Rosa Cavalleri: From Northern Italy to Chicago, 1884–1926

Book excerpt

By: Marie Hall Ets

Date: 1970

Source: Ets, Marie Hall. Rosa: The Life of an Italian Immigrant. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.

About the Author: Marie Hall Ets was born in Wisconsin in 1895. She was best known as a writer and illustrator of children's books and won many awards for her work. In 1918, she became a social worker in a settlement home in Chicago, where she met Rosa Cavalleri. Rosa told her many stories of her early life in an Italian village and of her arrival in America in 1884. Ets published these stories in 1970 as Rosa, the Life of an Italian Immigrant.

INTRODUCTION

This is an excerpt from the biography of Rosa Cavelleri, an Italian immigrant who arrived in America at the height of European immigration in the late nineteenth century, when she was eighteen years old. Born in a silk-making village in Lombardy, Rosa was an orphan who was brought up by various foster parents. At the age of sixteen, she was married off to a brutal older man called Santino. Shortly after their wedding, Santino joined a work gang who went to America for work in the Missouri iron mines. He soon sent a ticket for Rosa to join him there so that she could keep house for him and the other miners. She reluctantly left Italy in 1884 with other young women who were going to join husbands or fiancés in the United States.

Although the early waves of European immigration to the United States had been from western and northern Europe, by 1890 immigrants from these areas were equaled in number by southern and eastern Europeans, especially Italians, Greeks, and Eastern European Jews. Within a few years, they accounted for two-thirds of all immigrants to the United States. While economic stability in northern Europe was reducing emigration, in the south and east a number of factors contributed to its increase. These included, for example, the displacement of rural people as a result of industrialization, unemployment, poverty, high taxation, and compulsory military service.

In Italy, labor migration to nearby countries was already commonplace. In the mid-nineteenth century, America became a viable alternative with the development of the steamship, which greatly shortened journeys. In addition, many steamship companies competed against each other to offer cheap fares. With high levels of poverty and unemployment in Italy, many Italians took advantage of the opportunity to find employment and a better life in America.

Often men emigrated first, with their wives and other family members joining them later, when the men had saved up enough money to pay for their fares. However, many single Italian women also immigrated to America, either to join their fiancés there, or to live with relatives. One factor that affected women's migration from Italy was their parents' increasing difficulty in providing a dowry, which in some areas of the country was expected to consist of a house, land, or furnishings. Between 1881 and 1890, around a fifth of Italian immigrants to the United States were women, but this percentage increased to thirty-nine percent between 1921 and 1930. Family networks also brought many Italians to America, forming the bases of Italian communities that developed in New York and other cities.

The Italian government also encouraged labor migration to the United States. Officially, men who were liable for military service were banned from emigrating. However, this policy was not effectively enforced, due partly to the weak authority of the newly established government in a country only recently unified, and partly because the money emigrants sent back to Italian families helped the Italian economy. Over time, the government introduced measures to facilitate migration, introducing a literacy program in 1901 to help migrants pass the tests being proposed as a condition of entry to the United States and recommending the establishment of employment offices for Italian immigrants in New York, to help them secure jobs there.

At the time of Rosa Cavelleri's emigration, Castle Garden was the main immigrant processing center for the steerage-class immigrants to the eastern United States. It was already very rundown, and immigrants were often exploited by the many concessionaires based there who charged exorbitant prices for food and transport. In 1892, Castle Garden was closed and replaced by the much more welcoming, architecturally grand Ellis Island immigration station. This was operated by the federal government and had a much higher standard of facilities.

Rose Cavalleri eventually managed to escape from her abusive husband and worked for more than forty years as a cook and cleaner at the Chicago Commons Settlement, where she met Marie Hall Ets.

PRIMARY SOURCE

The Trip to America The day came when we had to go and everyone was in the square saying good-bye. I had my Francesco in my arms. I was kissing his lips and kissing his cheeks and kissing his eyes. Maybe I would never see him again! It wasn't fair! He was my baby! Why should Mamma Lena keep him? But then Pep was calling and Mamma Lena took Francesco away and Zia Teresa was helping me onto the bus and handing up the bundles.

"But Rosa, don't be so sad!" It was the other Rosa and Zia Maria in the station in Milan, kissing me good-bye and patting my shoulder. "It is wonderful to go to America even if you don't want to go to Santino. You will get smart in America. And in America you will not be so poor."

Then Paris and we were being crowded into a train for Havre. We were so crowded we couldn't move, but my paesani were just laughing. "Who cares?" they laughed. "On our way to America! On our way to be millionaires!"

Day after day in Havre we were leaving the lodging house and standing down on the docks waiting for a ship to take us. But always the ship was full before it came our turn. "O Madonna!" I prayed. "Don't ever let there be room! Don't ever let there be room!"

But here, on the sixth day we came on. We were almost the last ones. There was just one young French girl after us. She was with her mother and her sister, but when the mother and sister tried to follow, the marinaro at the gate said, "No more! Come on the next boat!" And that poor family was screaming and crying. But the marinaro wouldn't let the girl off and wouldn't let the mother and sister on. He said, "You'll meet in New York. Meet in New York."

All us poor people had to go down through hole to the bottom of the ship. There was a big dark room down there with rows of wooden shelves all around where we were going to sleep—the Italian, the German, the Polish, the Swedes, the French—every kind. And in that time the third class on the boat was not like now. The girls and women and the men had to sleep all together in the same room. The men and girls had to sleep even in the same bed with only those little half-boards up between to keep us from rolling together. But I was lucky. I had two girls sleeping next to me. When the dinner bell rang we were all standing in line holding the tin plates we had to buy in Havre, waiting for soup and bread.

"Oh, I'm so scared!" Emilia kept saying and she kept looking at the little picture she carried in her blouse. "I'm so scared!"

"Don't be scared, Emilia," I told her. "That young man looks nice in his picture."

"But I don't know him," she said. "I was only seven years old when he went away."

"Look at me," said the comical Francesca with her crooked teeth. "I'm going to marry a man I've never seen in my life. And he's not Lombardo—he's Toscano. But I'm not afraid."

Of course Francesca was not afraid. "Crazy Francesca" they called her at the silk mill. She was so happy she was going to America and going to get married that she didn't care who the man was.

On the fourth day a terrible storm came. The sky grew black and the ocean came over the deck. Sailors started running everywhere, fastening this and fastening that and giving orders. Us poor people had to go below and that little door to the deck was fastened down. We had no light and no air and everyone got sick where we were. We were like rats trapped in a hole, holding onto the posts and onto the iron frames to keep from rolling around. Why had I worried about Santino? We were never going to come to America after all! We were going to the bottom of the sea!

But after three days the ship stopped rolling. That door to the deck was opened and some sailors came down and carried out two who had died and others too sick to walk. Me and all my paesani climbed out without help and stood in line at the wash-house, breathing fresh air and filling our basins with water. Then we were out on the narrow deck washing ourselves and our clothes—some of us women and girls standing like a wall around the others so the men couldn't see us.

Another time there was fog—so much fog that we couldn't see the masts and we couldn't see the ocean. The engine stopped and the sails were tied down and a horn that shook the whole boat started blowing. All day and all night that horn was blowing. No one could sleep so no one went to bed. One man had a concertina and the ones who knew how to dance were dancing to entertain the others. Me, I was the best one. There was no one there to scold me and tell me what to do so I danced with all my paesani who knew how. Then I even danced with some of the Polish and the French. We were like floating on a cloud in the middle of nowhere and when I was dancing I forgot for a little while that I was the wife of Santino going to him in America. But on the third day the fog left, the sails came out, the engine started, and the ship was going again….

Then one day we could see land! Me and my paesani stood and watched the hills and the land come nearer. Other poor people, dressed in their best clothes and loaded down with bundles, crowded around. America! The country where everyone could find work! Where wages were so high no one had to go hungry! Where all men were free and equal and where even the poor could own land! But now we were so near it seemed too much to believe. Everyone stood silent—like in prayer. Big sea gulls landed on the deck and screamed and flew away.

Then we were entering the harbor. The land came so near we could almost reach out and touch it. "Look!" said one of the paesani. "Green grass and green trees and white sand—just like in the old country!" The others laughed—loud, not regular laughs—so that Pep wouldn't know that they too had expected things to be different. When we came through that narrow place and into the real harbor everyone was holding their breath. Me too. There were boats going everywhere—all sizes and all kinds. There were smoke chimneys smoking and white sails and flags waving and new paint shining. Some boats had bands playing on their decks and all of them were tooting their horns to us and leaving white trails in the water behind them.

"There!" said Pep, raising his hand in greeting. "There it is! New York!"…

"Look," said Pep. "Brooklyn Bridge! Just opened this year with fireworks and everything."

"And there's Castle Garden."

"Castle Garden! Castle Garden was the gate to the new land. Everyone wanted to see. But the ship was being pulled off to one side—away from the strange round building.

"Don't get scared," said Pep. "We go just to the pier up the river. Then a government boat brings us back."

Doctors had come on the ship and ordered us inside to examine our eyes and our vaccinations. One old man who couldn't talk and two girls with sore eyes were being sent back to the old country. "O Madonna, make them send me back too!" I prayed. "Don't make me go to Santino!"

About two hours later me and my paesani were back at Castle Garden on a government boat, bumping the dock and following Pep across a boardwalk and leaving our bundles with some officers. I wanted to hold onto my bottles of oil—they might get broken—but the officers made me leave those too. Then one by one we went through a narrow door into Castle Garden. The inside was a big, dark room full of dust, with fingers of light coming down from the ceiling. That room was already crowded with poor people from earlier boats sitting on benches and on railings and on the floor. And to one side were a few old tables where food was being sold. Down the center between two railings high-up men were sitting on stools at high desks. And we had to walk in line between those two railings and pass them.

"What is your name? Where do you come from? Where are you going?"

Those men knew all the languages and could tell just by looking what country we come from.

After Pep, it was my turn.

"Cristoforo, Rosa. From Lombardy. To the iron mine in Missouri."

Emilia was holding me by the skirt, so I stayed a little behind to help her. "Gruffiano, Emilia. From San Paola. What signore? You don't know San Paola?"

"She's from Lombardy too," I said. "But she's going to stay in New York."…

"Get your baggage and come back. Wait by the visitors' door—there at the left. Your name will be called. All right. Move on!"

There were two other decks—one for railroad tickets and one for American money—but we Lombardi had ours already so we went back for our bundles.

We Lombardi put down our bundles and sat on the floor near the visitors' door. At last after all the new immigrants had been checked, an officer at the door started calling the names. "Gruffiano, Emilia" was the first one.

"Presente! Presente!" shouted Pep jumping to his feet and waving his hands. But Emilia was so scared I had to pull her up and drag her along after him.

At the door the officer called the name again and let us pass. Then here came up a young man. He was dressed—O Madonna!—like the president of the Untied States! White gloves and a cane and a diamond pin in his tie. Emilia tried to run away but Pep pulled her back. "Non e vero! Non e vero! It's not true!" she kept saying.

"But it is true!" the young man laughed. "Look at me, Emilia! Don't you remember Carlo who used to play the tromba in San Paola when you were a little girl?" And he pulled her out from behind us and took her in his arms and kissed her. (In America a man can kiss the girl he is going to marry!) "But I never thought you would come like this," he said, holding her of a little and looking at her headkerchief and full skirt. "I'm afraid to look. Did you come in the wooden soles too?"

"No," said Emilia, speaking to him for the first time. "My mother bought me real shoes to come to America!" And she was lifting her feet to show him.

"She looks just the same as when she was seven years old," the young man said to Pep, and he was happy and laughing. 'But I'm going to take her up Broad Street and buy her some American clothes before I take her home."

I was glad for Emilia that she was gong to marry that nice young man, but why couldn't something like this ever happen to me?

Other visitors were called. Some families separated at Havre found each other again and were happy. But that nice young French girl, she was there all alone—nobody could find her mother and her sister. I don't think they ever found each other again.

When the gate was opened men wearing badges came running in, going to the different people. One dressed-up man with a cane waxed mustache came to us. "Buon giorno, paesani! Benvenuto! Welcome to America! Welcome to the new country!" He was speaking Italian and English too and putting out his hand to shake hands with Pep. We other paesani looked on in wonder. A high man like that shaking hands with the poor! This was America for sure!

SIGNIFICANCE

Although most Italian immigrants had been agricultural workers from rural areas of Italy, once in America the majority stayed in the New York and New Jersey area and adapted to an urban lifestyle. They formed distinctive Italian communities within which there was further residential segregation among immigrants from different regions of Italy, reflecting the Italian tendency to associate themselves with an individual town or locality rather than their country. Most were housed in the tenements of lower Manhattan.

Some of the men secured jobs in construction and public service works and were involved in building, for example, the subway system and the New York sewer system. For the majority of Italian immigrants, life in America was harsh and did not offer the freedom from poverty and unemployment that they had expected. Italian women generally had to work to supplement the family income and gradually they dominated the hand-sewing and other non-mechanized jobs in the garment industry, working either in factories or in their homes while looking after children.

Although many Italian immigrants intended their stay in America to be a temporary one, and they did indeed return in higher numbers to their home country than other immigrant groups, it is estimated that around three-quarters of all Italian immigrants settled permanently in the United States. Unlike other immigrant groups, who gradually moved into mixed-immigrant communities, Italians have tended to remain within their "Little Italy" ethnic clusters. They also remain geographically concentrated within particular areas of the United States, especially the northeast and California.

Levels of emigration from Italy to America declined sharply from the 1920s onwards as a result of the quota system on immigration from different countries introduced under the 1924 Immigration Act; the majority of Italian-Americans in the United States today are the descendants of earlier immigrants.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Bogen, Elizabeth. Immigration in New York. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1987.

Dublin, Thomas, ed. Immigrant Voices: New Lives in America, 1773–1986. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

Ets, Marie Hall. Rosa: The Life of an Italian Immigrant. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

Friedman-Kasaba, Kathie. Memories of Migration: Gender, Ethnicity, and Work in the hives of Jewish and Italian Women in New York, 1870–1924. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Web sites

Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere. "Italian Immigration to the United States." January 2000 〈http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US2/PAPS/db-italy.html〉 (accessed July 22, 2006).