In Search of Self Without Selfies: A Historical Memoir

By Victor V Bianco

Mostly, my purpose for writing this was to give my children the legacy of their heritage and some knowledge about their father from a different angle/perspective along with the illusion I harbored that they might feel a sense of pride from knowing their roots. Perhaps after reading this legacy, they would find peace in their hearts and a better understanding of themselves and the world that surrounds them. In addition, I hope that this book would open many eyes and provide a wider view of the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984514530

Victor V Bianco

Victor Bianco es un psiclogo y trabajador social quien dedic su vida para su familia y su trabajo. Sus experiencias con nios maltratados y abusados, con hospitales y clnicas psiquitricas, y con las escuelas en la ciudad de Nueva York han hecho de l un humanista preocupado por la condicin humana. l ha viajado extensivamente y ha interactuado con muchas culturas diferentes. Public dos ensayos literarios, Como Uno se Convierte en Inmigrante y Encuentros en Patagonia, en la revista Musings publicada por UFT en Nueva York, 2017 y 2018 respectivamente. l vive en Little Neck, Nueva York con su presente esposa Nilsida y su hijastra Marie.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Beginning and Historical Overview

The world I knew was shattered the day I became an immigrant at age seven. I got uprooted from what I felt was the safe and cozy environment of a small town where everybody knew everybody in the central mountains of Southern Italy. I embarked with my family on a boat for a month-long trip across the Atlantic that took us to Argentina. Then at age seventeen moved to Switzerland where I resided for about four years. At age twenty-one returned to Argentina and at age twenty-seven settled in New York. Although I made my home in the United States and became a citizen, I never stopped being an immigrant as I faced the discrimination and rejection embedded in the American people.

The rejection I experienced from those people who consider themselves Americans through the years has been both mortifying and painful. As soon as I opened my mouth to speak, the foreign accent betrayed me, and I noticed eyes rolling and a distanced demeanor as a sign of unwelcome that I have endured for decades. These type of interactions have always been there and never ceased to be noticed. Therefore, I turned to my origins, which I believe there is so much to be proud of and so much to tell.

Years ago, as I began a personal research about my family history, a curiosity began to capture my attention, particularly during the 1990s when several crypts dating back four thousand years were found just 200 yards northeast of Carife, Italy, my hometown. A local farmer was plowing the soil and hit some rocks; he cleared the rocks and noticed they formed a structure. He informed the local authorities, causing a vast examination of the area. It appeared to be a cemetery. During various visits to the site, I felt that my family’s history was an integral part of the town’s history.

Following the death of my father in February 2000, I experienced an emptiness that was partially ameliorated by the trips to my hometown and the long walks through its streets and the surrounding woods. Being there, I felt a spiritual connection with my father and my ancestors. These two events fueled my impulse to engage in an in-depth study of the area, the people, and the family. I began to believe that I was an extension of, a present presence, and a part of the area’s history that needed to be brought to light.

My parents, looking for better economic opportunities, had moved from Italy to Argentina then back to Italy, on to Switzerland, returned to Argentina, and then finally to Brooklyn, New York, USA, in 1972. This was supposed to be the last settlement since my brothers from Switzerland and I from Argentina joined them in 1973. My sister was already married with a child, and she remained in Argentina. My younger brother did not like the United States and returned to Switzerland, where he became a mechanical engineer and married a Swiss girl. When my parents reached their golden anniversary, my siblings and I decided to celebrate this by giving them a one-month trip to Italy in 1989. They enjoyed the trip so much that, as soon as my father settled his retirement, they moved back to the hometown.

Following this, I started visiting frequently to collect information about the town’s history and details about my ancestors. My father talked about his experiences in the army and his adventures in World War II but shared little information about his family. My mother was the one who provided most of the town and family history, and I sensed that she was very proud of her history. During these visits, I started to appreciate the beauty of the mountain in my walks through the valley and explorations of the woods, hiking up and down the Trevico mountain. In a small cleared area, about 350 feet above town, there is a large towering cement cross-painted in white where the view is breathtaking.

Standing there, I felt the sun’s warmth on my face and the wind blowing, surrounding, and embracing me, giving me a sense of comfort. I experienced a deep connection with the land, the surrounding air, and the people. Walking along the area’s marked and unmarked paths, I was elated while following on my ancestors’ footsteps.

My family is from a small town of approximately 1,500 souls that in prosperous times had reached three thousand people. It is in the south-central mountains of Italy in the Campania region, about seventy miles east of Napoli and two hundred miles southeast of Roma. The location is in the province of Avellino in the area known as Baronia di Vico, which is part of the sub region called Irpinia. This was the land of the Hirpini or Hirpinus (meaning: those who walk along wolves), which was one of the four tribes part of the Sanniti or Sabine people (Cambria 2003, 21).

This brave people had a complex society made up of warriors, hunters, and farmers. They had been living in the area somewhere between 4,000 to 2,000 years BC, when Carife was a fortress/town called Romulea. When their western neighbors, the Romans/Latinos, began to expand their influence and control around 600 BC, it took them almost three hundred years of battles and skirmishes to eventually win the war and incorporate this tribe into what was to become the Roman Empire after their last battle in 276 BC (Cambria 2003, 59).

My hometown sits 740 meters (2,442 feet) above sea level and, for thousands of years, has enjoyed the existence of natural water sources. The area’s location on the south side of the mountain of Trevico faces the sun several hours per day and enjoys a fertile soil, which is suitable for diverse farming. In addition, the terrain’s geography offered many possibilities to defend and control the area as well as easy access to the valley below, where the river Fiumara runs through it. The combination of these variables enabled people to settle and develop a civilization thousands of years ago. During the 1980s the local governments initiated systematic archeological digs; the findings showed that humans had already established their presence in the area approximately eight thousand years ago (Salvatore 1995, IX). Furthermore, these findings included ceramic fragments with elaborate designs dating six thousand years ago (Salvatore 1995, 3).

The original settlers were involved in farming. They planted barley and several types of wheat, olives for eating and oil, vineyards, and they raised cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens (Salvatore 1995, 5). The presence of a more organized civilization goes back four thousand years as per artifacts found in several crypts (Camria 2003, 59 and Salvatore 1995, 5). Some of the findings included human remains, primitive farming tools, swords, spears, shields, helmets, and vases (Salvatore 1995, 5).

When the Romans defeated Romulea, the town was partially destroyed and then rebuilt with the Latin name of Carifii, as indicated in church records. It became a stopover for the Roman Legions traveling from the west coast to the east coast of Italy during their expansion into Greece. There were other items found dating about two thousand years of Roman origins.

Carife has a long history that spans centuries and millenniums. Soon after the Romans converted to Christianity, the people became Catholics and were religiously devoted to Christ. By the mid-twelfth and in the beginning of the thirteenth century, there were already four churches. The major one, dedicated to Saint John, included a school for monks and priests at the time called Collegiata San Giovanni (collegiate); the institution had about forty clerics/monks living, working, and studying on campus. While some of these students functioned as farmers and raised animals to provide sustenance for everybody on campus, other clerics and monks were involved in the school’s administration, created documents, and kept records.

Unfortunately, through the years, many of the documents and records have been destroyed by various fires and earthquakes. However, I managed to get bits and pieces of information from what it is left. The main church, Saint John the Baptist, appears on the records in 1266 (Fabiano 1998, 7) as an active and dominant institution. During the next seven hundred years, there were several other churches built and operating in town, but most of them destroyed by earthquakes. Presently, only two remain in addition to a convent.

After the Roman Empire, Italy was divided into feudal sections, many of them controlled by the church (the Vatican) or the local lords. The rich soil enabled the population to engage in productive farming that included planting grain, legumes, vegetables, grapes, olives, and chestnuts. In addition, livestock farming was quite productive as well. The mountainside offered many pine and chestnut trees as well as many cypresses. I remember that one of my mom’s uncles had a large piece of land outside the town that was identified by a gigantic oak tree a few yards down the road; it marked the property’s entrance and leads to the living quarters located one hundred yards down from the tree. I remember him as a tall man with a thick gray mustache. He was always wearing black boots, a black hat, and a black cape.

The larger area was subject to many wars between various monarchs. Since the early thirteenth century the French house of Anjou and the Spanish house of Aragon engaged in disputes and wars to claim the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. By the fifteenth century the house of Aragon consolidated its control and kept it until the early eighteenth century when the house of Bourbon of Spain took over until 1861 when Gen. Giuseppe Garibaldi formed the unification of Italy under one Italian king. At that point, the Spanish monarchy of Naples was removed from Italy.

When I first arrived in New York in the early 1970s, I had the opportunity to visit the Garibaldi museum on Staten Island and learned many historic details. This Italian hero had a strong philosophical belief in national unification. After accomplishing his mission in Italy, he felt the need to move on, seeking other lands to offer his ideas and services. He found purpose and opportunity to give assistance in the pursuit of unification in the New World. He traveled to New York with his army of one thousand soldiers, set camp on Staten Island, and joined the Union Army to fight in the Civil War and marched into battles alongside the northern forces.

CHAPTER 2

The Early Years: Life Prior to

Becoming an Immigrant

My mother was the source of continuous sense of well-being in my life. She was the one who, from the very beginning fed me, protected me, and comforted me; she was always there to take care of the children. I remember her soft, loving, and soothing voice when she tucked us in bed, sang a lullaby, and assured us that everything would be alright. My mom spent hours on her sewing machine, and in addition to making dresses for her costumers, she also made most of our clothing and made sure we were adequately dressed. She taught me right from wrong, as she had for all her children and encouraged us to be good people and behave ourselves.

Although she only had an elementary school education, she was an avid reader and enjoyed reading to us all sort of stories while we sat by the fireplace during winter’s cold nights. I recall that her favorite authors were Jules Verne and Emilio Salgari and their stories that are full of adventures and fantastic voyages. I always remember the protective and loving approach she had towards her children and the many long conversations that were held when she encouraged us to share our views and feelings through the years.

When my mom was ten, she started her journey to become a dressmaker. She had just completed elementary school when her mother placed her in the care of a popular master dressmaker to learn the trade. Her earlier years as an apprentice were rough and filled with hardships since the group of girls in the shop were treated like slaves; the apprentice worked at least ten hours a day from dawn to sunset, doing all sorts of housework, such as washing and ironing clothes, getting firewood, cleaning the house plus the shop, cooking, and cleaning dishes. The girls had to subject themselves to the whims of the master to have the privilege of learning the trade. My mom suffered many physical and psychological abuses, both from her mom and her trainer, but in her early teens, she had learned well enough to start taking some jobs on her own. Her aunt Raffaella, who was her guardian angel because her mom was rather harsh with her in those years, helped my mom in getting her own sewing machine.

Later, when my mom had just reached the age of sixteen, my grandmother pushed my mother to get married soon after my father started a traditional courtship with her. I guess that, in those days, it wasn’t easy to become an abandoned wife with three daughters, which made my grandmother feels very vulnerable, and was the target of nasty gossip. I suppose my grandmother felt that with her eldest daughter married, having a man in the house would provide them better protection. For some reason, my grandmother connected very well with my father, and they always had a good relationship. The wedding took place on March 16, 1939, when my mom was 16 years and nine months (my dad was 24 years and three months), and the town was covered with a foot of snow.

My father had served in the army in 1934 and, for a while, was stationed in the area that borders with Slovenia/Yugoslavia, but later, he was sent to Somalia and Ethiopia where Mussolini had established a colony. He recalled that his time in the African continent felt long and was full of suffering due to the land’s harsh and hostile environment, its unbearable heat, and the presence of giant mosquitoes. The army base was surrounded by the local black people, which lived in extreme poverty and under harsh conditions. He reported that since he was very hairy, the army gave him a full body shaving to prevent getting insects and any little critters caught up and tangled in his hair. He also talked about how bad he felt, seeing so many poor people that were living in primitive and arduous conditions near the base.

During the 1930s and 1940s, my father admired Mussolini because he had built homes and a school in our hometown, which brought some prosperity that gave him work for a while. One of his cousins was given one of the new houses because his original home was destroyed by an earthquake. These events, plus the end of the construction boom, caused him to join the volunteer army forces. Soon after the wedding, the war started, and he was deployed by the Italian army first to North Africa and later to Sicily. He was the radio carrier, and in addition to the regular soldier’s equipment, he also carried the bulky radio and had to be near the officer to facilitate communications with the other army divisions and the command center.

When the Allied Forces landed on the island and occupied the area nearby, my father’s platoon was surrounded and taken prisoner by the British troops; my father reported that the British were abusive, mean, and vicious with the prisoners, insulting them and providing very little and substandard food. Luckily, after a few months, the group of prisoners he was part of was transferred to the control of some American troops that were, according to my dad, more humane and provided better food and better arrangements. My