UNIVERSITY OF LOWELL CENTER FOR LOWELL HISTORY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER LOWELL FOLKLIFE PROJECT

INFORMANT: JOHN DIDOMENICO CONDUCTED BY: DOUG DENATALE

DATE: JULY 14,

J = JOHN D = DOUG

LFP-DD-A001

D: Okay. I usually just put it on in the beginning of the tape so it's there, that today is Tuesday, July 14th and I'm speaking with Mr. John DiDomenico. Um, let's begin Mr. DiDomenico, you were talking about the fact that there are so few Italians in Lowell. And maybe you could talk a little bit more about that?

J: Well I mean in comparison to the other ethnic groups, and population groups. They are a smaller group than the, you know, for instance the Irish, French, Greek, and several other groups. We probably in terms of total numbers right now, I don't know how many we are, but we are one of the smaller ethnic groups in the city, but have always been an active group.

D: Uh huh. And it's surprising that there's so many Italians in Lawrence, and so few in Lowell. What were the reasons for that?

J: Well I can give you the reason I think. (D: Okay) We're going back to the years when they immigrated over here in great numbers. The, the early part of this century. And probably, I don't know if you're going to get into it, my late Dad had something to do with the immigration of Italian people into this area, into the city of Lowell. But I think that when they come over here in great numbers, they, they probably looked at the industry or occupation, or trades that were in the area. And I think that caused them to make you know, the various selections of the cities based on where their, probably where their cousins and relatives were. And it seems they went down river to Lawrence, I would say because Lawrence had big woolen mills. They were, they had tremendous woolen mills, or woolen industry, and Lowell had cotton industry. And the woolen industry paid a higher wage at the time than the cotton industry. That maybe a reason that you know, some people wouldn't put forward. I think that was one of the basic reasons. They went to Haverhill in greater numbers than they came to Lowell, which was only ten miles from Lawrence. And in Haverhill they had a large shoe industry. When we had the heavy cotton industry, where this city here is suppose to be the, you know, we're celebrating the greatest industrial revolution in the country, [unclear] Lowell, we had tremendous textile mills of a cotton nature mostly. And I think that had a lot to do with the migration of these people from their countries as to where they worked. And where they, you know, they followed their relatives, they followed their friends. And in those years they practically had to have somebody that they were coming to, you know. And as the populations grew in Lawrence, or Haverhill, or around Boston, there are great Italian populations in all those places, you know, like Framingham, Milford, Natick, even Worcester, Fitchburg, the middle part of the state, central part of the state. And they don't seem to have, at the peak, the peak our population spread here, I don't know if we had more than, and I don't have the exact figure as I said, but I don't think we had more than a thousand Italians in Lowell, you know? Or maybe more than several hundred families at the most. That's my reason for thinking that they never settled here in great numbers. There may be other reasons.

D: And you said that your father had something to do with the immigration to Lowell.

J: My father was involved in, he had an Italian grocery store. That's the way they characterized it, more so than Italian American grocery store. In the section of the city that's now a part of the Bishop Markhum Housing Project. And this goes back in the twenties. And in that store he also had an office that was, he was an agent for the [Bankos/Debillo?] Company of Boston. And he dealt in exchange money and so forth. And then people that were here, Italian people that were trying to get other people over here from Italy, whether they were brothers, cousins, children, or whatever, they came to my father. And he made out certain papers that had to do with the uh, the immigration of the person in Italy. I'm not exactly sure now, at his stage, you know, what those papers were. But they dealt with the immigrating of the parties from Italy over to here. And uh, he then forward these papers to the proper authorities in Boston or wherever. And I remember the little boy in his store, in which he had this office set aside from the store. And seeing these people come in, talk to him, and do their business with them. And they used to have to pay him for the service. There's also, there was also I think some money exchange involved, you know, the uh, that had to do with the American money and Italian money at the time. This was all legalized. He was an agent acting for a company in Boston. Then he went on, he went on to found the, he founded the First Chapter of the Order of Sons of Italy, which is a national fraternal organization. The biggest one, the biggest Italian American fraternal. You've heard of the Order of Sons of Italy.

D: Oh yes, of course.

J: They have Chapters in your state.

D: Now did he, he founded the First Chapter in Lowell?

J: He founded the Lowell Chapter back in the early 30's, and the Chapter is still in existence today. Even though it's very small and it's almost dormant, it's still in existence and it's part of the State Grand Lodge. And at one time we had as many as (--) I joined it in the late 30's, around 1938-39 when I was about twenty-one, twenty-two of my father's suggestion of course. And at that time we had a Chapter probably of one hundred to a hundred and twenty-five members, which was a big, big number in comparison again to the total number of Italian people. And there was one other organization in Lowell which is still functioning. And I was a, I'd be, my father lead the Chapter of the Order of Sons of Italy in Lowell for a good number of years as the president. They called it Venerable. That was the Head, the Venerable. Now they refer to it more as President. But like the Exan, Exult, like the Exultor Rule of the Elks, or the Grand Knight, they called it the Venerable. And he held that office for many years and then many other office. As he became older I stepped up and I became the president of the organization for quite a few years. And delegate to their conventions and carried on as an officer. And right now we have an organization that's very small. I'm the past president and the present president is still living. A man, an older man even of myself. But he was the founder. And that, that organization drew people in. Originally it was based on, if you want a little history of it, getting the Italian people some benefits as well as social benefits. And a benefit of being united they received a death benefit and a medical benefit, which today is different than it was. But in those days the people came in and they, they received a five hundred dollar death benefit.

D: So it was a kind of [unclear] society?

J: It was based on an assessment of each member by their Grand Lodge which is the State, the State Lodge. And they had a formula for doing that. And they had a formula for doing that called an assessment, or per capita tax. And then each Lodge had it's own set-up where many Lodges and ours did, had a doctor for it's members in those day. Today it's you know, all together different. But you had a doctor, the member belonged there probably paid a dollar month in dues. And he had a doctor that visited him and his family. Housecalls if you will. Delivered your wife's babies. And uh, that all came with your membership. In fact I was a member when my wife had her first and only child. And I don't believe that there wasn't an additional payment of probably $50.00 or less to the doctor based upon the membership and the order. But not only for babies, they came to anybody who was sick. You had children under eighteen, they had to take care of them. That lasted quite awhile. And they went out of existence of course. The doctor and the medical benefits sometime maybe in the late forties, or early fifties I'd say, when things began to change. But I don't think many people would believe that today.

D: I which they would bring back those days. [Chuckles]

J: That's exactly what we had.

D: When the doctor came to deliver a baby, or for medical emergency or something like that, you paid an extra, how much (--)

J: We paid nothing extra unless, we paid nothing extra for a regular visit or anything, nothing. The membership dues covered that. I believe if my, if recollection is correct and I'm not positive, I think there was a small, small payment to be made when it was a delivery, a birth. But during the pre-birth period and after, but there was no payments. If you went, if the doctor came to your house, or you went to his office, all that was covered by the, by the dues. In fact everything was covered except maybe the small additional payments. [Truck driving by] That was a great benefit. D: Yeah. Let me back up a little bit if I may. I don't believe you've mentioned your father's name yet.

J: My father's name was Angelo. He came to this country from Italy, from the Province of Avalino, and settled here. He first moved to Maynard, Mass. and then moved his family here and opened his business.

D: Let me ask, I have to ask you. Avalino, is that near Naples?

J: No that, Avalino, it's (--) Well Avalino now is like a Province. There's a Province and there's a city called that. He came from a town called Acrolonia in the Province of Avalino.

D: Okay. The reason I ask is my grandfather came from the town of Avalino. (J: The town of Avalino, yeah) Yeah.

J: And that's within, there's a town Avalino in the Province of Avalino. (D: Oh okay, okay) Yes, and I've never been there. But I studied all of this and I have a sister-in-law here that is from Italy, who married my late brother in Italy and she lives here. And she comes from the same Province. Now those, those people that my father associated with originally, although they came from all parts of Italy and Sicily, the ones that were his greatest friends of course in those days were all called Paisons. That means they came from the same village, or the same area. You heard the work Paison. And that means that today it would probably be you know, equated with, if you lived in the same city here, or something like that. But the Paisons were people who came from the same area, same village of town. Sometimes it was a great deal of, when I was young I notice that prejudice and jealousy between those people in different areas, they had a great [unclear], especially sometimes between the mainlanders and the Sicilians. And I don't mean that they had physical fights, but they seemed to have different, you know, different view.

D: And that was the case here in Lowell?

J: Oh yes. I think it was the case in every, every place where there was Italians. You know, that, that disappeared more and more as the years went on, see? But uhm, and my Dad dealt with his friends, but in forming these Lodges and organizations there was you know, there was no time to select people based on their, you know, their origination and everything. They wanted everybody, you know. But I mean within the Lodge itself, or within the organization there was always this feeling, you know, going away back. But they overcame that. That was the main thing. They overcame it. And by being united they got all these benefits from it, you know. You might compare it with, or equate it with politics today, you know, here in this country. People, people fight for different political views, but actually you know, we remain united in the things that are of great benefit to us. And that's the way it was. He did a great deal because in Italy he was a teacher and an engineer, civil engineer. And he was a college man in Italy. The reasons for him coming to this country are you know, are varied as far as I know. But he came here well educated, but not in the english language. He had to learn that. And he, the result, the other people who looked to him for advice and health, and help, they were probably most of them you know, just average people in their, in their villages, or communities. It'd be something like today, the people that we have, the new immigrants that we have that don't, you know, that need help and all that. And he was in the position to help a lot of them. And he was a progressive thinker and wanting to form these organizations. Then they have another organization in Lowell that my father was a member of, but didn't form. And it's still an organization. And I can refer you to the leaders there before you leave. The Italian American Citizens Club we called it. Today it's most, referred to mostly as the Italian American Club. That's a social club, and a club that originally formed to help Italian people become citizens way back. Today it remains and it's in existence on Central Street in Lowell. I was also active in that club and became president for a period of time back in the forties. And then when I returned from service and I remained active in it for many years. Although now I'm not active, but I'm a life paid up member. I'm not active in it, but I remain a member. But there are people there who are still you know, pushing the, the objectives that we originally sought.

D: So did the Sons of Italy and the Italian American Club have different aims? You said that (--)

J: The Sons of Italy organization? Well that's a different organization. See, that's a fraternal, a national fraternal society. It's the biggest on in this country. And it has, it has a different organizational set-up. We have chapters in many cities and towns in Massachusetts we don't have our own [unclear] you'll find Sons of Italy organizations, clubs, you know, buildings. Like in I think in Wilmington is the nearest one here. Throughout the whole state, . There must be a lot of Sons of Italy halls and all of that.

D: What are, what are the activities of the organization?

J: Sons of Italy? Well they, as I said, they originally form for the mutual benefit (D: So it was primarily mutual benefit for citizens?) from the members, you know. What I mentioned for the Lowell Lodge was the same, was the same for every Lodge, you know. (D: Were there regular meetings?) They united to help one another to be stronger, to have more of a voice, but originally I think, mostly to have protection. And they had the death benefits, and they had the doctor benefits. This other club, another organization of which in cities where there's a lot of Italian people, they have a lot of social clubs. Lawrence used to have I don't know how many social clubs. I don't think there's that many today. But the Sons of Italy was a different type of a group. It was a national group. You belonged to, you were affiliated with a State Grand Lodge, and the State Grand Lodge is affiliated with the Supreme Lodge as they call it. It just, like the nights of Columbus, or the Elks, or the Moose, based on the same idea. And the Sons of Italy, they, you can read about them all the time in these you know, they're, they're national and they're state. This is a national paper, this is a national paper, this is the state paper. And they have, they just had a state convention here in June. I went for twenty years. I don't go anymore. And then they have a national convention coming up in this year. And they've had, they've had a great many leaders that came, you know. And I never knew, I always knew the state leaders, but I don't today. But I never knew some of the national leaders that became very very influential and became Federal Judges, and all that stuff, you know. But that, that's a different kind of an organization than the club. The club is more of a local organization. It was originally started to also help the Italian immigrant, you know, to get to become a citizen. You know, when they came here like, like the immigrants today, they're not citizens, right. So they have to become citizens, or they want to become citizens. And that, that club was also I think, originally founded for that purpose. But it's a social club. You know, it has a bar and it's a place to gather for the people to have a good time and relax and so forth. Just like any club, you know, like the Elks, or clubs like that.

D: Let me ask you a little bit more about your family?

J: Was your father married before he came over?

D: My father, my father, I believe my father married here in Maynard, Mass. And that's a point I was always murky on. I don't, I don't know why I never got it clear. But I believe my father married in Maynard, Mass. Shortly after they had, he had two, three children in Maynard, Mass, which is not, you know, if you, you know Maynard, Mass, it's not too far from here. Probably fifteen, eighteen miles. Again he had relatives there, or best friends. So that when he come over here he went there to get his bearings before he moved to Lowell. And he moved to Lowell and set up his business. And he had four children. I was the last one. I was born in Lowell, the other three were born in Maynard, Mass., two sisters and a brother. And I believe he, I believe he met my mother, or he was either introduced to my mother in Italy and married her here, I'm not sure of that. But I believe they were married in Maynard, Mass. And she came from the Naples area of Italy. Some town, I forget the name of it, in the Naples area.

D: Do you know what, [clears throat] excuse me, what brought your father to Lowell?

J: Well this, this uh, he saw the opportunity to open up, come here and open up this business, this grocery store business. And they say he was a professional man over in Italy, and he had, he had a college degree in Italy. And apparently he was looking for something where he could go into business rather than going to work in a factory, or something like that. So he saw the opportunity to come here. I believe there was one other Italian store here, a few streets from his. And I don't, I don't remember if that was established after my father's, or before. I think it was established after. I think, I think he was shown that he could have the first, that he could have a following here if he opened up an Italian store with the, with the trade. Which he did it. He did a terrific business, you know, with the Italian people. And uh, you know, I remember the showcases with the macaroni in them and all the Italian goods. The olive oil, [unclear]. Those days were different of course. The stores were much different. They had showcases with spaghetti and macaroni, and all kinds of pasta. You opened up draws and you took it out, weighed it. And it was very unique. Sometimes you look back at it and you say it was a better system than we have today. And that's what brought them here as far as from what he's every told us when he was living. And he had that business for uh, oh some fifteen years or so. I don't know if there's anymore you want to know about following up on him?

D: And so he had this, by the time you were born he had the store already in Lowell?

J: Yes. Yes. Yes. I was born in 1914. He had the store, yes. He had the store when I was born.

D: Uh uh. And uh, it must have been a great place [unclear]? J: I remember sitting in the store as a little tot, and sitting on the macaroni cases. They used to come in wooden crates, twenty pound crates you know, that were about this long and about that wide.

D: So about two feet long?

J: Hi!

?: Hi!

D: Hi!

?: Hi!

D: So the cases of spaghetti were about three feet long and about six inches deep, about like that.

J: That's the way they pack it. That's the way the manufacturer sent them out, you know. That company that's in Italy landed in Lowell in 1938, or 36, Prince Macaroni Company, and they're still in Lowell. But they used to be in Boston, see. And the salesman came to the store and he used to put his orders in and he bought. That's the way they created it. You took them out of the boxes and you put them in these cases. The draws had a glass front. You put them in there. And when the people bought them you took them out. If it was long macaroni, or spaghetti, you took them out with your hand, placed them on the scale and weighed them. If it was pasta you had to scoop, you know. If it was the other kind of pasta, like shells, or the small stuff, you had to scoop. Put them in a bag and then you weighed it. And uh, you wrapped the, the macaroni or spaghetti you'd wrap up with paper. Break it, for that long you'd break it in half and wrap it up and tape it. And that was how they would, that's how they sold it. In all the Italian stores wherever they were, that's how they had to sell it. That's before packaging, you know, before they had these packages like today.

D: Uh huh. (J: So) Did you play in the store when you were a child? Did your father let you do that?

J: Did I what? I didn't get you?

D: Did your father let you play in the store when you were a child?

J: Well he let me hang around there. I don't remember playing too much. I remember helping him as soon as I could. And I remember my oldest sister working there. He also had a section where he sold. There was also American groceries and he sold candy and stuff. In those days the kids could come in. And all the stores had what they called penny candy cases. Cases where they had penny candy that you bought. They come in and they bought penny candy. For a nickel they'd buy five different things. They'd pick it out from outside the case. You'd look in the case, "I want one of those, and I want one of those." I remember my oldest sister working in the store probably when she was ten or eleven, you know. And uh, he, and I used to hang around there. I don't remember playing there much, but I probably did. I probably did. And he lives, we lived on one end of the, there's a common inbetween us and it's still there, The South Common. But all that area is vastly changed now. They have a big housing project there where his store was, and where there was a lot of residences and other stores, you know? Different types of stores, businesses. It's all changed. They built a housing project there, but that was many years after he was out of there.

D: What street was that on? (J: Huh?) What street was that?

J: It was on a street called South Street. His store was on the corner of South and Summer Street. And that's part of the housing project now. They call it the Bishop Markham Housing Project, which was just recently, it turned in to an elderly housing project. It was a family project before. And, but they, he was out of that area there, oh quite awhile before they turned it into a housing project. When they turned it into housing they knocked down all of these places. All these houses and the store, and everything. They had the, they demolished, they raised all of those to build a housing project. But those things there you know, were very very different than the days now. Of course in the last twenties, and then he's got more of a history than that. But I mean that's, that's about, his, (--) He continued to play a big part in the Sons of Italy. And before I became the leader of it he used to go to the Conventions and all that, you know, and he kept it going. And that was very much his (--) Oh he, he thought a lot of that organization, see. He founded it and he (--)

TAPE I, SIDE A ENDS TAPE I, SIDE B BEGINS

D: Um, did your father, was your father's store, did it sort of act like a meeting place for people in the community?

J: What? The store?

D: Yeah. Is that, is that where he, is that we're people came if they wanted him to fill out papers for the immigration?

J: Yeah. It wasn't so much a meeting place, it was a business place. They came there to buy their groceries. And they came there if they had business to do with him in the office. Not everybody had business, but there were many people that came to him in terms of getting somebody else, a relative over here from Italy in the early days. And he had a lot to do with that through the filing of these papers that were, I'm not certain. You know they, some of it was money exchange. Whether it was, whether he had, the bank that he worked for in Boston, whether they exchanged the money. Whether he took the money and they made it into Italian money, or visa versa. He did that, but he also helped fill out the papers that were necessary for the immigration authorities, you know. And that he had something to do with it. And then forwarding them to the proper authorities. So that these people who came to them most of the time, they weren't educated in American ways. And then most of the time 90% of them didn't speak, didn't speak english. Maybe 98%. And they started to learn how to speak english through broken english, you know, down through the years. But in the old days, those old days, they didn't have the opportunities today that, to go to all of the adult education places. And you know, there's so much opportunity today that they didn't have then. And it wasn't until I can remember, I was older, that they established night, night classes you know, and (--) But those people were hard workers, and most of them were laborers that worked in the factories, or that worked in the quarries. And they worked hard. And in those days you worked a good many hours. You didn't work eight hours a day. You worked a good many hours. And they worked in construction. And they didn't have much time to think about educating. They had to self educate themselves, you know? They had family, they all had families to raise. And uh, between their work and most of them were, most of them were religious. Between their work and their family responsibility, I believe I didn't have that much more time. They joined these organizations, try to come to them. But they were normal people you know. They were normal. They like life like we like life today. They wanted to have a good time just as we did.

D: Did most of the Italians live in the same neighborhood?

J: A lot of them did. A lot of them did.

D: Was that the same area as your father's store?

J: In that area, broadly speaking in that area, that he, his store was in what we called the South End of the city. It was on the corner of South Street and Summer Street. But what's called the South End of the city, the South Common is right there and it's still there. So the Common was right across the street from the store. And in that area, the South End, most of the Italian families lived in the Back Central Street area and then what they called the, they used to call the flats area. Tenement area. That's what we called them then. They didn't call them apartments. They called them tenements. You know, if you've heard that word. And that most of the families did live in those areas that were in the Italian colony, or community. They did live in that area. Some of them were scattered.

D: There wasn't, there wasn't a particular name for the Italian neighborhood itself? Was there?

J: Just the names that I mentioned. There wasn't any, any name for it in the terms of it being an Italian area.

D: So they were just, it was just the South End, and Back Central, and the flats area.

J: The Back Central Street, flats, South End area. Gorham Street, Central Street and from there up they called it the flats area, these streets off there. That's where most of them were. As I say, some of them were scattered, but for the amount of people that they were, most of them did live in this area, you know? But it never became know as, because it never became known as an Italian area in itself. Like the French people of Lowell were here by the thousands, and they had a section they used to call "Little Canada", you know. Indicating that where they came from, Canada, you know. They immigrated here by the thousands from Canada. But the Italians were always, you know, they were always in such a minority that no matter where they lived they were overshadowed by a population of other people, you know, by either they Irish. The Irish had great numbers in the flats. Probably for, you know, probably, I don't know the figures, but probably they were ten, ten, twenty Irish families to every Italian. So I mean the area was never known, like there's areas and cities where there's a big, big Italian population that they call "". You know, then the North End in Boston, which is all Italian, you know, in East Boston. And I remember going to Providence, years ago, and they called a section "Little Italy". They used to call the city "Little Italy." But not here, because they didn't, they never were that many, you know. We had no, no nickname for any area that was named after, because of the Italian people they were there. Because we did have the club. We have the club on Central Street. There's an Italian American Club. The Sons of Italy Organization, we, we never had a fixed building. We just, we just hired halls to meet in. Usually the Italian Club Hall. We never had our own building or quarters if you want to call it. They never had that, you know, that much money to work with. So.

D: So the Italian American Club was able to build a hall? (J: Yes) Then you rented the hall from them for the meetings.

J: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have the hall, yeah. And they rented out yet to anybody for functions. But we uh, we used to use their hall for our meetings all the time.

D: Who was behind the establishment of the Italian American Club?

J: Who was behind it? (D: Yeah) Well the present, the present President is (--) Well I can give you some names, let's see? That's the last (--)

D: I mean who? (J: You mean who was behind?) Back when it started? (J: Oh) Yeah.

J: Well a group of people, they have a charter. They have a charter there that would give you the names of the chartered members. And those were the ones who really founded it. I wasn't a chartered member. Most of them people are, you know, they're all past away. I don't know if any of them are living that were chartered members. Those were the ones that founded us. Probably, I don't know, there may be ten or fifteen names on that charter. I do know, I did know a lot of them. A lot of them, as I grew up a lot of them became my friends. And then I, I joined the club as I say, and I became active in it, and I became president of it. And I helped the club to expand, and I was responsible for them getting their first beverage license, liquor license, back in the early, early 40's. And then you know, we went on from there. And you know, I used my knowledge and education to help the Italian people that I was connected with as much as I could in a social way, and in a way that would help them make progress. And I also, you know, I also got involved in a little politics where there were Italian people involved. Like the first Governor, Italian Governor in the state of Massachusetts. I became involved in his campaign. And I was never a big name. I was a local guy working for him. And we had an Italian her elected in 1954 I believe, DeFergilo. He was a congressman from western Massachusetts. He became the first Italian Governor, two year terms at the time. And I think they re-elected him in '56. And I was involved in his campaign locally. I was the chairman of his finance committee. I never, I was never, I never took a political job, but I had a private job. I was always, I worked for the insurance company. So those people who founded that club as I said earlier, they founded it for basically those reasons. And the people, that it that they wanted to help, the objective to help the Italian people become citizens, and also to have a social club. See, they have a building. Before we, they have their own building now on Central Street, before that they had to rent a hall for their club. And they had a place where they could go, meet, talk, play cards, play botchie, socialize, yeah.

D: I was going to ask you about that.

J: Yeah, and all that. Then they moved to this building that they were able to buy. Remodeled it, and then we branched, we kept going on from there. But all of those original people are gone, and the ones that are carrying on today, they, you know, there's been so much today that they don't have, they don't have many people today that they're helping to make citizens, because that situation is long gone, you know?

D: Right. Back in those days, I know my grandfather's told me about some of the prejudice that the Italians ran into. Was there any of that that went on here in Lowell?

J: Some of the what?

D: Some of the prejudice that people had to deal with.

J: Well yeah, more or less what I had told you originally. What I mentioned originally in the organizations. The different people that came from different parts of the old country as they used to call it, that were, that had these prejudices. Now are you talking about, (D: I'm talking about) you talking about outside prejudice? (D: Yeah) Oh you mean prejudice against the people? (D: Right) Oh well prejudice against a particular race, or group, well that was all over America I think. That was all over America in those days. Yes there was prejudice there. Sometimes it was open. Most of the time it was beneath the surface. It was always there in those early days, yeah, there was prejudice. Sure, you're father was right, there was prejudice, sure. Because uh, and there was uh, those were the days when you know, a lot of people with Italian names, Portuguese names, Polish names, and Greek names were all called various slang you know, given slang names that were you know, really, that weren't very attractive. They weren't very beneficial to anybody. But that, that grew up, you know, you grew up with that. You grew up with that. You grew up with that. I mean it lessened. You know, even today in America there's some prejudice. You must be aware of that, you know. (D: Oh yes, yeah) Not as opened, but there's, there's prejudice. Especially certain races, they're still fighting for equal rights and all that.

D: Well where did you run into it most? Mostly? Was it at school you ran into that mostly, the open prejudice?

J: And did it, where did it show up? Well I would, you know, as an individual I would, I saw it. But as an individual I never was bother by it much. And I always seemed to overcome it. And if they through a slang word at you, you know, you either threw one back at them, or you, you didn't pay any attention to it. You know, I never, I don't think it bothered the people that much. It kind of made them feel a little down throbbing, but I, you know, in terms of who might be doing it to them, the majority groups, let's call them that, the majority groups were you know, the ones that would be doing it, you know, most of the time. And it you're a member of the majority group, you could tell if somebody was an Italian, or Portuguese, or a Polish person and a Greek person, or even a French person, which, by their name you know. You knew it right away by their name. So you'd have something ready for that. And you'd say that, you know that Italian so and so, or that Greek so and so. Whatever. You know, you grow up with that. But I, I think most of the, you've got to hand it to the people that grew up with that. They overcame it. I'd say they overcame it. You know, they went on to lick it in most cases. Today, today we have, in Lowell for instance we have a big, big influx of Southeast Asian people. I don't know how much you've learned about Lowell. We have one of the biggest influxes of any city of this size in the country. And we've had a big influx of Hispanic people, you know, the last ten, twelve, fifteen years. In the last four or five, or six years, we've had thousands of Southeast Asian people. You know how, you know, those groups may suffer to a degree more or less what the, what the old immigrants and their families suffered. But I don't think as much, because the, because today they have a lot more opportunities for education if they want it, then we had. We went to school. I mean today they have bilingual classes. They have this, they have that. They have everything for them. We went to school and our parents didn't speak english, but we learned english in school. I grew up in a family, my father and mother spoke Italian. I speak Italian fluently. I learned it from, from my folks, from my father who was, who was a real orator. He was an orator, he was a great speaker. And we never had these bilingual classes, and all this stress. You must read it. All this, we have controversies in Lowell and the education about bilingual classes and the immigrant groups, you know. We went to school and we overcame that. Everybody that I knew that came from an Italian family, or Portuguese family, or anything, they all spoke english. They went to school, they learned English. We didn't have any separate classes. We learned English. We learned arithmetic and geography. And I don't know. Today where there's such stress on it, because we went all through that and we didn't have that, you know? But today they have to have separate classes. You know, bilingual classes. In other words teach them in two languages. We were never taught that. I suppose it's great in a way, because that shows you how much advance we made, but then people(--) Getting back to prejudice I think in most cases it was overcome. And there was, there was no question about it. But one way or the other you could over come it. But many of times there probably was a fight over it. You know, when you were young especially you know, with another kid or something like that.

D: Was there, I guess turf would be the right word. Did one group have it's turf that another group didn't go on?

J: Oh no, not too much that. I don't think so. Not in this, not in this type of a city, you know.

D: Uh huh. Could you go into, could you go into Little Canada without any problem, or?

J: Well we went, we went practically anywhere. There was no, I don't think there was any isolation areas where somebody said it was their turf and you can't come over here. There might have been, when we were young there might have been some groups in out area saying, hey, those guys from the North Common area are coming over here tonight, you know? We're going to have a fight. But generally speaking, we went everywhere in the city. And everybody else went everywhere. There was, you know, there was fights. There was fights, but I don't think there was, there wasn't mob fights or anything like that. We had sports. We had sports and a lot of the, you might say a lot of the enmity if there was any enmity would come out in the sports, especially football. If you were playing a team from the other side of the city, you know. It was probably made up of a diverse group of ethnic people against your ethnic people. But I don't remember, you now, you read about the big cities, even today with these gangs are, right. So big big cities like , and Frisco, and Los Angeles, these gangs have what they call a turf. And you know, you see it in TV, you read it, they have gang fights and serious fights, you know. Then we use, they use weapons and all that stuff. But it was never that bad with our groups. We overcame all of that stuff.

D: Speaking of the sport team, the football teams, I've heard that sometimes one group would have, bring like a cheering section along and they would sort of taunt the other group. Do you remember any of that?

J: Konk the other group?

D: They would, they would taunt them. They would (--)

J: Well yeah, I just said it was taken out sometimes in sports, where you know, there would be some of that. Especially in football. Yeah, I can remember a few times, you know, fights erupted and a few times where the mob, the people involved, the spectators would get involved and everybody would end up fighting, you know, and that would be usually the groups from the other area of the city, or another, another group of people from the national group. I haven't mentioned any of the names in terms of you know, but I don't know. You know, whatever you're going to use here, I suppose you edit it anyway.

D: Uh, well actually I should say, what will happen with these tapes that we're doing, there's the Mogan Cultural Center that's being established. (J: The what?) There's the Mogan Cultural Center (J: Yeah, yeah, yeah) that will be established in the, in the old Boarding House. And the library from the University of Lowell, their special collections is going to be moving in there. So the tapes that we're going to record in the course of this project will go into their, into that collection. And there also will be a copy of it that will go to the Library of Congress in Washington. So they'll be there. Those will be opened to the public. I should have mentioned that, and I hope that, I hope that we haven't been talking about anything that you think is sensitive, or anything like that.

J: No, no, no. I understood that. I read all that too, now that you bring it up. I read all that. And it certainly, and in this interview, I'm not bringing out anything that somebody couldn't listen to, you know? And I'm trying also to avoid laying any blame on any, (D: oh of course) any particular group. People that would hear this would understand it. That there were, that there were various nationalities, ethnic groups, and during those years, which we're not faced with so much today, very little, though it's still there a little bit, you know. It's still there a little bit. The human animal, the prejudice remains beneath the service, and it's hard to get rid of in all of us, you know? But it's really latent you know, compared to what, compare to it was during the years that I grew up. And the people of my nationality, the Italian nationality, I became an american when I was born. And I just acted that way all my life, you know. I was born here and I was american. And I just figured I'm as good as anybody in the country, you know? And that's the way I developed and that's the way I acted, see?

D: Let me ask you about events, gatherings, get togethers within, within the Italian community. Did, did you do, when (--) Did you ever get, did you ever go over to Lawrence and get involved, because there was such a large community over there?

J: Oh yes. Yeah. In the fraternal society that we had, The Sons of Italy, I had many offices. I was, when I was the president of the local Chapter, we used to call it the [Alisundre Monzoni?] Lodge 1681. Each Lodge had a name and a number. I was appointed a Grand Deputy by the state leader, a few state leaders, a Grand Deputy for the Lawrence Lodge and a Haverhill Lodge. The Grand Deputy acts the same today as the Deputies act in the Elks Club. You make visitations to the other Lodges. You help them with their installations and all of that. You help them install officers. You attended their meetings. Not every meeting, but meetings when you could, or meetings that they might call on you for special help as an advisor, and as a representative of the State Lodge, the Grand Lodge. The State Lodge is called the Grand Lodge. Oh yeah, I was that for several years in both the Lawrence Lodge and the Haverhill Lodge. And I never ran for Statewide office, because I worked here and I had a family. I never ran for a State office where you have to put in even more time, and you had to attend all of these meetings in Boston.

D: Well how about when you were a child? Did you ever get to Lawrence when you were a child?

J: Get to Lawrence? (D: yeah) You mean in what sense? Social sense?

D: In a social sense. (J: When I was a child?) Yeah, when you were younger, before you, before you were involved with the Lodge.

J: You mean outside of the organizations?

D: Oh sure. My, my older sister married a Lawrence, married a Lawrence fellow. And we went to Lawrence a lot for social functions. Visit social functions. And they used to have an Italian Festivals there a couple of times a year. We'd go to that. And we became acquainted with the Lawrence stores, and the Italian stores in the Lawrence community. They had, they had more, you know, Italian markets and all then there would be here, because they had a large population of Italians. Oh yeah, we went to Lawrence. Oh all the time we went to Lawrence. We'd get to Lawrence to the nightclubs. We went to Lawrence to see my, visiting. We went to Lawrence outside of the fraternal organization. Oh yeah, we had the, we were in Lawrence many many times. As I say, I had a sister and she still lives in Lawrence. her husband died, but she still lives in Lawrence, and his family all came from Lawrence. And as a result you know, you developed a lot of friends there. So, and Haverhill too. We used to go to Haverhill for many reasons. The restaurants that might, you want to go and eat there. Other functions that came along that we wanted to go to that were outside the, outside the sphere of the fraternal organizations. And then we also went to a lot of the functions of the fraternal organizations. Lawrence had banquets. We used to have a banquet every year in Lowell. And in this area, the Merrimack Valley, you'd invite of officers from the other Lodges, and they had banquets. Annual dinners or banquets. We used to call them banquets. And they'd invite you, and you attended. Oh yeah, for many years we did that. Many years. And we had some wonderful, the Italian organizations used to have some wonderful banquets and times, you know. That's not to indicate that the other organizations, that other people's organizations didn't have, but you know how the Italians were famous for food.

D: Oh I do, I do. I know that very well.

J: And we had the greatest dinners on records. Yeah, so.

D: How, how about, how about the church? Was there one particular church that was the Italian church?

J: In this area, in Lowell?

D: No. There was never, there was never an Italian church in Lowell. Again, the numbers were never that great. So that they, there was never even a proposal ever to start an Italian church, because of the small, I would imagine, because it was, because of the small population and they would never have been able to support a church. But the church that most of them attended again, going back to the area they lived in, would, was Saint Peter's Church on Gorham Street. See, which the people of the flats in that area attended. And that was the church that most, that's the church I grew, I was baptized in. The church I grew up in. That's the church I attended. Made my Holy Communion, Confirmation and so forth. And [unclear] that some of the Italian people went to that church, which is, incidentally now closed. It's still standing there. It's right near our Bishop Markham project. You can go by it, but the Archdiocese of Boston that controls the churches, they closed it about a couple of years ago, because again, with the demographics, the population had gotten out of the parish there. They didn't have enough, they didn't have enough attendants. The parishioners dwindled down to where they only had a couple of hundred. So they closed the church.

D: How about the priests? Were there any Italian priests?

J: Not in Lowell. Now in Lawrence they had an Italian Church. You know, they have an Italian Church. I think it's the Church of the Holy Ghost I think they call it, down on the end of Essex Street. They have, they have Italian priests in Lawrence, but not in Lowell.

D: What did that mean for the older people that didn't speak any english? What did they do for Confession, or (--)

J: Well they struggled. If I remember right they struggled. They had, they had priest that (--) You know, there was a lot of Irish American priests that they bent over backwards and they either learned some of the language enough to be able to help the Italian person in times of need and also probably in terms of confessionals and all that, you know. Because I could never remember an Italian priest in Saint Peter's. I never, I can never remember an Italian priest in Lowell in all the years I lived there. There must have been one, two in some parishes. Not necessarily for the Italian people, but the Archdiocese must have assigned, but no. And the Italian person going to church again made the best of it. Struggled, and they attained it. I think the priest (--)