Sunday,
September 16,
The
ANNOTICO Report
Not
only do Sicilians NOT desire to immigrant to the USA, even with unemployment at
14 percent, more than twice Italy's average of about 6 percent, they think of
America as a "broken" place, particularly after September 11.
Bloomberg News
By A. Craig Copetas
September 4, 2007
Beneath the
precious fruit of an olive tree planted in 1776 outside the mountain hamlet of Sambuca di Sicilia, Giovanni Di Bennardo
mops summer dust from his brow and explains how he'll make it to
``I will only go
when I'm a rich man,'' says the 29-year-old manager of Di Bennardo
Olive Oil Co. in Sicily's Agrigento province, 91 kilometers (56 miles) south of
Palermo. ``Young Sicilians are fearful of
Di Bennardo's vision of the bankroll required to become a
21st-century American isn't unique among young people in this Italian region of
some 5 million inhabitants.
Grand and
triumphant tales of their emigrant forefathers no longer resonate amid gnarled
olive groves and unemployment lines. Now
the talk is of a different
A century ago, my
Sicilian grandfather, Salvadore Di Bennedetto, would have scoffed at Di Bennardo's
travel requirement.
The impoverished
olive grower and stonemason from
Dirty, Diseased
Labeled dirty,
diseased and mostly anarchist, Sicily's olive-skinned peasants debarked at
Ellis Island speaking Parrati, a patois of Italian,
Arabic, Greek and a half-dozen other languages that evolved into a regional
tongue with no future tense.
For them,
tomorrow was
Despite
internment camps during World War II, decades of stereotyping and even lynchings, my grandfather's generation never lost its
belief that
Their zeal was
inspired by Philip Mazzei, an olive grower
from
Today, as Davide Tidona tells it, that
conviction in the
Declaration of
``It
just seems that
Citadel
Tidona, 29, reckons the
While the U.S.
Homeland Security Department doesn't track the number of Italian immigrants
from
On a recent visit
to the
Few Jobs
Sicilian-American
stonemason Giuseppe Friscia says rigid immigration regulations and a
scarcity of work in the U.S. now keep Sicilians at home,
even with unemployment at 14 percent, more than twice Italy's average of about
6 percent.
Friscia went to
Tramping over
sharp lava rocks atop Mount Etna, geologist Roberto Caudullo,
39, says
``Now I see
Aspiring Magnate
Di Bennardo, the aspiring oil magnate with two gold loops in
his left ear, has what he says will make a profit in the
Light, fruity and
priced at 70 euros ($95) a bottle, all 500 liters of Di Bennardo's
Superior Extra Virgin Olive Oil flow from trees between 100 and 300 years old.
Di Bennardo says the 1776 tree will contribute some four
liters of oil to the 2007
With options for
2008 Superior-vintage oil in hand and 20,000 liters of his Premium-brand oil
arriving by cargo ship, Di Bennardo's inaugural trip
is set for January.
``
To contact the
reporter on this story: A. Craig Copetas in
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