathenish by many Irish-American clergy.

Italians today are fully assimilated in Massachusetts and America, accomplished in all fields, and  Boston has an Italian-American mayor. But Puleo says they are still dogged by the stereotype of southern Italians as swarthy, oafish Mafiosi.

It STILL effects us, even us professionals, Puleo said, "Recently a  friend asked me, 'What are you working on?' and I said a history of the Boston Italians. He said, 'So it's a book about the mob?'

At another time, he was in a business meeting, talking about a competitive situation, and a vice president said, 'Maybe we can get Puleo's relatives to take out a contract on them.' Afterward, I said to him, 'Do me a favor and don't make that kind of reference.'

While it was the Irish first, then the Jews that controlled 'Organized Crime', their  successors, the Italians and crime has been ingrained in the American imagination by Italian-mobster movies and TV shows, from "The Godfather" to "The Sopranos.", while the more current "organized Crime elements as the Russian Jewish Mafia, the Israeli Kosher Nostra, the Columbian and Mexican Cartels, and MS -12  are largely ignored.

Gay Talese, whose books include "Unto the Sons," a history of his Italian family, said that "the Italian-American male is the last minority about which a certain liberty can be taken in the media." Newspapers  , television networks, and advertisers are careful, he said, to avoid stereotypes of other groups, such as Jews or African-Americans......

Talese goes on to state that one of the reasons he believes the Stereotypes still exist is: " (Italians) were not people of the word."

[RAA Note: I respectfully disagree with Mr. Talese. African Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans were Not "people of the word". Yet today, they are Not "permissible" targets!!!!  It is ALL about "Political Correctness" , and Media Myopia at best and Bigotry at worst!!]

Puleo says: "It was an honor to write this book, because I felt I was repaying the immigrants, and my grandparents, for a gift they gave me. I was stunned by what they overcame -- illiteracy, poverty, discrimination. There was a sense of pride and remarkable resilience. They are to me the greatest generation.

 

Buongiorno, Boston

Author Stephen Puleo breaks new ground and dispels old myths about Italians who settled here

The Boston Globe

By David Mehegan,

GlobeStaff   May 7, 2007                                                                                                             

There have been many books about the American Irish, but until now the Italians who made Boston their home and changed the city have received far less attention. Stephen Puleo's new book, "The Boston Italians," paints a much subtler and more complicated picture than is found in the mob-obsessed stereotypes of popular culture and advertising.

"I wanted to tell the real story," Puleo said. "It's a true American success story."

Puleo was born in Everett and grew up in Burlington. His grandparents were of the immigrant generation, all from small villages in southern Italy, part of the migration of 4 million people, most of them extremely poor and illiterate, to the United States between 1880 and 1920. After graduating from UMass-Boston in 1978, Puleo worked as a reporter for several small local papers, then went into corporate communications and marketing for Bull, the computer services company. He loved history and so pursued a master's degree at UMass -Boston , graduating in 1994.

"I had always had the dream of writing books," said Puleo, 52. But he liked the business world, too, so he decided to do both. Today he is married and lives in Weymouth, works part-time for Bull, and writes books. He has published two others -- "Due to Enemy Action," about the last American warship sunk by a U-boat in World War II, and "Dark Tide," an account of the 1919 molasses flood in Boston's North End.

The new book was rooted in his master's thesis, about Italian immigration to the United States.....In 2003, Robert Gormley, editor of  (a Publishing House)... proposed that he write the book. "There's a strong Italian-American presence in Boston, and we thought people needed consciousness-raising on that heritage, that there's more to it than restaurants in the North End." Puleo jumped at the chance....

"The Boston Italians" is a story of eventual success against large obstacles. All immigrants face disadvantages, but the Italians' were different from those of the Irish and the Jews of Eastern Europe. The Italians didn't depart for America and never look back. For decades, many were known as "birds of passage," coming to America for a while, then returning home, in some cases repeatedly. While this pattern was anecdotally known, it was Puleo's research at UMass that documented it.

"He identified people by their names on passenger lists," said Boston College historian James M. O'Toole, formerly of UMass -Boston , who supervised Puleo's thesis. "He proved what we thought we knew, that there might be several trips back and forth."

The sojourning pattern made the Italians less likely to put down roots in America. Virtually all of them came from insular rural villages, in regions with their own dialects. So localized were the immigrants that they did not think of themselves as Italian -- Italy was not a unified country until 1861 -- until they arrived in America.

That localism continued in Boston. Puleo found that in the North End, where most of the Italians settled (along with East Boston), people from Sicily clustered on North and Fleet streets, while those from Abruzzo were found on Endicott and North Margin streets. Avellino people settled near Copp's Hill. "My father's people were from Sicily," Puleo said, "and my mother's were from Avellino. When my father was courting my mother in 1952, my grandfather was giving my mother a hard time for dating a Sicilian."

The gulf between southern and far-fewer northern Italians in Boston was even greater. In his research, Puleo said, he discovered that "of 20,000 marriages at St. Leonard's and Sacred Heart churches [in the North End] between 1875 and World War I, 82 percent were between people from the same region. There were only six marriages between northern and southern Italians but 18 between Italians and non-Italians."

Like the Irish before them, the southern Italians did not find a warm welcome. American officials saw them as racially inferior to northern Italians. The 1931 naturalization papers of Calogero Puleo, the writer's grandfather, listed his former nationality as "Italian," and his race as "So. Italian." Nor did religion make things easier. Though Italians and the Irish were all nominally Roman Catholic, the Italian variety of Catholicism, with its street processions and casual attitude toward churchgoing (the women went to Mass, while the men socialized on the street outside), was considered heathenish by many Irish-American clergy.

Stamping out a stereotype

 

Italians today are fully assimilated in Massachusetts and America, accomplished in all fields. In New England, they have spread far beyond their tenement roots in East Boston and the North End -- which is now estimated to be 40 percent Italian at most. Boston has an Italian-American mayor. But Puleo says they are still dogged by the stereotype of southern Italians as swarthy, oafish Mafiosi, even though criminals have been a tiny minority.

"I don't want to belabor it," Puleo said, "but it's out there. A friend asked me, 'What are you working on?' and I said a history of the Boston Italians. He said, 'So it's a book about the mob?' I was in a business meeting, talking about a competitive situation, and a vice president said, 'Maybe we can get Puleo's relatives to take out a contract on them.' Afterward, I said to him, 'Do me a favor and don't make that kind of reference.' He said he was sorry, he didn't mean anything by it."

Some of this association comes from the real history of organized crime in Italian communities, but it has also been accentuated and ingrained in the American imagination by Italian-mobster movies and TV shows, from "The Godfather" to "The Sopranos."

Reached at home in New York, journalist Gay Talese, whose books include "Unto the Sons," a history of his Italian family, said that "the Italian-American male is the last minority about which a certain liberty can be taken in the media." Newspaper s , television networks, and advertisers are careful, he said, to avoid stereotypes of other groups, such as Jews or African-Americans.

Another reason the stereotype has lingered, Talese suggested, is that Italians have been less likely to be writers than members of other ethnic groups. "The Italians were visual," Talese said, "artists, like Frank Stella, or musicians, or filmmakers like Martin Scorsese. They came from grandparents who didn't read books. They were not people of the word."

If that's true, one remedy for the stereotype would be the writing of more books. Books could open more windows on the Italians of America, who to most non-Italians are more readily imagined than known. Stephen Puleo has made a start.

"It was an honor to write this book," he said, "because I felt I was repaying the immigrants, and my grandparents, for a gift they gave me. I was stunned by what they overcame -- illiteracy, poverty, discrimination. There was a sense of pride and remarkable resilience. They are to me the greatest generation."

David Mehegan can be reached at mehegan@globe.com.

 

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