The Invisible Immigrant

By Pete Bellisano, Jr

Paolo came to America alone when he found that he didn't have enough money to bring Caterina. Their plan was to reunite in a few months, once he'd saved enough money. There were thousands of jobs available to strong young immigrant men, so he could have her join him. And in a year or so, they'd save enough money to return to Italy, having escaped the poverty that was ravaging southern Italy.
Once Caterina joined him in America, their hopes were high as they brought four children into their new world. When catastrophe struck, Paolo descended into a depression that destroyed him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pete Bellisano, Jr
• Release date: Jan 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463002247

Book preview

Prologue

This is a story about my grandfather Paolo, about whom I know very little. Over the past couple of years, I’ve become increasingly curious about this man. I began looking into my ancestry and the little I learned really got me interested in (maybe even semi-obsessed about) learning more about who this man was. Unfortunately, there’s no one left to speak with about him. As far as I know there’s no one left alive who knew him, since he died well over sixty years ago. So, I’m left to wonder about his story.

My father didn’t speak about his childhood much. When prompted he would share a story or two, but it never dawned on me that these stories didn’t include any mention of his father. I do know he had a tough upbringing, as many did during the Depression. He did tell me that his father’s second wife (he didn’t call her his stepmother) was brutally abusive, causing him to run away from home as a young teenager. He was a tough man, a rugged product of hard times who didn’t think in terms of expressing emotions other than anger.

I recently learned about the extent of combat my father experienced in the World War Two: another thing he never discussed. He’d only made a few cursory comments about his service during the war, referring in general terms to the type of battalion in which he served. My recent connection with a WWII historian unveiled the fact that my father served on the front lines during extended periods of brutal combat. I now believe that is likely what hardened him into an angry, closed man with an unapproachably gruff exterior; the man I feared as a child. He certainly was not one prone to sharing feelings or memories. But since his death over thirty-five years ago I’ve come to understand him a little better than I did when he was alive. Whatever our relationship was, I am at peace with it. Of course, I regret that I didn’t ask him more questions about his life, especially now that I’m on this quest to learn about my grandfather.

I don’t know everything there is to know about my own father. And while I’d like to know more, for some reason I’ve become much more curious about his father. Candidly I feel a little guilty, a disloyal son 'skipping over' my own father in his quest to learn about my ancestry. But as I said, I’m at peace with my father now, although it took many years after his death to get there. Now there’s this stranger looming behind him whose story is waiting to be uncovered.

Interestingly, I was supposed to have been named after my grandfather but when he died just before I was born, I guess my parents changed their minds. As strange as it may seem, I do feel some sort of bond with him - or maybe it’s a bond that I wish could be there. My father and grandfather each died in their mid sixties, which is the age I’ve now reached. Maybe that’s what’s triggering this powerful urge to learn about Paolo. Part of who I am is locked up in this mystery; I need to understand who he was.

While much of this story is fabricated, it does include some factual events and some real people. I list some of these in the Epilogue, but for the most part I haven't bothered to differentiate the factual events and real people from those that were pulled directly from my imagination. That would only matter to a handful of family members, and they can just ask me.

The reader will note that a few early scenes are set in Italy and on a steamship traveling to America. Unless otherwise noted, the rest of the story takes place in New Jersey.

I think there are thousands of stories like this one that remain untold. So many people of my generation owe a great debt to the ancestors who were brave enough to leave the countries of their birth, leave everything they knew, for the opportunity for a better life for their families. For us. We owe it to them to remember, to understand, and to appreciate what they did. I wonder how many of us - the beneficiaries of their sacrifice - would have the courage and dedication to do what they did. For us.

So, although it's over sixty years overdue, I want to say 'thank you' to Paolo.

-Pete Bellisano, Autumn 2019

"And while the future's there for anyone to change, still you know it seems

It would be easier sometimes to change the past." - Jackson Browne

Chapter 1

Santa Lucia di Serino

Avellino, Italy

June 1910

Annunziata kissed her son Paolo desperately on each cheek and reached up to hold his face in her hands one last time. Figlio mio, figlio mio, she whispered over and over, achingly trying to prolong this one last moment with her only son. Non ti preoccupare, mama, va bene, he murmured. Then, in broken English, is OK mama, is ok.

Caterina stood beside her, staring at the ragged suitcase leaning against the back of Paolo’s calves. At twenty, she was two years younger than Paolo, the same age he’d been when they married two years before. She sniffled, trying her best to suppress the urge to call out to him and beg him not to go. Paolo gently placed his hands on his mother’s shoulders, looked into her eyes and kissed her forehead. Then, turning slightly, he reached out to his young wife. Carissima, he whispered as she moved into his arms, both their faces now wet with tears.

No, Paolo, no, she said as stoically as she was able. We talk the English now, like in America. She smiled up at him, and they laughed and cried at the same time. Paolo always thought that Caterina looking up at him was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen, and he knew he’d be counting on the memory of this moment to get him through the next few months. Her jet-black hair was parted in the middle, pulled back and somewhat severely knotted into what he playfully called her mela nera, because what she called a bun he thought looked like a black apple. The left side of her face was almost completely covered with a red birthmark that looked like someone had splashed pink paint on her face. They often joked about how it was probably caused by her father spilling wine on her when she was an infant. But to Paolo, this imperfection only added to the character and strength that emanated from her face. She had the classic and wonderful combination of strength, toughness, beauty and determination so common in southern Italian women. And he loved her completely.

Paolo’s father Pietro had died just the year before, his heart exploding after a long day of working in the vineyard owned by his friend Franco Pacelli. Annunziata, peasant-old already at the age of forty-one, donned the widow’s uniform immediately thereafter: the black dress, the black shawl covering her head and shoulders, and the ubiquitous rosary beads wrapped around her wrist with its crucifix cradled in her hand almost all day and night. Squat, tanned, and wrinkled, she could easily have passed for Paolo’s grandmother.

With her husband’s passing, her life hadn’t really changed that much. In her role as caregiver, housekeeper and cook, Pietro’s death only meant that she had one less person in her charge. But tradition called for a long period in the mourning dress, and Annunziata had been steeped in the southern Italian traditions her whole life.

Paolo’s favorite cousin Giuseppe had been writing to him since he moved to a place called New Jersey, and he was lobbying hard for Paolo to join him there. Giuseppe’s letters were filled with wonderful stories about the opportunities that were available to young, healthy men if they came to America willing to work. Paolo thought of this as he held Caterina. Giuseppe’s letters told of jobs building bridges, digging tunnels, and working on something he called ‘skyscrapers’, which apparently were buildings ten or twenty times taller than anything Paolo had ever seen. All you have to do is work, he’d said. If you work ten or twelve hours a day, you can make enough money to live in a nice apartment, buy food, and take Sundays off to go to church and play bocce with your friends in the alley ways. Paolo had determined that if he could get such a job, he and Caterina could live well and save enough money to return home with a substantial nest egg that would guarantee a great future.

Everyone had heard the stories about America, and how she welcomed men from Italy with strong backs and willingness to work. Giuseppe had become something of a celebrity in Paolo’s village outside of Atripalda, where Paolo would read Giuseppe’s letters at family gatherings and in the shops where the men met to play cards and drink wine. Most men in the village were either too old or too young to give serious thought to traveling to America. The few men of Paolo’s age were already struggling to feed their growing families, so coming up with the money for a voyage to America was out of the question.

When Paolo first mentioned his desire to make the trip, his friends teased him about everything from being childless at the advanced age of twenty-two to being a traitor who was going to turn his back on his ancestral home. But he knew they were jealous, and that they secretly wished they could go. Anyway, he was accustomed to being teased by the local men who called him ‘il professore’ because he was one of the few people in the entire village that could read and write beyond a rudimentary level. While he had no distinct memory of being taught how to read, Paolo had vague early-childhood memories of his mother reading a page from the bible and then handing the book back to him saying, Now you. Paolo could not recall a time before he knew how to read. Caterina took great pride in her husband’s relatively advanced level of literacy, and early in their courtship he had begun teaching her to read as well.

He and Caterina would lie awake at night, holding each other and whispering about plans for the future. They shared a spare room off the kitchen - a converted pantry actually - in the small house that had been in Pietro’s family for so long that no one could imagine or remember how his ancestors had built or bought it. Paolo would say virtually the same thing every night as they clung to each other in the dark. We will go, Caterina. We will live in a nice place surrounded by people from our home country, and I will earn a lot of money. Within just a couple of years we can come back and live like royalty. We will be able to buy our own villa on the hillside overlooking the village our fathers came from. Our children will go to fine schools and have everything we want to give them. We will have a happy life, dear one. I will make sure we do.

Just a few weeks before, Cugino Giuseppe had arranged an introduction for Paolo to the local padrone, Antonio Petrillo. Giuseppe’s letter had said that someone named Gerardo would be in contact with Paolo soon to arrange a meeting. Senor Petrillo lived in the big town of Atripalda, just a two hour walk from Paolo’s village. He was known locally as an important man because of his varied business interests and his connections with steam ship companies that provided passage to America. Only with the proper introduction could one meet with Don Petrillo to discuss potential arrangements. According to his reputation, Petrillo was a champion of the Italian people, and was eager to help as many of his countrymen reach American shores as he possibly could. After all, the more paisani he could help get to America, the better off future immigrants would be.

Paolo had heard from the men in town that Petrillo’s ties and influence were so strong that he could negotiate a significant discount for anyone fortunate enough to be represented by him. The rumors around the village spoke of his generosity, and how he was so dedicated to helping his paisani get to America that he would sometimes subsidize their passage out of his own pocket when it was clear that money was tight for the prospective emigrant.

In reality, Antonio Petrillo was one of a large group of ‘agents’ hired by the ship lines to recruit what amounted to cheap labor, in effect harvesting Italian muscle for a decent commission. Most of the people the agents worked with were semi-literate at best, and once they were convinced they were working with someone of stature who wanted to help them, they were subject to whatever fee Antonio could wring out of them. He would often double the twenty-dollar steerage fee, although he would report to the ship line that he had to negotiate hard to simply collect the twenty dollars on which his commission was based. While he smiled and bowed his head subserviently when collecting his commission, he took great pleasure in knowing that he was likely earning much more money than the fools at the ship line who had hired him for this work.

One Sunday afternoon just two weeks after Paolo received Giuseppe’s latest letter, a young man named Gerardo showed up at the café where Paolo was playing cards with his friends. After the shopkeeper pointed out where Paolo was sitting, Gerardo walked over. Gerardo was small and almost bird-like in appearance. His skeletal upper body was pitched forward at the waist as though he were leaning into a stiff wind. With his hands in his pockets, his elbows jutting out behind him and his awkward strut, Gerardo’s appearance brought to mind a pigeon in an expensive, ill-fitting suit. The men in the shop eyed him suspiciously. Many had known each other since early childhood, and they were unaccustomed to seeing outsiders in the village. Most of the men only glanced at him and quickly decided he was no threat, so they went back to their wine, card games, and friendly arguments as he approached them.

Madonn’, he gasped, so hot for this time of year. Oh, excuse me; I am Gerardo. You are Paolo Bellisano? Rising from his seat, Paolo smiled, glanced at the empty table near the window, and tilted his head in that direction as a silent invitation to sit there with him. Gerardo winced when the wobbly chair screeched in protest as he slid it back from the table, smiled nervously and waited for Paolo to sit before taking his own seat. With that he sat down, wiped his brow with the dirty blue-and-white checked handkerchief he pulled from his pocket, and told Paolo that Gerardo’s uncle, Don Petrillo himself, was looking forward to meeting with Paolo at the café he owned in Atripalda. They set the date and Gerardo left abruptly without taking a drink or exchanging any pleasantries. Odd fellow, Paolo said to his friends as Gerardo walked away. Friendly taunts of big shot and world traveler followed, with laughter and backslapping all around.

After a particularly hot and sleepless night in late July, Paolo woke just after dawn and walked to Atripalda to meet with Don Petrillo. He stopped along the rocky trail periodically to swat the dust out of his baggy trousers, wipe his brow, and run his fingers through his curly dark hair in an attempt to tame it. He smiled when we recalled how his mother always referred to his hair as that mop of yours. This was a big day for Paolo and Caterina, and he wanted to make a favorable impression on Don Petrillo. He was so nervous that he practiced his greeting over and over, trying to affect just the right voice, posture and overall demeanor that would enable him to impress Petrillo as a serious man with big plans. He carried a down payment with him, half of what he believed to be the total cost of the trip for two, wrapped tightly in a small leather pouch his mother had given him for his confirmation all those years ago. He felt compelled to keep one hand on the pouch at all times, and he switched it back and forth between pockets every so often, reassuring himself that the money was in fact still there.

As he approached Atripalda, the dusty, rocky terrain smoothed out and became more verdant. The rippling hillsides reminded him of the green velvet he’d seen his