| Chapter 1: | Italian Americana 1920s–1930s |
|
|
Four married Rizzo brothers and their families lived in four of the six flats in the house next door to me, for example, thereby preserving the integrity of the family—the first and foremost social group to which anyone belonged. It was natural to observe the Rizzo families doing things together, and to assemble seated on stoops or homemade wooden benches on the sidewalk until late evening on hot summer nights when the oppressively sweltering and humid flats left tenants flaccid and exhausted. Congregating outdoors in the summertime was something virtually all the Italian Americans on the block did whether or not related, in contrast to non-Italians who were less visible. The next level of relationship was extended to paisani, that is, those individuals who came from the same village or town in Sicily. We were taught to relate to them with a level of respect approximating that of close relatives, and always addressed them in formal, respectable ways such as “Donna” and “Signora.” We also utilized the Sicilian term “Vosia,” etc. This filial phenomenon could be found extending beyond the block as, for example, in the Chicago area where one leader described his neighborhood as a place “where as many people know each other as they do in our district. We have to a very great extent the same kind of warmth, friendliness and intimacy in our community life that was to be found in the small towns of Sicily from whence our parents came.”32
The block in which I lived harbored an Italian grocery / meat store replete with familiar and pungent foods. Liberally extending credit, the congenial grocer, Mr. Canzoneri, mastered a primitive form of bookkeeping, wielding a coarse lead pencil that he periodically whittled to a sharp point with his intimidating butcher knife, to maintain records of groceries bought on credit in a large ledger book. Although a few customers were able to pay cash daily, most paid their bills weekly or monthly. On the block, there was also a barbershop, a hot dog and sandwich store, an ice stall manned by Frank Stallone, an immigrant from Bari, and a garment factory where immigrant women worked as finishers, button-hole makers or sewers of linings. Shoe repair shops were readily available, if not on the block, right around the corner.