Italian Immigrants in Portland, Maine, 1880-1920
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© COPYRIGHT by Robin Rae Svendsen 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this work to Rudolph “Rudy” DiPietro, who passed away just one week after our meeting of round-table storytelling in the Cantina at the Italian Heritage Center. Rudy was a unique character, a stalwart of the past, and his lively storytelling will be missed by this researcher. Also, to my father, Joseph DiDominicus “Chessi,” whose tales of stickball, lobster and strong women in this Italian enclave kept my imagination full of curiosity as a child, and my feminist backbone strong. He was a loving father who survived the early death of his father, childhood poverty, three wars, and four teenagers to instill his old-world lessons of la famiglia in his children which are woven through many of the tales in this research. MIGRATORY RESISTANCE COMMUNITIES ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS IN PORTLAND, MAINE, 1880-1920 BY Robin Rae Svendsen ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to illuminate the resistance communities that existed in the rural southern villages of the Mezzogiorno region of Italy, specifically Lettomanoppello, before and after Italian Unification and removed to Portland, Maine in the United States to re-establish their matrilineal subsistence culture. Through multiple lines of evidence, including previous scholarship, documents, past interviews with immigrants and current personal communication with descendants of immigrants, this research contextualizes the presence of resistance in the immigrant’s initial interaction with capitalism. The research follows the immigrant’s continued resistance to capitalism including the concept of individualism that attacked their familial organization and sacredly held joy of communal time. From their first interaction with the new capital economy in their villages to the erosion of their old country ways, immigrants from Lettomanoppello clung to their pre-capital lives through language, subsistence farming, and la famiglia, and sought to transplant these ways in their new enclave of Portland, Maine in the United States. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis examines the deep ties that family, la famiglia, inhales and exhales, the give and take that happens instantaneously, over moments, years, and lifetimes that give us the courage to be our best selves, achieve things we never thought possible, and the love to do it regardless. For my family, Kenneth Svendsen, Erik Svendsen and Monique Svendsen, your sacrifice and love got me to the finish line. I am eternally grateful for your support to accomplish a life-long goal of earning my graduate degree. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Daniel Sayers, and Dr. Nina Shapiro-Perl for providing support and mentorship throughout my studies at American University and in particular with this project. My path back to graduate school and anthropology has been my greatest academic challenge, and these professionals provided me with unwavering insight, feedback, and encouragement. Dr. Sayers challenged me with high theoretical standards and required diligent self-reflection throughout this process. His profound grasp and relentless pursuit of theoretical excellence made me a more diligent student and inquisitive human being. Dr. Shapiro-Perl introduced me to the process of digital storytelling and the StoryCorp concept of “life through the words of the individual.” She showed me that one’s passion for assisting participants to discover and tell their personal story creates a deeper experience for storyteller and listener alike. Through her example and devotion to the process, I became a better listener, a more passionate researcher, and a genuinely self-reflexive academic who understands my position inside and outside of that process. My deepest gratitude goes to the Italian Heritage Center and the Italian American community in Portland, Maine for their graciously open-hearted stories and for access to their archival interviews of those who struggled to cross the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean over one century ago and bravely recreated family and home on the other side. Their stories, struggles, iii victories and losses are the fabric of this country and the heart of this thesis. Without these archived interviews done by Mr. Tom Profenno and his team, their precious memories would have been lost to time, and their voices would not grace the pages of this research. I would specifically like to thank Mr. James DiBiase, the Italian Heritage Center’s cultural liaison, for his dedication to the community and the stories he shared of his parents’ migrations and relocation in Portland, Maine. Your paesani are grateful for your passion keeping the memories of these sojourners alive and the culture relevant for future generations. And, finally, I am indebted to the Muffin Club of the Italian Heritage Center for sharing their memories of the neighborhood in the old days and keeping the struggles and joys of their parents and grandparents alive in the room for the day. Your conversations helped to create multi-dimensional human beings who braved the seas to transplant their village existence and culture on new land during this great wave of migration. They live on the pages of this thesis only because of you. Grazie! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 Migratory Resisters ................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 2 HISTORY .................................................................................................... 5 Shift from Feudalism to Capitalism ........................................................................ 5 The Power of the Witch .......................................................................................... 6 Vergil and the People that Time has Forgotten ...................................................... 9 The Land of Confusion ......................................................................................... 14 The New Political Economy ................................................................................. 16 Lady Liberty and her Lifted Skirt ......................................................................... 19 Culturally “Italian” ................................................................................................ 21 The Returners: “Americani” ................................................................................. 22 CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................. 26 Marx and the History of Capital ........................................................................... 26 Marxist Critique: Social Reproduction Theory ..................................................... 29 Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation .................................................. 32 CHAPTER 4 DATA ........................................................................................................ 40 Villages of the South: Hit Last and Hit Hard ........................................................ 40 Cutting out the Middle Man .................................................................................. 42 Better Wages in L'America ................................................................................... 44 Birds of Passage .................................................................................................... 45 Boarding Houses ................................................................................................... 49 Cultural Resistance ............................................................................................... 59 Surveillance of a Community ............................................................................... 63 Taking Back Subsistence ...................................................................................... 69 Vegetable Gardens .................................................................................... 69 Catching the Blackbird ............................................................................. 71 Subsistence Farms and Wine Making ....................................................... 74 Chickens in the Yard ................................................................................. 76 v Community in Transition ...................................................................................... 78 Italian Soldiers in the Casco Bay .......................................................................... 81 Post World War II – Progress in America ............................................................ 82 The "American Dream" – Capitalism and Home Ownership ............................... 83 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 87 Community Memory ............................................................................................. 87 Additional Research