Where Are We Now?
By William J. Girimonti III
In an earlier article: Where
Did We Come From?, we zeroed in on the place
of origin for our family. The southern Italian region
of Calabria. Calabria has always be touted as the
poorest region of Italy. There are two main reasons
for this. First, the region is full of mountainous
terrain which essentially isolated it from the rest
of Italy before the twentieth century. This would
limit commerce and trade with the rest of Europe except
with those coming by sea. Second, the soil is not
as good as in the north due to the elevation and temperatures
associated with them. Because of the temperatures,
the growing season is much shorter than in the lower
elevations. This means less production, which means
less to sell, hence less money and poorer economic
conditions. Calabria's economic
situation was dismal on the best of days, and
this issue still remains in modern times.
Prior to the 1900’s 90% of the population of
Calabria were contadini or farmers/peasants. Many
of the contadini did not own any land, but farmed
what they could on the land of the local nobility.
There were allowed a certain portion of the harvest
to feed their own families, but the rest went to the
land owning nobles. This poverty and feelings of subservience
to the wealthy ruling class seeded the desire to get
away and make something for themselves in the land
known as America. There, they would be able to improve
their lot in life with a little hard work. The work
they were used to, but the opportunities they were
not. Getting to America was very expensive, approximately
180,000 Lire, which at the time was equivalent to
80 U.S. Dollars. During this time, it should be noted
that the average yearly income in the United States
was 417 dollars per year. It would have been considerably
lower in Italy – especially in Calabria. This
may well have been a full year’s pay or more.
A trip of this nature was usually planned far in advance
and took a few years to save for. The typical scenario
is the following: At first, only one person would
leave Italy for America, normally the eldest son.
Once he arrived he would find a job locally and get
settled in. He would make some money and send some
back to Italy for the others to live on and save for
their subsequent journeys to America. Once enough
money was saved, the other brothers and sometimes,
sisters, would make the journey (usually the parents
did not leave Italy). The majority of the Italian
immigrants remained relatively close to the port of
entry (normally New York), but over the years they
began their slow move west ward. In our family, we
followed the typical string of events for immigrants
of the time period (barring a few exceptions).
Nowadays, our family is scattered all over United States,
Canada, Argentina, and some still remain in Italy.
By far, the United States has the largest density
of family members than anywhere else in the world–with
a total of 140 known households to date. Canada has
an astonishing 52 households, Italy has 152 and Argentina
24. These numbers are only the households that are
known, there may still be others. Wherever family
members eventually settled, they brought with them
a little bit of their homeland, which was evident
in their cooking, their customs, and their sense of
family unity.
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