Beacon Broadside

by Stephen Puleo

Stephen Puleo’s latest book is The Boston Italians: A Story of Pride, Perseverance and Paesani, from the Years of the Great Immigration to the Present Day. His previous books include Due to Enemy Action: The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle 56, and Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, a critically-acclaimed Boston-area bestseller.

As the paperback edition of The Boston Italians is released this month, I wanted to make a few observations about readers’ reactions to the book since the hardcover’s debut a year ago. I have received hundreds of e-mails and spoken to nearly two thousand people at presentations throughout the Boston area; the response has been overwhelmingly positive and heartwarming – from Italian-Americans and others – and has fallen into two main categories.

First, there is the resounding opinion that the book was long overdue; that it’s simply about time Boston’s second largest ethnic group was the subject of a "non-Mob" book. That the real story – one of Italian immigrants overcoming enormous odds and paving the way for their children and grandchildren to achieve remarkable success – needed to be told.

The second reaction, surprising to me though equally gratifying, has
been the need for Italian-Americans to share their family stories.
Virtually every e-mail I receive starts out with, "My grandfather
arrived at Ellis Island in 1910," or, "My parents raised seven children
even though their only income was my what my father earned as a
pushcart vendor in Haymarket," or, "Mr. Puleo, your story reminded me so
much of my own…" It’s as though these readers have wanted to share
their stories for a long time but weren’t sure how to do so. The Boston Italians
has tapped into that demand and provided the outlet, and I am honored
that I had the opportunity to write this story for the first time.

It all goes back to the first generation. More than half the book
covers what I colloquially refer to as the Great Immigration and
Settlement Years, stretching from the beginning of the Italians’
arrival in Boston up to the onset of the Great Depression. These were
the most crucial years of the Italian experience in America, and define
to this day how Italian-Americans view their own heritage and how other
Americans assess us. The people who defined these first fifty-plus
years were the immigrants themselves, who struggled to get to America,
overcame hardship once they arrived, contributed their sweat to help
build a country, carved a place for themselves and their children in
the American mainstream, and forged an ethnic identity that still
evokes pride one hundred years later.

As the years go by, and history provides distance and the
opportunity for fresh assessment, their sacrifices and accomplishments
appear all the more remarkable.

Think about their struggle. Between 1880 and 1921, more than 4.2
million Italians entered the United States, as many as ninety five
percent of them through Ellis Island in New York (No other ethnic group
during the Great Immigration period sent so many immigrants in such a
short time.) Nearly eighty percent of them were from villages and hill
towns of Southern Italy and Sicily where they had tilled the land,
fished the sea, or worked with their hands, and fled their homeland due
to impoverishment; more than half were illiterate, or barely literate,
in their own language.

When they arrived in America, some settled in small mining towns or
on farms, but the overwhelming majority flocked to America’s large
cities and quickly established tight-knit, insular enclaves, Little
Italies, like Boston’s North End, which acted as buffer zones of
comfort and familiarity in the midst of a strange and hostile urban
landscape that was strewn with pitfalls and prejudice. 

It was within the cocoon of these enclaves that most Italians
settled, purchased property, worshiped, shopped, socialized, and in
some cases, worked. It was from these enclaves that Italians ventured
out, albeit slowly, to expand their job opportunities, learn English,
and finally, assimilate into American culture. 

My book looks at Boston Italians within the broader context of the
overall Italian experience in America, and that includes why so many
left Italy seeking a new life in the first place. More than any other
major ethnic group, Italians’ life experiences in the Old Country
directly affected their patterns of settlement, manner of living,
reliance on family, process of assimilation, and relationship with
other Americans.

There’s another reason this book means so much to me, and I think,
to readers: the story of the Boston Italians is my story, too. Three of
my four grandparents were immigrants (my maternal grandmother was born
in America). My two grandfathers and paternal grandmother arrived
virtually penniless, with few skills, and unable to speak English. My
paternal grandfather was barely literate in his own language. Both my
grandfathers eventually became citizens and entrepreneurs; my
grandmother never obtained her citizenship and was even classified as
an "enemy alien" at the outset of World War II, despite the fact that
three of her sons would eventually fight overseas while serving in the
United States Army. My paternal grandparents settled in the North End
and stayed for years; my maternal grandfather spent a few years there
before moving to the nearby city of Everett. Theirs were the
quintessential experiences of Italian immigrants.

My parents and aunts and uncles also shared the experiences of
thousands of other children of Italian immigrants. Several of my aunts
worked in the garment industry, which was flooded with Italian-American
women in Boston. As a young girl, my mother worked in my grandfather’s
cobbler shop, lighting the small stove to provide heat in the
wintertime and waiting on customers after school, contributing to the
family business as thousands of other Italian-American schoolchildren
did. My father and two of his brothers served in World War II, which
was a defining period for Italian-Americans, one in which they were
forced to prove their loyalty to America as the United States battled
not just Germany and Japan, but Mussolini’s Italy.

I wove the Puleo story through the course of The Boston Italians
because it is illustrative of the overall fabric of the Boston Italian
experience, a rich and colorful tapestry of enduring strength and
value, one held together for one-hundred-and-thirty years by the
legacies of struggle, perseverance, hard work, and the bond of family.

In addition to providing pleasure to readers of all nationalities
interested in Boston and immigration history, I hope my book helps
continue the resurgence of interest and pride among Italian-Americans,
in Boston and elsewhere, in our heritage and our history.  One
Italian-American journalist said that our appetite to know our
ancestors is fueled by our desire to build "a spiritual bridge between
[our] Italian past and [our] American future." 

Only with the presence of such a bridge, spanning generations, can
we summon their wisdom and example to guide and inspire our own
journey.

I hope The Boston Italians provides such a bridge.