Nick Nuccio Oral History Interview by Gary Mormino and George Pozzetta, June 10, 1979 Nick Nuccio (Interviewee)
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University of South Florida Scholar Commons Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center Oral Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center Histories June 1979 Nick Nuccio oral history interview by Gary Mormino and George Pozzetta, June 10, 1979 Nick Nuccio (Interviewee) Gary Ross Mormino (Interviewer) George E. Pozzetta (Interviewer) Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/flstud_oh Part of the American Studies Commons, and the Community-based Research Commons Scholar Commons Citation Nuccio, Nick (Interviewee); Mormino, Gary Ross (Interviewer); and Pozzetta, George E. (Interviewer), "Nick Nuccio oral history interview by Gary Mormino and George Pozzetta, June 10, 1979" (1979). Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center Oral Histories. Paper 2. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/flstud_oh/2 This Oral History is brought to you for free and open access by the Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center at Scholar Commons. 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Fowler Avenue, LIB 122, Tampa, FL 33620. Ybor City Oral History Project Oral History Program Florida Studies Center University of South Florida, Tampa Library Digital Object Identifier: Y10-00004 Interviewee: Nick Nuccio (NN) Interviewed by: Gary Mormino (GM) and George Pozzetta (GP) Interview date: June 10, 1979 Interview location: Interviewee’s home, Tampa, Florida Transcribed by: Kyle Burke Transcription date: March 14, 2008 Audit Edit by: Tsu Yin Lue Audit Edit date: April 14, 2008 Final Edit by: Nicole Cox Final Edit date: April 15, 2008 Gary Mormino: Great. Today is June 10, 1979 and George Pozzetta and myself, Gary Mormino, are talking to Mr.–– is it Anthony or Nicholas? Nick Nuccio: Nick. GM: ––Nick Nuccio at his lovely home in Tampa, and Mr. Nuccio, why don’t we begin. Could you tell us something about your family’s background? Maybe your father or where he came from and uh–– NN: My father came from Palermo at the age of fifteen. My mother came from Santo Stefano Quisquina, Sicily at the age of ten. They got married in Tampa. GM: What did your father do in the old country? NN: In the old country? GM: Uh-huh. NN: Well he was treated like [a] child. At seventeen years old, he didn’t do anything. GM: How about his family? NN: His family were farmers. GM: Contadini?1 1 Italian peasant farmers 1 NN: Yeah, farmers. And when my father came to Tampa at the age of sixteen he started working for the railroad a little bit. And then after that he came back to Tampa and St. Cloud–– and then he came back to Tampa and he started working at the cigar factory. The cigar industry was booming. My mother at the age of sixteen started working also in a cigar factory. George Pozzetta: Do you know what type of job your father did in the cigar factories? NN: Oh, my mother was a roller and my father was picking up bunches to a routine. He did this for many, many years and my father eventually went into business. He got into the filling station business from about 1922 to 1923. And he stayed in that business for about thirty years and then he retired. He didn’t do anything until he passed away at the age of ninety-two, my father. My mother passed away at the age of ninety-five here in Tampa. GM: Wow. You feel pretty confident then. (laughs) NN: I am going to live until I am ninety-five. GM: Yes. You have said a lot there. Let’s maybe break it down a little bit. Now, was your father from Palermo or was it one of the [surrounding] towns? NN: He was from Palermo. GM: How did he hear about Tampa? Why did he come to Tampa and not New York or Chicago? NN: Well he had some family here. His father was here. Do you understand his father worked in a mill and then he sent for him. Just the same thing as [with] my mother, my father sent for her. One came and then he sent for one of the family and then sent for two. And then you had the whole family here. GM: Right, right. What was he expecting when he came? Did he ever tell you? Well, what did he expect Tampa would be like or what had he heard about America or Tampa? NN: Well he knew that he was going to live a little better here than in Italy, you understand? Matter of fact, my father, living here when he retired, also wanted him to go to Italy and visit his old country, you know, where he was born. And he said, “No, I’ll never go there. Once I left there I decided that I would never go there again with the misery and the suffering that I had.” See if he was around that’s what he would say and I think it is true. He said, “With a piece of bread in my pocket. I had to find water whenever I wanted [it]. Tending sheep you know in the mountains from morning till night. Every day of the week.” It was a hard life for him. GM: Right. Now what year did he come to Tampa, your father? Do you remember? 2 NN: Oh–– GM: If you had to guess. NN: No, I have no idea when he came to Tampa. GM: You mentioned that he came to St. Cloud first. NN: St. Cloud, yeah. GM: Tell us why he came to St. Cloud and what he did there? NN: Because everybody, all the Italian people were working on the railroad at that time. And naturally some of his friends invited him to work over there. So he went to St. Cloud. He was a youngster. And when he got married, then he started working in the cigar factory. Worked there for about maybe four or five years. And then he started working over there in the cigar industry and got into making. GP: Did he ever talk about what the early cigar factories were like, what conditions were like? NN: The same as they are today, the same as they are today. Yeah. The only difference today is that you got machines to make cigars. At that time you didn’t have no machines. They all made hand-made cigars. That’s the only difference there was. As far as the atmosphere it was the same thing it is today. GM: Uh-huh. What about at St. Cloud? Did he ever tell you what life was like there? What kind of job he did? NN: He enjoyed it. He said that he enjoyed it. Said that he had a good living there. GM: What did he do? NN: Working on the railroad. Getting up early and putting down the tracks. GM: Right. And then he came from St. Cloud to Tampa. Any idea what year this might have been if you had to take a guess? NN: [No.] GM: Okay. What were his first impressions of Tampa? NN: He really liked it. He liked it very much. As a matter of fact, he made his home here. He could have gone anywhere else you know what I mean? But he didn’t. He wanted to stay in Tampa. 3 GM: Why did he get a job in the cigar factory? Why not–– NN: Because it paid a little better. GM: How did he learn the trade? NN: It was easier work. Somebody said at that time they had people that trained these workers. They didn’t have so many. So some old timers that [were] making cigars in Cuba for example, they came, immigrated here, to Tampa. They taught all these newcomers how to make cigars. GM: Right, right. NN: My mother [was] the same way. GM: Uh-huh. What did he tell you about conditions in the factory? NN: They were very good. Very good. He enjoyed it very much. He never had a problem there. GP: Did he ever talk about how the different ethnic groups in Tampa got along? The Cubans, Spaniards, [Italians] –– NN: Very, very close. GP: All three? NN: Very, very close. As a matter of fact it was closer then than they are today. GM: Why do you think that was? NN: Well at that time they used to live all in one section for example. Like in Ybor City. And West Tampa. West Tampa was home to the Spanish and Cuban element and Ybor City was the Cubans and the Italians. Mostly Italians over there. Only a few Italians were in West Tampa. See my area here is supposed to be West Tampa’s section. Everybody from Ybor City came in this section here now. They are all living in this area.