There has
been much talk in the news these days about immigration and the illegal
immigrants coming into our country. This
has prompted me to examine my roots and my family's journey to and assimilation
into America after 100 years.
After all, I
am only a second generation American.
Although all four of my grandparents were admitted into this country
legally, both of my parents were what today would be called "Anchor
babies". Coming to America at the
beginning of the 20th Century was entirely different proposition than coming to
America today.
Back then it
was easy for the our government to manage the tens of thousands of people who
came to this country from Europe by steamship in the early 20th Century. They
were cataloged, registered and processed at Ellis Island where immigration
officials could decide who came in and who didn't. Back then Italian immigrants were called
WOPs, a term which meant With Out Papers. This was the early 20th Century
equivalent of the derogatory term Wetback.
BUT they were accepted into the country and a process to gain full
citizenship was started.
The Atlantic
ocean is a formidable barrier to illegal entry.
The distance from Naples, Italy to Ellis Island is 4400 miles and
required a two week ocean voyage in 1914.
By contrast a person can literally wade across the Rio Grande river to
get into America making our southern border much more difficult to manage. The 90 miles of ocean which separates Cuba
from Key West, FL is littered with the remains of the thousands who attempted
to get to America but never made it.
But
immigration legal and illegal is not solely a United States problem. Everywhere
in the world people are risking live and limb to immigrate to Western countries
to escape everything from poverty to war and sectarian violence. I just heard an interview on the radio with a
man who is one of the nearly 80 thousand people who illegally migrated to
Greece this year alone. This man traveled by row boat to reach Greece so he
could......get this, walk to Germany. The problem of illegal immigration in the
EU is much worse than here in America because the European Union has lifted
many of the cross border restrictions between member countries. So that guy might actually be able to walk
from Greece to Germany. It is only about 930 miles from Athens to Munich.
We take so
much for grated in this country. Try to
imagine what it would take for you leave your home, get on a boat and travel
for weeks to a place where you don't speak the language, where the people
aren't particularly welcoming, where you will be discriminated against,
thousands of miles from the rest of your family to start a new life in a new
country. Think about how much courage
this takes. Sure they are breaking all
the rules, but just think about the motivation.
My
grandparents all came to America separately as teenagers between 1912 and 1915
on steamships in what was referred to as steerage class. I did some research with the help of my
cousin into what it was like on these steamships. It was hardly the Amistad but it certainly
wasn't the Carnival Cruise line either.
They slept in compartments with hundreds of people divided into women
without male escorts, men traveling alone, and families. The sleeping berths
were 6 feet long and 2 feet wide and with just 2 1/2 feet of space above. The voyage was two weeks across the
Atlantic.
100 years
later, I bitch when I have to take a five hour plane trip to the West Coast. I need a window seat, my ipad, my laptop, the
right snacks, a neck pillow and I still need a day to recuperate. I cannot imagine what could make me embark on
such a treacherous journey.
My father's
mother Elizabetta Sulpizio was 19 years old and traveling with her brother,
Ponfilio (Paul) when they came to America.
They departed from Naples on Oct 19, 1913 aboard the steamship "Taormina". They arrived at Ellis Island on Nov 3, 1913.
On the
manifest Paul listed his occupation is as "farmer" while no
occupation is recorded for my grandmother. They declared that they are each had
$25. That is the equivalent of about
$540 today. They listed their last
residence as the town of Bucchianico in Italy. On the manifest they had to list their
destination in the U.S.. They listed
that they were going to stay with their brother, Domenico, whose address was
1022 Catherine St. in Philadelphia.
My father's
father Alec, came to America under the similar circumstances on a different
steamship in 1915 one hundred years ago.
He met my grandmother Elizabetta in South
Philadelphia and they married. He could
not speak any English, only
Italian. The Italians were
considered good with shovels. So they
handed him a shovel and he went to work on a crew digging ditches for what
would someday become the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
He was paid about 25 cents an hour.
Today, one
hundred years later, his great granddaughter, our daughter Ayla, has 26 years
of education. She can speak both English
and Spanish, but not Italian. She is a PHD candidate in Archeology who has to
pay thousands of dollars a year to dig ditches with a trowel.
This is what
an immigrant's assimilation into American society is all about.
