I was 18 years old when my cousins, a couple friends, and I boarded the ship en route to Canada. The four of us had heard of these job opportunities in Canada and how Canadians were looking for immigrants from Europe to come and work. We packed our bags and headed to the ship. When we arrived, the ship looked ... Read More »
“Life was fine if you didn’t know about anything else” was my mother’s response when asked about life in her hometown. My mother, Monica Rosso Tabrizi, was an only child, born and raised in Italy by my grandmother and grandfather. She lived an average middle-class life in Italy: she went to school, graduated, and went on to college at Universita ... Read More »
Prologue: Battle of Caporetto, Italian military disaster during World War I in which Italian troops retreated before an Austro-German offensive on the Isonzo front in northeastern Italy, where the Italian and Austrian forces had been stalemated for two and a half years. October 1917 saw the Italian army’s disastrous defeat at Caporetto and its eventual retreat into the distant Piave ... Read More »
This story is based on an interview and the real experiences of Diana Modica, who immigrated to Johnson City, Tennessee for her father’s job after living all around France and Italy for 17 years. The woman next to me kept knitting her blue-green sweater as I sat there in turmoil. The repetitive sound of her needles clacking grounded me as ... Read More »
My family’s most recent immigration story occurred so long ago that, when interviewed, my mother had to recount the number of “greats” that came before grandfather. My great-great-great grandfather, Emanuelo Oliva, was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1840, and immigrated to the United States with his family, including his three brothers. The family eventually made their way across the country to California, ... Read More »
Anna Fiorina immigrated to California in 1962 from Scotland. She was born in 1941 to an Italian/Scots couple named Armando(Andy) and Kathy Bertellotti. They had married in 1936 against their parents wishes ,partly because he was Italian and she a Scot and partly because of religion, Catholic and Protestant. They ran a small fish and chip shop in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire ... Read More »
It was the year 1920 and the 8-year-old Aly Solly ran up to the deck of the ship. She saw the huge magnificent, glowing, Statue of Liberty she was taken back in amazement. Never seeing something so huge and beautiful she looked over to her family and started to cry with joy and hope and pure happiness. She lived in ... Read More »
A day came when an informant betrayed their subterfuge to Nazi soldiers and the family had to run to the foothills and take refuge in a cave for weeks or months. Giovanna Belforti lived on an affluent estate in Piacenza, Italy near Milan. In one of life’s ironies, Giovanna’s father designed weapons that were used by the Italian army in ... Read More »
The apricot trees in Santa Clara Valley have been planted and watered to flourish into a fruitful county. The nutrients of the soil in which these trees were rooted remain plentiful in the legacy of Vincenzo Cortese. In the year 1911, thirteen-year-old Vincenzo Cortese followed his father and older brother to Chicago alongside his mother and sister. The journey from ... Read More »
After being imprisoned by Nazis in Austria, Herb Neuwalders family was split apart throughout the war. Neuwalder, a Jewish dentist, moved to Italy. His wife (not Jewish) stayed in Vienna. His son and daughter through Kinder Transport, went to separate foster families in England. Herb was eventually imprisoned again in an Italian Concentration Camp. The family was reunited in Italy ... Read More »
