Filippo was born in the small village of Mammola, nestled in a picturesque valley in the southern Italian province of Reggio Calabria. From a young age, Filippo started working as a barber’s assistant to learn the trade. At the age of 12, he moved to Genoa where he lived with his zia (aunt) Rosina and zio (uncle) Nicodemo. They supported him while Filippo’s father, Vincenzo, worked in Novara (in Lombardia) as a gold miner. Filippo’s mother Palmina (La Rosa) remained in Mammola to raise her youngest child Giuseppe in familiar surroundings. Filippo planned to take the trade he learned in Mammola to excel in northern Italy as a barber.  In time, he opened a successful barbershop in Genoa and began living on his own.

Meanwhile in the smaller village of Chiusa, overlooking Mammola, Giovanna Bruzzese was the last born to her parents Filippo Bruzzese and Filomena Mazzone.  Giovanna already had a taste of northern Italian life.  She lived with her brother Natale in Genoa. While she was deciding where she should settle, she moved back to Chuisa with her parents. Filippo returned to Mammola for a visit with his family during the same time.

He met up with Giovanna’s sister Gina at the market.  She mentioned to him, “My sister is back and if you are interested I would like for you to meet her.”  It was love at first sight.  Filippo Bruzzese mentioned to Filippo Romeo, “Giovanna is my last child to marry. I have no land to give you.”  Filippo replied, “It is Giovanna that I love. I have no interest in her dowry. We will get married and live in Genoa.”

On September 29, 1968, their first child Vincenzo was born. Everything was going well in Genoa, until the eventful day came. In 1970, they received a letter from Giovanna’s brother Peppe in Brooklyn, New York. It read, “Why don’t you come to America because barbers make a ton of money in America? Let me find out what you need to do.” Filippo thought, “Well if it was better, maybe we should consider it.”

Giovanna, the traditional Italian wife, supported her husband. When the news came back from Peppe, his letter explained that Filippo would have to come to New York first, find a steady job and then at least six months later his family could join him. Well Filippo was not going to leave his new bride and his two-year-old son Vincenzo alone. He loved them too much to leave them for such a long time.

The next correspondence was from Giovanna’s sister Dina Mazzaferro in Thunder Bay, Ontario. When she caught wind of the situation, Dina wrote a letter to her younger sister in Genoa saying: “If you and Filippo still want to come, the whole family can come all together to Canada.” This idea sounded all the more appealing to Filippo. And so the adventure begins!

Filippo and his family needed to get a mountain of paperwork in order before their departure. The entire Romeo family had to go for a thorough medical examination in Messina, Sicily. Upon their return home, Filippo had to go for an interview with the Canadian Consulate in Rome. During this busy period, a travel agent was taking care of their airline tickets.

On September 23, 1970, Filippo, Giovanna and Vincenzo boarded a plane for the very first time. Eight hours later they arrived in Toronto, Canada. This was a new world, with a different language and absolutely no one there they recognized! There they were, just the three of them! The moment came when the immigration officer examined their passports and stamped their document with the famous words, ‘immigrant – landed’. What an emotional thing to experience.

When they arrived in Toronto, Vincenzo had the flu and wasn’t feeling well. Giovanna was thirsty and she wanted some water. Filippo tried to get some water but the waitress didn’t understand him. He pointed to a sink to help the waitress understand. As it turned out, getting water was the least of their problems! The travel agent in Italy, had booked airline tickets just as far as Toronto. The family’s final destination was Thunder Bay. An airline agent working for Alitalia helped them out. They had to purchase three more tickets from Toronto to Thunder Bay. This was an unexpected extra expense that the young family had not budgeted for.

They finally boarded the last plane from Toronto to Thunder Bay. Sitting in the first row of economy class, Filippo noticed the passengers in the row in front of him were being served better food than what he was being offered. Filippo said to the attendant, in Italian, “I’ll wait for that food.” Well he didn’t get any food at all because the food he wanted was only being served in business class.

Their arrival in Thunder Bay was greeted by Giovanna’s sister, Dina, and her husband Natale, as well as Natale’s brother, Domenic and his wife, Cathy. Upon their arrival in Thunder Bay, only one of their two trunks arrived. The second trunk, which contained all of their wedding gifts arrived later. However, everything was stolen. Imagine how they must have felt – miles away from their homeland and their families with all of their sentimental items suddenly gone.

The post From Genoa To Thunder Bay: The Adventures Of The Romeo Family first appeared on Panoram Italia.

As written by her daughter Lia Russo for the Quiet Immigrant – My mom often recounts the story of her arduous journey from Cerisano, Cosenza to Montreal, Quebec in the year 1961. Sponsored by her sister Ida’s husband, Mamma Assunta at the tender age of 21 bade her parents, family and friends goodbye to enter a new world that offered refuge from poverty.

Leaving your comfort zone to make a new continent home is not something that most in my generation would have the strength of character to do. Her 9-day ocean liner trip to destination Pier 21, Halifax was filled with nausea and fatigue, but this did not deter her from the anticipation of a better life.

She does not lament her work at the shoe factory cutting leather for shoes at $0.61/hr or the factory work sewing undergarments at $35.00/week. Instead, she proudly announces that she was able to save money! After a hard day of work, she came home to assist her sister with raising the children. Indeed, the English language was a barrier, but she surrounded herself with Italians in a suburb of Montreal. Everyone stayed together on the weekends and learned the meaning of love, unity and companionship. Teaching me the meaning of strong familial bonds filled with love and laughter makes me proud to be her daughter.

By 1964, my mom was married and had a baby on the way shortly thereafter. By the age of 2, I was living in a home that was purchased with money that was saved with an abundance of sacrifice. I owe her gratitude for allowing my brother and I to flourish in a home filled with love and opportunity, never wanting for anything.

My dear mom had the courage to leave her birth home; the resilience to endure the obstacles that immigrants faced; and the fortitude to sacrifice her desires so that her children had the opportunity to better their life. Grazie cara Mamma Assunta!

The post Assunta Novielli née Greco first appeared on Panoram Italia.

My mother, Pasqualina Cesario, was born in 1931 in a small town in Calabria called San Fili. Her family was poor and worked in the mountainous fields as farmers. She told me that those shoes were a gift from relatives in “America”. Gifts from America were cherished. She loved those shoes and kept them clean to ensure they would last and last. She wasn’t used to getting many gifts.

In this photo, my grandmother’s shoes are badly worn. This was post-war Italy and although the war was over, times were still very tough. Work and food were scarce. These women learned how to make do with what they had, and understood the word sacrifice to mean giving up part of your own dreams for the good of others.

Since Pasqualina was a girl, it was believed that she didn’t need an education. My mother was crushed. She loved school, but kept the disappointment to herself. She became the ‘master of the house’ at a very young age. She recalls watching her younger brothers while making supper for the whole family.

A young child herself, she had to sacrifice her own childhood for the good of the family. She understood this and accepted it without resentment, something I could not imagine doing.

The post A Walk In Her Shoes – Pasqualina Mustacato first appeared on Panoram Italia.

Maria’s journey began like those of many postwar Italian immigrant women, with paperwork to complete and a train ride (often three to four hours in length) to a port of departure, in Maria’s case, Genova.

The paperwork typically had to be completed in Rome. Stay restrictions were often imposed: candidates needed a sponsor, concrete work contract, and a marriage proposal to be fulfilled within six months of arriving in Canada. Marriages were commonly planned before departure, and church weddings usually performed within one month of arrival in Canada.

Maria arrived in Genova on November 15, 1956 and after two days of waiting nervously (on the morning of November 17,) she boarded the SS Constitution bound for New York City. Maria’s mother and sisters were loath to say goodbye to the youngest of their family, and cried profusely on taking their leave of her. Looking back on the episode, Maria reflects that, “Quando sei giovane non pensi tante cose (When you’re young, you don’t think of such things too deeply”).

Alone and forlorn, Maria handed over to the crew and stored on board both her piece of luggage and the trunk carrying her “corredo”. “The horn blew, the gates were shut and I cried. I would have stepped off the ship if I could have.” Maria wasn’t afraid of the voyage; as a solo voyager whose contact with others was minimal, she was simply sad and lonely. As Maria puts it, “C’erano altre ragazze che non volevano che io stessi insieme a loro (There were other girls who didn’t want me to be with them).”

After a turbulent, seasickness-inducing transatlantic passage, Maria arrived in New York City in the early morning hours of November 28, 1956, with her documentation and promissory note of marriage in hand.

Being chaperoned was protocol for unmarried women landing in North America at that time. Maria and the other single women were escorted to what Maria described as a “special train” because it held only (those) immigrants destined for Toronto. The train departed at 8pm and arrived at Union Station at 7am the next day.

On December 22, 1956 – within one month of arriving in Canada – Maria married her betrothed, Diano (Mario) Chiaradia. Women immigrating to Canada from Italy in those years typically came for one of two reasons: to find work or to fulfill a promise of marriage. Maria had achieved the latter.

“Da sempre ho conosciuto Diano (I have always known Diano).” Maria admits that Diano loved her more than she loved him, yet their marriage of 62 years produced a son (Renato), a daughter-in-law (Paola) and two deeply-loved grandchildren (Siena and Stefan).

Unlike some of her fellow immigrants, Maria quickly accepted the Canadian grocery-shopping experience and neither complained about it nor compared it unfavourably to that of Italy. She first shopped at the original Longo’s location at Yonge and Castlefield, where a chicken for soup stock could be purchased for 25 cents.

Within five months – in early May, 1957 – Maria found work. She was variously employed as a clerk at a dry cleaner, on an assembly line at a toy factory, at a wool factory (that in her experience was less welcoming to Italians), and at a Canadian Tire store.

During her first five years in Canada, letters were Maria’s only connection to her homeland (means of correspondence). Then, for the first time, she was able to return home to Italy.

“Allora la vita scorre più facile, non hai pensieri; più serena; fatto così tante ragazze. (As life became easier, I worried less about everything. I made lots of friends).”

While Maria embraced a new land, a new home, a new name and a new language, her longing for her homeland never abated: “Desideravo sempre ritornare in Italia.”

The post The Story of Maria Chiaradia née Ros first appeared on Panoram Italia.