On Immigration and Activism (Italian Perspectives)

12608 Ada, circa 1955

On this day of reflection of spiritual themes, I'm reminded of my grandparents' lives in America. Spirituality doesn't necessarily have anything to do with politics, but activism rooted in spiritual or philosophical matters certainly does. In 1968, they were already in their 80s and probably had very little knowledge (or interest) in the spiritual struggles for freedom in the civil rights movement beyond what they watched on a small black and white TV. I remember sitting on their porch on Ada Street, age 8, and looking through the open door on hot summer evenings (they didn't have air conditioning), and see them asleep in front of the TV. What would elderly immigrants knowing so little of American history feel when they heard the special reports of MLK's assassination (which happened on my mother's birthday) and subsequent coverage? Then it happened again with the Bobby Kennedy assassination, amid all the other horrors of the Vietnam war unfolding on this very new medium to them. But they fell asleep nevertheless, while the country was embarking on a new age of insomniatic anxiety made possible precisely with the medium of television. But it did not immediately affect them or anyone in their family. They didn’t have to care; They understood that the country took care of you.

Antonio and Theresa were devout Roman Catholics. In the book, The Dark Heart of Italy (a different kind of “travelogue”--specifically the Forza chapter), I realized the U.S. is now more like Italy. Budding authoritarians would find Berlusconi and Salvini to be compelling role models. Mussolini was Hitler's role model.

All Italians were assumed to be Catholic:

"Being Italian implies being Catholic. Even for a non-believer, being Italian implies absorbing the mores and morality of Roman Catholicism. It doesn't offer a set of beliefs or liturgies to which a rational adult can choose to adhere; it offers a way of life, and of death. It's a cradle-to-grave religion which is not only devotional but also political and social and aesthetic. It seeps into every corner of the country, into every stage of every life. "I know," Federico Fellini once said, "that I am a prisoner of two thousand years of the Catholic Church. All Italians are."...The connections between the country and its Catholicism are most obvious in the language. One hardly ever hears the words "Christian" or "Christianity" in Italian. The words, even the concepts, have been almost entirely replaced by "Catholic" and "Catholicism." People talk about not the Christian (let alone Jewish) commandments but the "Catholic commandments." Even Catholicism sometimes goes unmentioned and is replaced by "the Church," as if it's already understood that we're talking about an indivisible concept: Roman Catholicism."

On their immigration circa 1905:

It would be interesting to see the study materials for the exam. The study and testing were no doubt done for the purpose of successful immigration only; It wasn't for intellectual curiosity! I didn't find any original materials that they would have used. In any event, the study materials were inconsistent, and probably were very basic, and perhaps full of incorrect or incomplete information. By the 1960s, American history was just beginning its identity crisis and continues to the present moment.

"In response the Bureau took measures to develop an educational program to help immigrants learn about civics and history, but it did not move to develop a standardized test or set of testing procedures. Courts continued to administer the tests as they had before – orally, extemporaneously, and with little uniformity across jurisdictions." https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/featured-stories-uscis-history-office-and-library/origins-naturalization-civics-test


Here is what a test might have looked like circa 1905. Antonio and Theresa probably did not have this level of testing as they knew little or no English. I lived closely with them as a child until the time of their death in the early 1980s. Their English was not very good, and they spoke with my mother in a mix of mostly Italian sprinkled with un-translatable English words or idioms.
https://quizlet.com/37012533/late-1800s-early-1900s-citizenship-flash-cards/

Antonio and Theresa Limosani enjoyed a good peaceful life in America for most of their adult lives. They weren't directly affected by WWI or the rise of Fascism in Italy in the 1920s, but their children upheld the moral values imbued by the (non-politicized) traditions or spiritual themes of Roman Catholicism, as well as the moral footing in the assault on Fascism in WWII. They benefited more from social programs than most of us now never will. If they lived in Italy now, they'd be living through what is going on in the U.S. with populist Salvini attempting to rise to power, as Trump did here.

They didn't have to endure this corruption in Italy (Also from Dark Heart of Italy, p. 21):

"That distance between government and its people, and the them-and-us mentality it breeds, are central to any understanding of Italy. Because everyone feels so badly treated, because everything is so legalistic, people feel justified in being a little lawless. "Impotence in front of a blocked political system, incapable of change ... the negation of democratic logic," was even offered in the 1970s as a central reason for Italian terrorism. Italians, the argument went, felt it a "metaphysical curse" to be Italian, to be subjected to those grinding, inefficient, but very powerful "offices."

What we now see in America would frighten them. They simply would not understand. There are people now in their 80s that wouldn't be falling asleep in front of the TV, but perhaps they are, ensconced safely in their entitlements.

Antonio and Theresa represented the life of an American citizen we should all be able to enjoy, but we're turning into the Fascist state they never had to face. This is why we have activism, particularly that practiced in the civil rights era.