It’s a Hard Road

My ninety-eight-year-old aunt informed me this past Saturday that it was an anniversary. May 18th was the day that she—and my paternal grandmother—first set foot on American soil. The pair arrived in New York City by boat on Friday May 18, 1928—ninety-one years ago—but didn’t pass through Ellis Island. My aunt was seven at the time, spoke only her native Italian, and was promptly enrolled in the public school system. No special accommodations were made for her and the government policy—federal, state, and local—was an old-fashioned notion called assimilation.

Already in America—which is why the Ellis Island stopover was unnecessary—my paternal grandfather welcomed his wife and daughter. He had originally immigrated to the United States with his father at the turn of the twentieth century. A mere boy at the time, he worked, worked, and worked into his young adulthood. All of his wages, though, were handed over to the family patriarch, who supplied him with an allowance.

Not surprisingly, my grandfather eventually sought control of his own destiny, which included keeping his earnings and spending—and saving—it as he saw fit. But the old-world Italian gentleman—my great-grandfather—refused to bow to the new world order. Rather impulsively, my grandfather decided to make a break from his domineering father and return to his native Italy. Fate wasn’t too kind to him on this score, because he was soon after drafted into the Italian army and subsequently found himself in a German prisoner-of-war for an extended period of time during World War I—the war to end all wars. After his release, he spent months convalescing in a German hospital. Back home in the picturesque rocky mountain town of Castelmezzano, Italy—which had no electricity and indoor plumbing at the time—my grandfather married my grandmother and they had a daughter. In the mid-1920s he returned to the green fields of America, but in a roundabout way via another country. Strict immigration quotas were in place at the time. In those days, comings and goings were a lot more complicated than over-staying one’s visa.

Considering the lives that so many people led in those bygone days—so foreign to me—never ceases to amaze. For starters: Traveling to a strange country on the other side of the world—and not fluent in the native tongue—with virtually no possessions. Then taking on multiple jobs to make a living and hopefully save a little. Until refrigeration cast his business asunder, my grandfather toiled for decades as an iceman. Most of his clients were in old walk-up apartment buildings in Manhattan. Although he resided in the neighboring borough of Brooklyn, visualize Ralph Kramden’s apartment and icebox. I remember a neighbor—peculiarly from my youthful perspective in the 1970s—referring to his refrigerator as an “icebox.”

Anyway, one thought leads to another here. I recently spied this food cart on a certain corner of a stretch of road that includes multiple eateries. I thought it an odd spot for setting up shop. I surmised, too, that area opposition would materialize. Sure enough, a local newspaper featured an article about the capitalist on wheels, with various neighbors complaining that it was simultaneously unsightly and would negatively impact on nearby businesses that ranged from pricey restaurants to pizza parlors to Dunkin’ Donuts (and a Starbucks, too). The no doubt hard-working immigrant proprietor of the food cart—who said that he had all the necessary permits to be where he was stationed—cried racism. What else is new? It would seem that’s part of the contemporary playbook. My grandparents worked from a different one. Perhaps some people just don’t like the sight and smell of a food cart in their little corner of the world. And perhaps the immigrant entrepreneur just wants to make an honest buck. Often it’s as simple and as complicated as that.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)