A number
of people on Long Island can trace their
heritage back to Italian roots. In recognition of the contributions Italians -
particularly Sicilians - have made to the area, the traveling exhibit,
"Sicilian Crossings to America
and the Derived Communities" will be arriving at Stony
Brook University's
Wang Center this April. The pieces have been
on display at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum
and spent the past two months at a public library in Boston.
The exhibit
is comprised of 120 panels. Through photographs and narratives - in English and
Italian - it tells the story of one of the largest groups of immigrants to come
through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.
The pieces explore the economic and political reasons that Sicilians came to America during this period, depicting the life
they left behind, their journey across the Atlantic, their adjustment to the
New World and how they established ethnic communities in the United States.
The event is the
brainchild of Marcello Saija, who organized the
exhibition. He is the director of a network of Sicilian museums and also a
professor at the University of Messina in Italy, with which SBU has an
exchange program. Back in 1996, Saija met Mario Mignone, who now chairs SBU's
Italian studies program. They kept in touch and, in 2004,
Saija became a visiting professor at Stony Brook.
During this time, Saija did research on Italian
immigration, interviewing more than 600 Italian Americans with the help of a
group of students from Sicily.
According to Mignone, Saija
also researched and collected a lot of relevant material, as well.
There are many
beautiful panels in the exhibit, according to Mignone.
One particular favorite of his contains a "moving poem" by an
immigrant who came to Ellis Island from Italy and saw the Statue of
Liberty, which he calls an "American Madonna."
Mignone said that so many Italians came to America
between 1880 and 1913 partly because of the invention of the steam boat, which
cut travel time down from a month to about 10 days. There was also an economic
crisis in Sicily
at that time, according to Mignone. The grape vines
had been destroyed by disease, so there was a "force of expulsion, but
there was also the force of attraction - the myth of America," he explained.
"There was no television, no radio back then. Many of the people couldn't
read or write so they just heard stories about the possibility of making good
money in America."
In the beginning, Mignone said, males mostly immigrated alone. "They
came here to work and then hoped to go back once they made money," he
stated. "They had nostalgia for Italy. But many of them stayed here
and sent for their families. My grandpa came here at age 16."
Another immigrant who
came here alone during that time period - Rocco DiVirgilio
- came over to America
in 1916, when he was 16 years old. He was the second brother to come over,
explained his niece, Ann Fabrizio.
"Each brother sent
for the next brother when he turned 16. He sent for my father, Donato, in 1918," she said. DiVirgilio
got a construction job in Brooklyn before moving out to Suffolk County
in the 1940s. "I remember taking the Long Island Rail Road from Brooklyn out to visit [my uncle] after the war when I was
about four years old," Fabrizio said. "The
trip seemed to take a whole day. And when we got to Lindenhurst,
it looked like there was nothing there but my uncle's house, which he'd built himself. There were just farms. I didn't see any
stores."
All the brothers were
skilled carpenters and were in the construction business. Rocco DiVirgilio and his brother Donato
belonged to the United Brotherhood of Carpenters union, which is still in
existence today. Donato originally worked in the coal
mines in Pennsylvania when he first came to
the United States, and then
became a carpenter in New York City, where he
worked on the Empire State Building,
the old and new Madison Square Garden
buildings and many other important New
York City landmarks, according to his daughter.
"Then he opened
the first canning factory in Brooklyn," Fabrizio explained. "My mother made the sauce, and did
all the cooking. But their business partner wanted to drop out and my father
didn't want to run the company without him, so he sold the whole business. The
new owners renamed the company Chef Boyardee."
Many Italians played an
important role in helping to create the Long Island
we see today. According to Mignone, when Italians
immigrated to this country, "a great number of them ended up in New York City, Brooklyn and the Bronx,
and then made their way out here. Many of them were in the construction
business. A lot of the big construction firms on Long
Island today are still run by Italians."
In fact, Mignone said that approximately 28% of the people in Suffolk County are Italian. The hamlets and
villages in Brookhaven with the largest number of Italians are Lake Grove, with
41%, Selden with 40%, Nesconset with 38%, and Rocky Point and Mount
Sinai, each with 37%. All the towns in Brookhaven are at least 20%
Italian, he stated.
The exhibit will be
coming to the Charles B. Wang Center at Stony
Brook University
on April 4 and will run through April 13. Viewing hours will be Monday through
Friday, from noon to 4 p.m., and on weekends from 1 to 4 p.m. The exhibit is
free to the public. For more information, call 632-7444 or visit
www.stonybrook.edu/sb/crossings.shtml.
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