September 26, 2024 • 35 mins
What if a single journey could unravel years of forgotten history? Join us as we uncover the mesmerizing tale of Italian immigrants in America with Joe Tucciarone, the insightful co-author of "Italians Swindled to New York." You'll be captivated by the story of nearly 3,000 Italians deceived into coming to the United States in 1872, only to find themselves stranded and vulnerable in New York City. Their subsequent journey to Richmond, Virginia, to fill a labor gap left by the Civil War, and their role in a significant railroad tunnel project, are tales of resilience and contribution that predate the widely known mass migration of the 1880s.
Bold claims about the Gilded Age's influx of Italian immigrants and the swindling Padrons set the stage for a deep dive into the complex dynamics of immigration through Ellis Island. Joe helps us peel back layers of history to reveal the harsh working conditions these immigrants faced and the resentment from native-born Americans. We also discuss the anti-Italian bias prevalent during that era, drawing thoughtful comparisons to today's societal issues. Plus, the episode critiques the historical accuracy of the film "Cabrini," which showcases Mother Cabrini’s efforts in the Five Points neighborhood, highlighting the struggles and perseverance of Italian immigrants.
Finally, brace yourself for a gripping recount of Italian immigrants in Churchill, Ohio, who faced severe violence as strikebreakers in coal mines. This chapter brings to light the tragic story of Giovanni Chiesa, arguably the first Italian lynched in the United States, emphasizing the need to remember such harrowing events. We wrap up by highlighting Joe Tucciarone's YouTube channel, "Italian American History," and teasing an exciting collaboration with Michael Cavalieri. This episode is packed with intriguing historical narratives and insights that promise to leave you reflecting on the past and its relevance to our present.
Turnkey. The only thing you’ll lift are your spirits.
Italians Swindled to New YorkThe story of the first Italians to enter New York in 1872
Growing Up Italian American-Iannuccilli
Great stories about growing up Italian in America
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi everyone, this is Bob Sorrentino from Italian
Roots and Genealogy.
Be sure to check out our blogand our YouTube channel and our
newsletter and our greatsponsors Yo Dolce Vita Italy,
rooting Phil Italy and AbiativaCasa.
And today I have a greatreturning guest, joe Tucciarone,
(00:33):
and he's the co-author ofItalian Swindle to New York and
he's also got a new YouTubeseries Italian American History.
So welcome, joe.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Thanks for being here , bob, thank you very much.
I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
No, it's great, great stuff that you're putting out
there.
So what prompted you to startexpanding now from the book out
to doing some things on YouTube?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Actually, that started about a year, year and a
half ago no-transcript.
(01:29):
A lot of people don't realizehow long Italians have been here
and when they started comingand what they did when they got
here, right, yeah, yeah, youknow, most historians mention
that the great mass migration ofItalians began in 1880.
And when they say that in a waythat's true, but unless you
(01:51):
look at the details and thebackground and the context of
world events, it's really nottrue.
It started earlier than that.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
If you do those studies, yeah, yeah, and even as
far back as Thomas Jefferson,he had an Italian confidant or
friend, or whatever you want tocall him right.
With respect to the YouTubes,what significantly happened that
you put in the YouTube video?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I've got a half a dozen of them up there.
Which one are you referring tonow?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh, the one that I was talking about.
I wanted to talk about was theone about the railroads.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Okay, right, okay.
So yeah, that's one of my mostrecent.
It's based on events that weuncovered in the book the
Italian Swindled to New Yorkbook, and I wanted to expand on
that and find out if I couldcould more information, because
the publisher of our book saidlook, we'll give you 50,000
(02:50):
words and that's it.
You can't put any more in there, and so we had to limit
everything we said to fit thatguideline, and I knew there was
a lot more to find about theseItalians who came down to
Virginia in 1872.
So that was the impetus forthat video.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, and that's something.
And you know, see, you learnsomething.
Every time I talk to you orsomebody else, I learn something
.
Who knew there were Italians inVirginia in 1872?
Right, so they get to Virginia,and now did they just start
working on the railroad?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I'll give you just a little bit of background first.
Yeah, good, good, theseItalians who came to Virginia,
the ones I describe in the video, they were part of the nearly
3,000 who were swindled tocoming to the United States.
They were dumped in New YorkCity without friends or without
jobs, and so they had norecourse, no money, no jobs to
(03:54):
look forward to.
And what happened was thesuperintendent of Castle Garden,
bernard Castlery, put out theword that I've got a lot of
people looking for work, and itjust so happened that the
governor of Virginia was lookingfor men to come down to work
there, because Virginia had beendecimated by the Civil War.
(04:16):
They lost upwards of 30,000working men, and so he needed
help.
He needed people to come downand work.
Basically, he wanted farmers tocome down and work the fields,
because there were a lot offarms that were fallow because
of the soldiers who were killedthere, the Confederate soldiers.
(04:37):
And so Bernard Castle, where hefound out about this, and they
communicated.
He and the governor of Virginiacommunicated about this and 200
Italians were booked toVirginia, but kind of along the
way, it was decided that,instead of them being farmers,
they would go to work in thecity of Virginia to help in a
railroad project.
(04:57):
They were building a railroadtunnel under the city.
They were doing that to avoiddestroying historic landmarks.
You know the Churchill area ofRichmond, I think it's where,
isn't that where Patrick Henrygave a speech?
Give me liberty or give medeath.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, I'm not sure I don't know a heck of a lot about
Virginia.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I've driven through there but yeah, I'm not real
sure either, but I believe theChurch Hill area was
historically significant and theChesapeake and Ohio Railroad
wanted to connect to thetidewater so they could ship
goods to and from overseas.
And the best passage was to gothrough Richmond and
(05:42):
unfortunately, the initial planput that railroad right through
Churchill.
Well, they couldn't do that,they couldn't destroy this
historic area, so they decidedto build a tunnel onto the city
and that's what they neededthese Italians to come and do to
help dig this tunnel.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
That's just so, so interesting.
You know to hear these storiesand find out.
So what year was that?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
This was in December of 1872.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Long before the 1880, date that everyone thinks that
Italians came to this country.
This happened eight yearsearlier than that.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
So now did these men I mean, were they the first of a
larger group to go there anddid they settle there or did
they move on from there?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
There were already Italians living in Richmond at
the time.
I don't know how big the colonywas, but they were established
and they were well-liked by thegeneral populace.
They had a beneficent societyby the general populace.
They had a beneficent society.
(06:50):
They had a ball, I believe, afew months or a few weeks before
these Italians from New Yorkarrived.
So they were kind of acceptedby society and moving in
societal circles in Richmond.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I'm going to show a little clip of that just to whet
people's appetite and so theycould see what you have to offer
in this particular video.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Three months after their arrival, opinions differed
on the performance of theItalians.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Some praised their efforts now employed at the
tunnel and other terminus of theChesapeake and Ohio Railroad
are an industrious, frugal andpainstaking class of laborers.
They mind their own business,work well and promptly pay for
(07:35):
what they get.
We have room for more of them.
Yet others voiceddisappointment.
One Virginia African isestimated to be worth three
Roman citizens in that kind ofwork.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Now I know one of your I think I guess this I
think this is the most recentone that you did was the whole
castle garden to.
You know, liberty Island versusEllis Island, right?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, the one we had just been talking about, the
Italians coming to Richmond tohelp dig the tunnel and then to
build the two railroad viaductsin the mountains.
That's a sort of a nicefeel-good story, but it's
limited to a couple of hundredItalian immigrants.
(08:29):
The one you just mentioned, theCastle Garden, ellis Island
story, is really big.
It's a national story, and letme tell you why.
I didn't know this until Istarted the research.
In 1890, congress had decidedthat Castle Garden was no longer
adequate to handle the hugenumbers of immigrants that were
(08:50):
coming in to the country.
They decided to open the firstFederal Immigration Bureau.
See, up till that time therehad been an immigration bureau
in New York City called CastleGarden, but it was a state-run
entity and it was located, asyou probably know, on the tip of
Manhattan Island.
(09:11):
So when immigrants came off theboats, they were immediately
surrounded by some undesirableelements people trying to put
them up in shabby boardinghouses, sell them goods, all
sorts of criminal activities.
And so in 1890, the UnitedStates Congress decided we have
to have a controlled environmentto bring immigrants into this
(09:33):
country.
It has to be a federallyoperated environment.
In fact, they stated that thiscannot be entrusted to the
states, and they were referringto the Castle Garden facility,
which was operated by the stateof New York.
They put William Wyndham incharge of locating this new
facility.
(09:53):
Now let me give you somebackground.
In 1890, when this was all underdiscussion, the Statue of
Liberty had already beenstanding on Bedloe's Island for
four years.
The Statue of Liberty hadalready been standing on
Bedloe's Island for four years.
It had just arrived four yearsearlier.
It seemed to take a littlewhile, but America fell in love
with the statue.
They called it Our Beloved LadyLiberty, and it's located on an
(10:19):
island, a limited access area.
It's the kind of place that theUS Congress would have thought
to build this immigration center.
Think about it, in fact,william Wyndham said it's quoted
in my video that this seems tobe the best place to bring
immigrants because as theirships come into the harbor,
they'd be welcomed by the grandstatue of Lady Liberty.
(10:41):
What could be more fitting, hethought.
So that's the background.
Why then, as I asked at thebeginning of the video, why then
, did they decide to put thisnew immigrant depot on Ellis
Island instead of Bedloe'sIsland, where the Statue of
Liberty was?
(11:01):
That's the big question and,it's sad to say, the answer lay
in anti-Italian bias, becausewhat was happening in 1890 was
the United States was seeing ahuge surge in Italian
(11:22):
immigration At that time.
Immigration from Great Britain,canada, ireland, germany those
had all been countries that hadsent huge numbers of immigrants
to this country in the 1860s and1870s and early 1880s.
But immigration from thosecountries the four leading
(11:45):
countries when it came toimmigration into the United
States the immigration fromthose countries was declining.
At the same time, immigrationfrom Italy was beginning to
skyrocket.
At the same time, immigrationfrom Italy was beginning to
skyrocket and what was happeningwas a lot of those Italian
immigrants were brought here byPadrons those are the Italian
bosses and they were broughtover in the thousands, railroad
(12:21):
companies and coal mines to sendhundreds of Italian laborers on
each of these constructionprojects or mines.
And they would come in and thePadrons would offer the owners
I'll tell you what my men willwork for half of what your
American laborers are workingfor.
Well, american industry lovedthe sound of that.
More background on this is thatin the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s,
(12:42):
america was in what was calledthe Gilded Age.
The Gilded Age referred to thehuge expansion of the country
westward, the huge increase insteel output.
In other words, the country wasreally blossoming industrially
and it needed workers.
It needed workers desperately.
In the last half of the 18thcentury the Padrons were able to
(13:05):
furnish this.
But you know, if you think aboutit in perspective, americans
didn't want this.
Their husbands and sons werebeing displaced by these
foreigners.
It wasn't really the fault ofthe Italians.
They were swindled over herecontinuously in the latter part
(13:26):
of the 19th century by thePadrons, and so they were
brought in.
They were forced basically todo what the Padrons told them to
do.
So the fault lay in the Padrons.
But the fallout was that,because America was being
inundated by this class ofItalian immigrants, congress
(13:46):
said basically no.
They said to the TreasurySecretary no, we don't want you
to build this immigrant depot onLady Liberty's island because
it will desecrate her.
You have to find a differentplace.
At the time Ellis Island couldnot be approached by large boats
because it had shallow waters.
It was occupied by a navalmunitions depot.
(14:09):
So there were no good reasonsto put the immigrant depot on
Ellis Island.
But Congress insisted thatWyndham do so, and so that's why
Ellis Island and not LibertyIsland was the site of the great
immigration center that we allknow so well.
We call it Ellis Island.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, and you can look at that story and almost
compare it to what's going onnow.
You know, so many people arecoming it's not their fault,
right, they're being invited in,but you know, instead of
padrons, now you, you, you havethese cartels making tons, and I
mean the money they're makingprobably pales in comparison to
(14:52):
what these padrons were makingback then right, it's, it's an
interesting story and for usit's a sort of sad story.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
But you have to look at history dispassionately.
You have to realize it can'talways be a happy ending, it
can't always be good.
And so, because of anti-Italianbias in Congress, ellis Island
became the center of admirationinstead of Liberty Island.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Ellis Island became the center of admiration instead
of Liberty Island.
Yeah, and I, you know, I didn'tknow it, that was because of
the Italian.
You know, you watch somebody'sdocumentaries on Ellis Island
and you and you, you know, yousee, the things like the one
that stands out to me was that II don't remember the doctor's
name, but he was the one whoapparently he had had drawings
or pictures of people and thenhung.
You know, if you look like this, you're an imbecile.
(15:41):
If you look like this, you'rean idiot.
You know that kind of stuff,and most of the pictures look
like Italians.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
The newspaper articles of that time, the
contemporary articles.
They always not always, butthey tended to illustrate, uh,
italian immigrants, uh, in aderogatory way, they they
depicted them as uh what arecalled banditi or brigands,
instead of the the ordinaryrun-of-the-mill immigrants that
(16:09):
they were uh, yeah, and you knowa lot of that.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Uh, we just we just watched a couple of weeks ago we
watched Cabrini, which I foundwas really fascinating.
I mean, first of all, the womanherself was just unbelievable,
but you really got that sense ofhow bad the five points were.
And of course, the Irish werethere before, the Irish gangs
(16:35):
were there before, but then youcould see and again it almost
parallels what's going on todayin some of these immigrant
neighborhoods where their ownpeople are taking advantage of
them.
It's really terrible stuff ashuman beings, how that happens,
you know right yeah, what youyou just mentioned, uh, the
(16:57):
cabrini uh movie.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Uh, I've seen a lot of movies and I I know how
hollywood dramatizes things.
The part about that movie wherethe italians were spit upon and
and uh, that was real.
That's not a hollywoodinvention.
I have uh collected uh I don'tknow how many documents,
hundreds of documents, and inthose documents it clearly shows
(17:22):
that Italians were, there wasItalian anti-Italian bias, a
strong anti-Italian bias in the1880s and 1890s, and they were
treated like that.
In fact, I've got one articlefrom New York City.
I think it was in 1873.
This was one of those firstItalians who had been swindled
over here.
They began working in the cityand a number of them got on a
(17:47):
streetcar and the conductorordered them off the streetcar.
This is the kind of thing thatyou see in 1950s in the South.
You know, they told the blacksto go to the back of the bus.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, they ejected the Italians off this streetcar
in 1872.
Yeah, well, they show that inthe movie and I found I don't
know where I found it, but Ifound an article someplace where
they did a comparison of themovie to real life and it was to
your, your point, it was almost90 percent accurate.
Um, the things that that weregoing on, uh, you know they,
(18:25):
they, they said, like the mayor,for example, was he wasn't the
real mayor and they said, insome cases they, uh, like they
usually do in hollywood, they'll, they'll make one character out
of three or something like that.
But the, the scenes of fivepoints, and you know how she was
treated both in Italy and inAmerica, were pretty true.
(18:45):
But I just came away from, Imean, I remember hearing about
mother Cabrini, you know, ingrammar school, because you know
she was made a saint, not, youknow long, not shortly before I
was in school, but they didn'tgo into a lot of detail.
You know she was made a saint,not, you know long, not shortly
before I was in school, uh, butthey didn't go into a lot of
detail.
You know, the first americanand saint and we were italian.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
So of course that that uh matched up um, but I had
no idea what a strong will thiswoman had yeah, I actually had
never heard of her until uh, afriend of mine mentioned the
movie to me a couple weeks agoreally, yeah, I say I remember
because I'm not.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I mean, I didn't grow up in an italian neighborhood,
but there were a lot of italiansthere, um but um, I remember
them talking about it because,uh, I don't know if there was an
earlier movie or there was,maybe they were celebrating the
10th or 20th anniversary of herbeing a saint or something like
that, but it was always outthere that she was, of course,
(19:45):
the first American saint, so Ido remember that the 1880s,
padrons brought thousands ofItalians to the United States.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
During that time, attitudes toward the newcomers
hardened as they displacedAmerican workers.
When the Secretary of theTreasury, william Windham,
suggested landing migrants onLiberty Island, indignant
citizens and a galvanizedCongress opposed him.
As a result, the nation'sstoried immigration center would
(20:18):
rise on Ellis Island and a halfmile of open water would keep
the lowly foreigners fromBartholdi's famous sculpture.
The unrestrained importation ofItalian immigrants by Padrones
had determined in large part thesite of America's historic
(20:38):
gateway.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So, joe, so you mentioned that you know you
started this about a year, yearand a half ago.
What are some of the othertopics that you cover in the
YouTube videos?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
So far.
The videos cover things thatI've unearthed over the last
dozen years and a lot of whichappeared in my books, one of the
things that I'm very I don'tknow how to say this, because
it's a very sad event whathappened?
But I'm very proud of havingworked on this project.
(21:10):
When those Italians came to myhometown in 1873, 150 years ago
came to my hometown in 1873, 150years ago, there was also a
group of them who went to a townright next door, just walking
distance away from my hometown,and what happened there was
worse than what happened in myhometown.
(21:31):
What happened there is theItalians were being harassed by
the locals is the Italians thatwere being harassed by the
locals.
The Italians came in and tookthe jobs that the locals had
quit.
The locals went on strike.
These were in the coal mines ofmy area.
The local miners went on strike.
The owners went to New YorkCity, brought these Italians in.
(21:53):
The Italians had no idea theywere being brought in as
strikebreakers.
They didn't know until they gotthere.
But they were poor.
They couldn't return to NewYork City, so they had to do
what they had to do.
They went into the mines and sothe miners and this little
village was called Churchill bythe way, had nothing to do with
Churchill in Richmond, virginia.
(22:14):
Churchill, ohio, was a smallmining village and the Italians
there were harassed as theyworked in the mines.
The strike came to an end.
Some of the miners who hadwalked off the job were told
you're not welcome here.
They were not welcome to comeback to the mines.
The Italians, some of them,remained to work in the mines
(22:35):
and one of them was a20-year-old named Giovanni
Chiesa.
And what happened was one dayin July in 1873, he was down at
the well getting water and oneof the local former miners
insulted him, broke his bucket,told him to go back to Italy.
(22:58):
And that's when Chiesa wentback to his barracks, his shanty
.
He had seven other Italiansliving there with him and he
said I'm sorry, I can't bringyour water.
I was attacked and the Italianssaid we'll go without water
today.
And the Italians said we'll gowithout water today.
A short while later, that manhis name was Trotter, william
(23:23):
Trotter, came to the barracksand he wanted to continue the
fight.
He had not had enough of it andso he started a fight with
Chiesa.
The rest of the Italians joinedin and they injured Trotter.
Well, trotter left the village,heard about the fight.
They heard about Trotter beinginjured.
200 locals showed up,surrounded the barracks and
(23:46):
attacked and burnt the place.
And there was one German livingwith those seven Italians and
the German was the first one toescape.
The crowd didn't hurt him.
They said you can go as long asyou do not bring the police.
So the German left.
The Italians, one by one leftthe burning building.
They were beaten as they cameout, severely beaten.
(24:10):
One of them was beaten so badhe had to have a leg amputated.
Another had two broken arms.
So this was not just a fewpunches, they were beaten with
clubs and stones.
The last person out of thebuilding was Giovanni Chiesa and
he was so badly beaten by themob that he died that evening.
And it turns out that, as far asI can tell through my research,
(24:31):
he was the first Italian to belynched in this country.
And you don't hear about thatbecause, well, nobody cared
about the Italians in those days.
I did research to see when thefirst Italians were lynched in
this country and I found a book.
I can't remember the name, Ithink it's called Rope,
(24:52):
something with the name Rope init.
Anyway, the author of that booksaid that the first Italians
lynched in the United Statesthat happened in 1886, she said
the first Italians lynched inthe United States, that happened
in 1886, she said Well, mystudy showed, 13 years earlier
Giovanni was lynched.
Now you might say, oh, doesn'tthe lynching involve a hanging?
If you go to the NAACP website,a hanging it could be a part of
(25:15):
a lynching, but it does notnecessarily define a lynching
necessarily.
It does not necessarily definea lynching If a person is
severely beaten and is killed.
That's a lynching in modernterminology.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, see, I didn't know that.
You know you always associatewith the lynching with being
hung or something like that.
And yeah, you know it'simportant for us to get these
stories out because it's, youknow, it's part of our history.
Like you said earlier, there'snot always a happy ending to
everything like that.
I mean, we've certainly, youknow, come a long way, but you
(25:48):
know, as we spoke in one of theother videos that we did, now
we've gotten this wholestereotypical kind of wise guy
type of thing that's we're notlike that almost a cartoon image
sometimes of italians.
(26:09):
You know what I mean, right,yeah, I can't tell you how many
times.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
When I was younger, uh, when people found out I was
italian, they asked me if I knewany mafia.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I didn't know anybody in the mafia well I knew a
couple, but I didn't knowanybody in the mafia.
Well, I knew a couple, but Ididn't know they were mafia.
back then I didn't realize untilI was about 16 or something
like that, yeah, but to thatpoint you didn't know because
they weren't flashy about it.
That was their job.
(26:39):
You didn't know because theyweren't flashy about it.
You know, that was that wastheir job, I suppose.
But they weren't like thisstereotypical, you know wise guy
walking a swaggering down thestreet with a cigar and all of
that kind of stuff.
You wouldn't know.
You would never know that theywere, that they were associated
in gangs or something like that,and they didn't live flashy
(26:59):
lives because they didn't wantto be.
You know, out there, of coursethere was some like you know God
and those guys you know, but AlCapone for one, yeah, yeah,
there was.
You know, probably, I guess inevery era there was that one guy
who was very flashy, I suppose,uh, but uh, you know, my, my
(27:24):
father was a photographer forthe daily news in new york city
for like 40 years and, um, thegallo brothers, specifically
joey gallo, he always wanted tobe in the newspaper, um, and my
father would, was always takinghis pictures and, um, one day he
was, uh, joey was coming out ofcourt and my father was there
(27:48):
taking his picture and, uh, someguy kept pushing the camera out
of the way and, uh, my fatherwent over to Joey and said hey,
what's going on?
I can't take a picture anymore.
And Joey Gallo said he's beingtaken care of, don't worry about
it.
The next week they found theguy in the trunk of a car.
I thought it was like.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I hope it wasn't, because I asked him about taking
the pictures you know it'sinteresting that you mentioned
the Gallo name In some of myresearch.
There were Padrons in New YorkCity named Gallo and one of them
came before a congressionalhearing in 1890.
All about the Padrons.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Wow, so they were having hearings way back then.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Wow, and Gallo was subpoenaed to come and give
testimony at this hearing aboutthe Padrones in New York City.
He was suspected I think he wassuspected of being one.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Wow, that's really something.
I didn't know, that.
I didn't really know that, andyou know.
That's the other thing, becausewe were talking about a couple
of the movies, and the one wasthe one I think it was the name
Petrosino, the New York Citypoliceman.
They made one movie about him.
Ernest Borgnine played him,which I thought was a
(29:15):
fascinating movie.
But they don't talk a lot aboutthe Italians that were actually
fighting crime.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Right right, he was highly regarded at a time when
many Italians had to endureprejudice.
His name is in newspaperarticles and he was always
spoken of so highly in thesearticles.
And one thing I found in myresearch that I had never seen
before is that and we have thisin our swindled book he came
(29:44):
with his father in 1872, inNovember 1872, to the United
States.
He was only 11 years old, andit turns out, the ship he was on
was one of those named byCongress as one of the swindle
ships, and it was believed thatmost, if not all, of the
Italians on that ship had beenswindled to this country.
(30:04):
So Giuseppe Petrosino and hisfather, Prospero, may well have
been victims of their countrymen, their cheating countrymen, and
they were brought here on falsepromises.
And so to me it's interestingthat, uh, that Joe Petrosino,
who became such a uh well-knowncrime fighter, uh began his life
(30:26):
in this country as a victim ofa crime.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Well, I wonder, maybe that's why he he was so adamant
about going after.
Because he, uh, if I remembercorrectly, he started the.
He was like one of the firstItalian American policemen and
then he started the Italiansquad or something like that, if
I'm getting the story right.
Yeah, that's, that's right.
Yeah, and he wasn't looked atvery nicely by the Irish police
(30:52):
either, you know.
The other story that comes tomind was the story that I heard
from somebody that lived inBrooklyn and how his church was
built.
And his church was builtbecause the Irish wouldn't let
the Italians have mass in thechurch in Italian.
(31:16):
So they went to the, they wentto the bishop and they, you know
, asked for, you know, to beable to build a church.
And they wound up building this, the Italian church, maybe
three or four blocks away fromthe other church, and then to
take it to the next step, whichis really one of the most
(31:37):
fascinating things I ever heardfrom anybody.
They had a storefront, thechurch was in the storefront and
, um, the the priest couldn'tpay the bill, he couldn't pay
the 500 dollars, um, and he waswalking past this jewish, uh,
store.
There's a jewish couple on thisstore and um, the guy said to
(31:58):
him uh, why do you look so sad?
What's wrong?
And he said I can't pay thebill, I can't pay for the church
.
And he said to him and theyoung couple, and he said I'll
pay it.
And this Jewish man and hiswife collected from Jewish
(32:19):
families $500 and gave it to thepriest so he could pay the rent
or whatever.
This was 1913.
In 1939, by this time thehusband had passed away.
His family was writing lettersfrom Austria to his wife saying
(32:44):
we need to leave Austria becausethe Nazis are coming, and we
got to get out.
She tried to get help from thegovernment, the US government.
She couldn't get any help andsomebody told her to go to Cuba,
that there was a to go to Cuba,that there was a priest in Cuba
that might be able to help.
She goes to Cuba, she gets offthe plane and she's greeted by
(33:09):
an altar boy and the Archbishop.
The Archbishop was the priestthat she gave the $500.
And he was.
He was the and he was thepeople.
Whatever he was, he was veryclose to Pius XII.
(33:30):
They got 39 of these I think itwas 39 or 36 people to Cuba.
He supported them until the endof the war, fed them, clothed
them, kept them.
That's great, you know, amazing,you know.
People say, well, you know, youknow there's no God or whatever
(33:56):
.
I mean me personally.
I'm on the fence, but when youhear a story like that, you say,
geez, this can't be an accident.
Yeah, that's a good story, Afantastic story and it's you
know's, very well known inBrooklyn.
Very well known in Brooklyn.
So, before we go, Joe, wherecan people find the videos on
YouTube so we get to see them?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I think that my moniker is Italian American
history, and so that's how youwould find my stuff, short of
giving you the URL, which wouldbe a ridiculous thing to do.
That's how you find my stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, and I'll for sure put the links out there and
everything like that.
Well, fascinating stuff, joe.
I really appreciate you takingthe time and for anybody paying
attention to Joe and I andMichael Cavieri.
We're going to be working on aproject together soon.
We're in the planning stagesright now.
Hi everyone, this is Bob Sorrentino from Italian
Roots and Genealogy.
Be sure to check out our blogand our YouTube channel and our
newsletter and our greatsponsors Yo Dolce Vita Italy,
rooting Phil Italy and AbiativaCasa.
And today I have a greatreturning guest, joe Tucciarone,
(00:33):
and he's the co-author ofItalian Swindle to New York and
he's also got a new YouTubeseries Italian American History.
So welcome, joe.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Thanks for being here , bob, thank you very much.
I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
No, it's great, great stuff that you're putting out
there.
So what prompted you to startexpanding now from the book out
to doing some things on YouTube?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Actually, that started about a year, year and a
half ago no-transcript.
(01:29):
A lot of people don't realizehow long Italians have been here
and when they started comingand what they did when they got
here, right, yeah, yeah, youknow, most historians mention
that the great mass migration ofItalians began in 1880.
And when they say that in a waythat's true, but unless you
(01:51):
look at the details and thebackground and the context of
world events, it's really nottrue.
It started earlier than that.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
If you do those studies, yeah, yeah, and even as
far back as Thomas Jefferson,he had an Italian confidant or
friend, or whatever you want tocall him right.
With respect to the YouTubes,what significantly happened that
you put in the YouTube video?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I've got a half a dozen of them up there.
Which one are you referring tonow?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh, the one that I was talking about.
I wanted to talk about was theone about the railroads.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Okay, right, okay.
So yeah, that's one of my mostrecent.
It's based on events that weuncovered in the book the
Italian Swindled to New Yorkbook, and I wanted to expand on
that and find out if I couldcould more information, because
the publisher of our book saidlook, we'll give you 50,000
(02:50):
words and that's it.
You can't put any more in there, and so we had to limit
everything we said to fit thatguideline, and I knew there was
a lot more to find about theseItalians who came down to
Virginia in 1872.
So that was the impetus forthat video.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, and that's something.
And you know, see, you learnsomething.
Every time I talk to you orsomebody else, I learn something
.
Who knew there were Italians inVirginia in 1872?
Right, so they get to Virginia,and now did they just start
working on the railroad?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I'll give you just a little bit of background first.
Yeah, good, good, theseItalians who came to Virginia,
the ones I describe in the video, they were part of the nearly
3,000 who were swindled tocoming to the United States.
They were dumped in New YorkCity without friends or without
jobs, and so they had norecourse, no money, no jobs to
(03:54):
look forward to.
And what happened was thesuperintendent of Castle Garden,
bernard Castlery, put out theword that I've got a lot of
people looking for work, and itjust so happened that the
governor of Virginia was lookingfor men to come down to work
there, because Virginia had beendecimated by the Civil War.
(04:16):
They lost upwards of 30,000working men, and so he needed
help.
He needed people to come downand work.
Basically, he wanted farmers tocome down and work the fields,
because there were a lot offarms that were fallow because
of the soldiers who were killedthere, the Confederate soldiers.
(04:37):
And so Bernard Castle, where hefound out about this, and they
communicated.
He and the governor of Virginiacommunicated about this and 200
Italians were booked toVirginia, but kind of along the
way, it was decided that,instead of them being farmers,
they would go to work in thecity of Virginia to help in a
railroad project.
(04:57):
They were building a railroadtunnel under the city.
They were doing that to avoiddestroying historic landmarks.
You know the Churchill area ofRichmond, I think it's where,
isn't that where Patrick Henrygave a speech?
Give me liberty or give medeath.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, I'm not sure I don't know a heck of a lot about
Virginia.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I've driven through there but yeah, I'm not real
sure either, but I believe theChurch Hill area was
historically significant and theChesapeake and Ohio Railroad
wanted to connect to thetidewater so they could ship
goods to and from overseas.
And the best passage was to gothrough Richmond and
(05:42):
unfortunately, the initial planput that railroad right through
Churchill.
Well, they couldn't do that,they couldn't destroy this
historic area, so they decidedto build a tunnel onto the city
and that's what they neededthese Italians to come and do to
help dig this tunnel.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
That's just so, so interesting.
You know to hear these storiesand find out.
So what year was that?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
This was in December of 1872.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Long before the 1880, date that everyone thinks that
Italians came to this country.
This happened eight yearsearlier than that.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
So now did these men I mean, were they the first of a
larger group to go there anddid they settle there or did
they move on from there?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
There were already Italians living in Richmond at
the time.
I don't know how big the colonywas, but they were established
and they were well-liked by thegeneral populace.
They had a beneficent societyby the general populace.
They had a beneficent society.
(06:50):
They had a ball, I believe, afew months or a few weeks before
these Italians from New Yorkarrived.
So they were kind of acceptedby society and moving in
societal circles in Richmond.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I'm going to show a little clip of that just to whet
people's appetite and so theycould see what you have to offer
in this particular video.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Three months after their arrival, opinions differed
on the performance of theItalians.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Some praised their efforts now employed at the
tunnel and other terminus of theChesapeake and Ohio Railroad
are an industrious, frugal andpainstaking class of laborers.
They mind their own business,work well and promptly pay for
(07:35):
what they get.
We have room for more of them.
Yet others voiceddisappointment.
One Virginia African isestimated to be worth three
Roman citizens in that kind ofwork.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Now I know one of your I think I guess this I
think this is the most recentone that you did was the whole
castle garden to.
You know, liberty Island versusEllis Island, right?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, the one we had just been talking about, the
Italians coming to Richmond tohelp dig the tunnel and then to
build the two railroad viaductsin the mountains.
That's a sort of a nicefeel-good story, but it's
limited to a couple of hundredItalian immigrants.
(08:29):
The one you just mentioned, theCastle Garden, ellis Island
story, is really big.
It's a national story, and letme tell you why.
I didn't know this until Istarted the research.
In 1890, congress had decidedthat Castle Garden was no longer
adequate to handle the hugenumbers of immigrants that were
(08:50):
coming in to the country.
They decided to open the firstFederal Immigration Bureau.
See, up till that time therehad been an immigration bureau
in New York City called CastleGarden, but it was a state-run
entity and it was located, asyou probably know, on the tip of
Manhattan Island.
(09:11):
So when immigrants came off theboats, they were immediately
surrounded by some undesirableelements people trying to put
them up in shabby boardinghouses, sell them goods, all
sorts of criminal activities.
And so in 1890, the UnitedStates Congress decided we have
to have a controlled environmentto bring immigrants into this
(09:33):
country.
It has to be a federallyoperated environment.
In fact, they stated that thiscannot be entrusted to the
states, and they were referringto the Castle Garden facility,
which was operated by the stateof New York.
They put William Wyndham incharge of locating this new
facility.
(09:53):
Now let me give you somebackground.
In 1890, when this was all underdiscussion, the Statue of
Liberty had already beenstanding on Bedloe's Island for
four years.
The Statue of Liberty hadalready been standing on
Bedloe's Island for four years.
It had just arrived four yearsearlier.
It seemed to take a littlewhile, but America fell in love
with the statue.
They called it Our Beloved LadyLiberty, and it's located on an
(10:19):
island, a limited access area.
It's the kind of place that theUS Congress would have thought
to build this immigration center.
Think about it, in fact,william Wyndham said it's quoted
in my video that this seems tobe the best place to bring
immigrants because as theirships come into the harbor,
they'd be welcomed by the grandstatue of Lady Liberty.
(10:41):
What could be more fitting, hethought.
So that's the background.
Why then, as I asked at thebeginning of the video, why then
, did they decide to put thisnew immigrant depot on Ellis
Island instead of Bedloe'sIsland, where the Statue of
Liberty was?
(11:01):
That's the big question and,it's sad to say, the answer lay
in anti-Italian bias, becausewhat was happening in 1890 was
the United States was seeing ahuge surge in Italian
(11:22):
immigration At that time.
Immigration from Great Britain,canada, ireland, germany those
had all been countries that hadsent huge numbers of immigrants
to this country in the 1860s and1870s and early 1880s.
But immigration from thosecountries the four leading
(11:45):
countries when it came toimmigration into the United
States the immigration fromthose countries was declining.
At the same time, immigrationfrom Italy was beginning to
skyrocket.
At the same time, immigrationfrom Italy was beginning to
skyrocket and what was happeningwas a lot of those Italian
immigrants were brought here byPadrons those are the Italian
bosses and they were broughtover in the thousands, railroad
(12:21):
companies and coal mines to sendhundreds of Italian laborers on
each of these constructionprojects or mines.
And they would come in and thePadrons would offer the owners
I'll tell you what my men willwork for half of what your
American laborers are workingfor.
Well, american industry lovedthe sound of that.
More background on this is thatin the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s,
(12:42):
america was in what was calledthe Gilded Age.
The Gilded Age referred to thehuge expansion of the country
westward, the huge increase insteel output.
In other words, the country wasreally blossoming industrially
and it needed workers.
It needed workers desperately.
In the last half of the 18thcentury the Padrons were able to
(13:05):
furnish this.
But you know, if you think aboutit in perspective, americans
didn't want this.
Their husbands and sons werebeing displaced by these
foreigners.
It wasn't really the fault ofthe Italians.
They were swindled over herecontinuously in the latter part
(13:26):
of the 19th century by thePadrons, and so they were
brought in.
They were forced basically todo what the Padrons told them to
do.
So the fault lay in the Padrons.
But the fallout was that,because America was being
inundated by this class ofItalian immigrants, congress
(13:46):
said basically no.
They said to the TreasurySecretary no, we don't want you
to build this immigrant depot onLady Liberty's island because
it will desecrate her.
You have to find a differentplace.
At the time Ellis Island couldnot be approached by large boats
because it had shallow waters.
It was occupied by a navalmunitions depot.
(14:09):
So there were no good reasonsto put the immigrant depot on
Ellis Island.
But Congress insisted thatWyndham do so, and so that's why
Ellis Island and not LibertyIsland was the site of the great
immigration center that we allknow so well.
We call it Ellis Island.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, and you can look at that story and almost
compare it to what's going onnow.
You know, so many people arecoming it's not their fault,
right, they're being invited in,but you know, instead of
padrons, now you, you, you havethese cartels making tons, and I
mean the money they're makingprobably pales in comparison to
(14:52):
what these padrons were makingback then right, it's, it's an
interesting story and for usit's a sort of sad story.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
But you have to look at history dispassionately.
You have to realize it can'talways be a happy ending, it
can't always be good.
And so, because of anti-Italianbias in Congress, ellis Island
became the center of admirationinstead of Liberty Island.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Ellis Island became the center of admiration instead
of Liberty Island.
Yeah, and I, you know, I didn'tknow it, that was because of
the Italian.
You know, you watch somebody'sdocumentaries on Ellis Island
and you and you, you know, yousee, the things like the one
that stands out to me was that II don't remember the doctor's
name, but he was the one whoapparently he had had drawings
or pictures of people and thenhung.
You know, if you look like this, you're an imbecile.
(15:41):
If you look like this, you'rean idiot.
You know that kind of stuff,and most of the pictures look
like Italians.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
The newspaper articles of that time, the
contemporary articles.
They always not always, butthey tended to illustrate, uh,
italian immigrants, uh, in aderogatory way, they they
depicted them as uh what arecalled banditi or brigands,
instead of the the ordinaryrun-of-the-mill immigrants that
(16:09):
they were uh, yeah, and you knowa lot of that.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Uh, we just we just watched a couple of weeks ago we
watched Cabrini, which I foundwas really fascinating.
I mean, first of all, the womanherself was just unbelievable,
but you really got that sense ofhow bad the five points were.
And of course, the Irish werethere before, the Irish gangs
(16:35):
were there before, but then youcould see and again it almost
parallels what's going on todayin some of these immigrant
neighborhoods where their ownpeople are taking advantage of
them.
It's really terrible stuff ashuman beings, how that happens,
you know right yeah, what youyou just mentioned, uh, the
(16:57):
cabrini uh movie.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Uh, I've seen a lot of movies and I I know how
hollywood dramatizes things.
The part about that movie wherethe italians were spit upon and
and uh, that was real.
That's not a hollywoodinvention.
I have uh collected uh I don'tknow how many documents,
hundreds of documents, and inthose documents it clearly shows
(17:22):
that Italians were, there wasItalian anti-Italian bias, a
strong anti-Italian bias in the1880s and 1890s, and they were
treated like that.
In fact, I've got one articlefrom New York City.
I think it was in 1873.
This was one of those firstItalians who had been swindled
over here.
They began working in the cityand a number of them got on a
(17:47):
streetcar and the conductorordered them off the streetcar.
This is the kind of thing thatyou see in 1950s in the South.
You know, they told the blacksto go to the back of the bus.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, they ejected the Italians off this streetcar
in 1872.
Yeah, well, they show that inthe movie and I found I don't
know where I found it, but Ifound an article someplace where
they did a comparison of themovie to real life and it was to
your, your point, it was almost90 percent accurate.
Um, the things that that weregoing on, uh, you know they,
(18:25):
they, they said, like the mayor,for example, was he wasn't the
real mayor and they said, insome cases they, uh, like they
usually do in hollywood, they'll, they'll make one character out
of three or something like that.
But the, the scenes of fivepoints, and you know how she was
treated both in Italy and inAmerica, were pretty true.
(18:45):
But I just came away from, Imean, I remember hearing about
mother Cabrini, you know, ingrammar school, because you know
she was made a saint, not, youknow long, not shortly before I
was in school, but they didn'tgo into a lot of detail.
You know she was made a saint,not, you know long, not shortly
before I was in school, uh, butthey didn't go into a lot of
detail.
You know, the first americanand saint and we were italian.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
So of course that that uh matched up um, but I had
no idea what a strong will thiswoman had yeah, I actually had
never heard of her until uh, afriend of mine mentioned the
movie to me a couple weeks agoreally, yeah, I say I remember
because I'm not.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I mean, I didn't grow up in an italian neighborhood,
but there were a lot of italiansthere, um but um, I remember
them talking about it because,uh, I don't know if there was an
earlier movie or there was,maybe they were celebrating the
10th or 20th anniversary of herbeing a saint or something like
that, but it was always outthere that she was, of course,
(19:45):
the first American saint, so Ido remember that the 1880s,
padrons brought thousands ofItalians to the United States.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
During that time, attitudes toward the newcomers
hardened as they displacedAmerican workers.
When the Secretary of theTreasury, william Windham,
suggested landing migrants onLiberty Island, indignant
citizens and a galvanizedCongress opposed him.
As a result, the nation'sstoried immigration center would
(20:18):
rise on Ellis Island and a halfmile of open water would keep
the lowly foreigners fromBartholdi's famous sculpture.
The unrestrained importation ofItalian immigrants by Padrones
had determined in large part thesite of America's historic
(20:38):
gateway.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So, joe, so you mentioned that you know you
started this about a year, yearand a half ago.
What are some of the othertopics that you cover in the
YouTube videos?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
So far.
The videos cover things thatI've unearthed over the last
dozen years and a lot of whichappeared in my books, one of the
things that I'm very I don'tknow how to say this, because
it's a very sad event whathappened?
But I'm very proud of havingworked on this project.
(21:10):
When those Italians came to myhometown in 1873, 150 years ago
came to my hometown in 1873, 150years ago, there was also a
group of them who went to a townright next door, just walking
distance away from my hometown,and what happened there was
worse than what happened in myhometown.
(21:31):
What happened there is theItalians were being harassed by
the locals is the Italians thatwere being harassed by the
locals.
The Italians came in and tookthe jobs that the locals had
quit.
The locals went on strike.
These were in the coal mines ofmy area.
The local miners went on strike.
The owners went to New YorkCity, brought these Italians in.
(21:53):
The Italians had no idea theywere being brought in as
strikebreakers.
They didn't know until they gotthere.
But they were poor.
They couldn't return to NewYork City, so they had to do
what they had to do.
They went into the mines and sothe miners and this little
village was called Churchill bythe way, had nothing to do with
Churchill in Richmond, virginia.
(22:14):
Churchill, ohio, was a smallmining village and the Italians
there were harassed as theyworked in the mines.
The strike came to an end.
Some of the miners who hadwalked off the job were told
you're not welcome here.
They were not welcome to comeback to the mines.
The Italians, some of them,remained to work in the mines
(22:35):
and one of them was a20-year-old named Giovanni
Chiesa.
And what happened was one dayin July in 1873, he was down at
the well getting water and oneof the local former miners
insulted him, broke his bucket,told him to go back to Italy.
(22:58):
And that's when Chiesa wentback to his barracks, his shanty
.
He had seven other Italiansliving there with him and he
said I'm sorry, I can't bringyour water.
I was attacked and the Italianssaid we'll go without water
today.
And the Italians said we'll gowithout water today.
A short while later, that manhis name was Trotter, william
(23:23):
Trotter, came to the barracksand he wanted to continue the
fight.
He had not had enough of it andso he started a fight with
Chiesa.
The rest of the Italians joinedin and they injured Trotter.
Well, trotter left the village,heard about the fight.
They heard about Trotter beinginjured.
200 locals showed up,surrounded the barracks and
(23:46):
attacked and burnt the place.
And there was one German livingwith those seven Italians and
the German was the first one toescape.
The crowd didn't hurt him.
They said you can go as long asyou do not bring the police.
So the German left.
The Italians, one by one leftthe burning building.
They were beaten as they cameout, severely beaten.
(24:10):
One of them was beaten so badhe had to have a leg amputated.
Another had two broken arms.
So this was not just a fewpunches, they were beaten with
clubs and stones.
The last person out of thebuilding was Giovanni Chiesa and
he was so badly beaten by themob that he died that evening.
And it turns out that, as far asI can tell through my research,
(24:31):
he was the first Italian to belynched in this country.
And you don't hear about thatbecause, well, nobody cared
about the Italians in those days.
I did research to see when thefirst Italians were lynched in
this country and I found a book.
I can't remember the name, Ithink it's called Rope,
(24:52):
something with the name Rope init.
Anyway, the author of that booksaid that the first Italians
lynched in the United Statesthat happened in 1886, she said
the first Italians lynched inthe United States, that happened
in 1886, she said Well, mystudy showed, 13 years earlier
Giovanni was lynched.
Now you might say, oh, doesn'tthe lynching involve a hanging?
If you go to the NAACP website,a hanging it could be a part of
(25:15):
a lynching, but it does notnecessarily define a lynching
necessarily.
It does not necessarily definea lynching If a person is
severely beaten and is killed.
That's a lynching in modernterminology.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, see, I didn't know that.
You know you always associatewith the lynching with being
hung or something like that.
And yeah, you know it'simportant for us to get these
stories out because it's, youknow, it's part of our history.
Like you said earlier, there'snot always a happy ending to
everything like that.
I mean, we've certainly, youknow, come a long way, but you
(25:48):
know, as we spoke in one of theother videos that we did, now
we've gotten this wholestereotypical kind of wise guy
type of thing that's we're notlike that almost a cartoon image
sometimes of italians.
(26:09):
You know what I mean, right,yeah, I can't tell you how many
times.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
When I was younger, uh, when people found out I was
italian, they asked me if I knewany mafia.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I didn't know anybody in the mafia well I knew a
couple, but I didn't knowanybody in the mafia.
Well, I knew a couple, but Ididn't know they were mafia.
back then I didn't realize untilI was about 16 or something
like that, yeah, but to thatpoint you didn't know because
they weren't flashy about it.
That was their job.
(26:39):
You didn't know because theyweren't flashy about it.
You know, that was that wastheir job, I suppose.
But they weren't like thisstereotypical, you know wise guy
walking a swaggering down thestreet with a cigar and all of
that kind of stuff.
You wouldn't know.
You would never know that theywere, that they were associated
in gangs or something like that,and they didn't live flashy
(26:59):
lives because they didn't wantto be.
You know, out there, of coursethere was some like you know God
and those guys you know, but AlCapone for one, yeah, yeah,
there was.
You know, probably, I guess inevery era there was that one guy
who was very flashy, I suppose,uh, but uh, you know, my, my
(27:24):
father was a photographer forthe daily news in new york city
for like 40 years and, um, thegallo brothers, specifically
joey gallo, he always wanted tobe in the newspaper, um, and my
father would, was always takinghis pictures and, um, one day he
was, uh, joey was coming out ofcourt and my father was there
(27:48):
taking his picture and, uh, someguy kept pushing the camera out
of the way and, uh, my fatherwent over to Joey and said hey,
what's going on?
I can't take a picture anymore.
And Joey Gallo said he's beingtaken care of, don't worry about
it.
The next week they found theguy in the trunk of a car.
I thought it was like.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I hope it wasn't, because I asked him about taking
the pictures you know it'sinteresting that you mentioned
the Gallo name In some of myresearch.
There were Padrons in New YorkCity named Gallo and one of them
came before a congressionalhearing in 1890.
All about the Padrons.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Wow, so they were having hearings way back then.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Wow, and Gallo was subpoenaed to come and give
testimony at this hearing aboutthe Padrones in New York City.
He was suspected I think he wassuspected of being one.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Wow, that's really something.
I didn't know, that.
I didn't really know that, andyou know.
That's the other thing, becausewe were talking about a couple
of the movies, and the one wasthe one I think it was the name
Petrosino, the New York Citypoliceman.
They made one movie about him.
Ernest Borgnine played him,which I thought was a
(29:15):
fascinating movie.
But they don't talk a lot aboutthe Italians that were actually
fighting crime.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Right right, he was highly regarded at a time when
many Italians had to endureprejudice.
His name is in newspaperarticles and he was always
spoken of so highly in thesearticles.
And one thing I found in myresearch that I had never seen
before is that and we have thisin our swindled book he came
(29:44):
with his father in 1872, inNovember 1872, to the United
States.
He was only 11 years old, andit turns out, the ship he was on
was one of those named byCongress as one of the swindle
ships, and it was believed thatmost, if not all, of the
Italians on that ship had beenswindled to this country.
(30:04):
So Giuseppe Petrosino and hisfather, Prospero, may well have
been victims of their countrymen, their cheating countrymen, and
they were brought here on falsepromises.
And so to me it's interestingthat, uh, that Joe Petrosino,
who became such a uh well-knowncrime fighter, uh began his life
(30:26):
in this country as a victim ofa crime.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Well, I wonder, maybe that's why he he was so adamant
about going after.
Because he, uh, if I remembercorrectly, he started the.
He was like one of the firstItalian American policemen and
then he started the Italiansquad or something like that, if
I'm getting the story right.
Yeah, that's, that's right.
Yeah, and he wasn't looked atvery nicely by the Irish police
(30:52):
either, you know.
The other story that comes tomind was the story that I heard
from somebody that lived inBrooklyn and how his church was
built.
And his church was builtbecause the Irish wouldn't let
the Italians have mass in thechurch in Italian.
(31:16):
So they went to the, they wentto the bishop and they, you know
, asked for, you know, to beable to build a church.
And they wound up building this, the Italian church, maybe
three or four blocks away fromthe other church, and then to
take it to the next step, whichis really one of the most
(31:37):
fascinating things I ever heardfrom anybody.
They had a storefront, thechurch was in the storefront and
, um, the the priest couldn'tpay the bill, he couldn't pay
the 500 dollars, um, and he waswalking past this jewish, uh,
store.
There's a jewish couple on thisstore and um, the guy said to
(31:58):
him uh, why do you look so sad?
What's wrong?
And he said I can't pay thebill, I can't pay for the church
.
And he said to him and theyoung couple, and he said I'll
pay it.
And this Jewish man and hiswife collected from Jewish
(32:19):
families $500 and gave it to thepriest so he could pay the rent
or whatever.
This was 1913.
In 1939, by this time thehusband had passed away.
His family was writing lettersfrom Austria to his wife saying
(32:44):
we need to leave Austria becausethe Nazis are coming, and we
got to get out.
She tried to get help from thegovernment, the US government.
She couldn't get any help andsomebody told her to go to Cuba,
that there was a to go to Cuba,that there was a priest in Cuba
that might be able to help.
She goes to Cuba, she gets offthe plane and she's greeted by
(33:09):
an altar boy and the Archbishop.
The Archbishop was the priestthat she gave the $500.
And he was.
He was the and he was thepeople.
Whatever he was, he was veryclose to Pius XII.
(33:30):
They got 39 of these I think itwas 39 or 36 people to Cuba.
He supported them until the endof the war, fed them, clothed
them, kept them.
That's great, you know, amazing,you know.
People say, well, you know, youknow there's no God or whatever
(33:56):
.
I mean me personally.
I'm on the fence, but when youhear a story like that, you say,
geez, this can't be an accident.
Yeah, that's a good story, Afantastic story and it's you
know's, very well known inBrooklyn.
Very well known in Brooklyn.
So, before we go, Joe, wherecan people find the videos on
YouTube so we get to see them?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I think that my moniker is Italian American
history, and so that's how youwould find my stuff, short of
giving you the URL, which wouldbe a ridiculous thing to do.
That's how you find my stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, and I'll for sure put the links out there and
everything like that.
Well, fascinating stuff, joe.
I really appreciate you takingthe time and for anybody paying
attention to Joe and I andMichael Cavieri.
We're going to be working on aproject together soon.
We're in the planning stagesright now.
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