Saturday,
June 09,
Mother Cabrini Recorded Struggle of
Italians in Colorado
Italian-Americans are generally so successful
today in Colorado, it is easy to forget they were once near the bottom of the pecking
order.
In
Denver, many Italians started out in the South Platte River bottoms. They squatted in the flood
plain, living in tents and shacks. Many who had been peasant farmers in the old
country found good soil and water in the bottoms and began growing vegetable
patches. The Italian vegetable man became a fixture, peddling fruits and
vegetables from sidewalk stands or from horse-drawn carts
Italians
without the wherewithal to farm found that the hard work reserved for Chinese
on the West Coast and Irish on the East Coast was done
in Colorado
by Italian immigrants. Colorado's
Italians worked the railroads and the bottoms of coal mines,
Mother
Frances Xavier Cabrini [- the first American citizen to be canonized a saint]
wrote: "There are few who regard [The Italian] with a
sympathetic eye, who care for him or remember that he has a heart and a soul:
They merely look upon him as an ingenious machine for work."
Italians
who "slaved away at this labor, uninterruptedly year after year, until the
weakness of old age crept over them or until someday a cave-in, explosion or
accident of some kind cuts their life short, leaving their wives widowed and
their children fatherless. They did not even need a grave, having been buried
in the tomb in which they spent their whole lives."
Italian-Americans
helped build Colorado
Rocky
Mountain News - Denver,CO,USA
Tom Noel
Italian-Americans are
generally so successful today it is easy to forget they were once near the
bottom of the Colorado
pecking order.
In Denver, many Italians started out in the South
Platte River bottoms. There they squatted in the flood plain,
living in tents and shacks. Many who had been peasant farmers in the old
country found good soil and water in the bottoms and began growing vegetable
patches. The Italian vegetable man became a fixture, peddling fruits and
vegetables from sidewalk stands or from horse-drawn carts, singing out "Vegetable
man! Vegetable man! Nica-ripa-tomatoes."
Italians without
the wherewithal to farm found that the hard work reserved for Chinese on the
West Coast and Irish on the East Coast was often done in Colorado by Italian immigrants. Colorado's Italians worked
the railroads and the bottoms of coal mines, according to a reliable source -
the first American citizen to be canonized a saint. Mother Frances Xavier
Cabrini, as recorded in Mother Ignatius Miceli's book, Cabrinian
Colorado Missions, was an Italian-American nun.
Mother Cabrini
came in 1902 and 1906 to Denver to establish Mount Carmel School,
the Queen of Heaven Orphanage and the Cabrini Shrine in Mount Vernon along I-70. If she were still
here, that 22-foot-high marble Christ could never have been struck by lightning
on May 19, knocking off his once-outstretched arms.
The statue of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus was erected after Mother Cabrini reportedly touched a
rock and a fountain sprang up on what had been a dry, stony outcropping
overlooking Denver and the high plains. That holy water is cherished by the
devout to this day.
One of the Colorado history students educating me at the University of Colorado-Denver, in her research paper
on Mother Cabrini's shrine, reported that the water is said to cure anything.
She even put it in the radiator of her overheated car, and it fixed everything
wrong with that vehicle.
After her Colorado visits, Mother
Cabrini wrote: "During my journey I saw these dear fellows of ours engaged
on the construction of railways in the most intricate mountain gorges, miles
and miles away from any inhabited region. Hence they are separated for years
from their families, far from the church, deprived of the holy joys, which, in
our own country, the poor peasant has on Sundays at least. Here the hardest
labor is reserved for the Italian worker. There are few who regard him with a
sympathetic eye, who care for him or remember that he
has a heart and a soul: They merely look upon him as an ingenious machine for
work."
After touring Colorado mining towns,
she wrote of Italians who "slaved away at this labor, uninterruptedly year
after year, until the weakness of old age crept over them or until someday a
cave-in, explosion or accident of some kind cuts their life short, leaving
their wives widowed and their children fatherless. They did not even need a
grave, having been buried in the tomb in which they spent their whole
lives."
As Denver grew, hard-working Italians often earned enough to
move out of the bottoms and into North Denver
and on to the northwest suburbs. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church at West 36th Avenue
and Navajo Street
became the heart of Little Italy. Families like the Aiellos,
the Carbonnes, the Mosconis,
the Smaldones and the Zarlengos
established restaurants there, making the neighborhood an affordable culinary
delight to this day.
Italians are
celebrated in a new exhibit at the Colorado
History Museum.
Alisa Zahller, the exhibit curator and a
fifth-generation Italian-American, made it a community project by collecting stories,
images, artifacts and volunteers from the Italian community.
Activities
? For an excursion on two
revived stretches of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, much of it built by
Italians, join Dr. Colorado
for an Aug. 18-19 tour of the San Luis valley. Info and
reservations at 303-866-464 1/4686 or Coloradohistory.org.
? A new exhibit at the Colorado History
Museum, 1300 Broadway, celebrates
Italian-Americans in Colorado.
The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m.
Sundays. For details, go to colorado
history.org.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
drmn/spotlight_columnists/article/
0,2777,DRMN_23962_5578065,00.html
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