Let's Hear It for the Italians

Let's Hear It for the Italians

Part I: The Americones

To Italians of little English, American is Americone.
My father was an “Americone.”
Protestant, North European descent.
Youngest orphan of four.
His mother’s sister’s home.
Has room for him. 

World War I ends.
Aunt Ida’s two boy soldiers return.
No room for 6-year-old.
Pack up his little belongings.
Drive to Brooklyn orphanage.
Leave him on porch.
Drive away.

He cries, and cries and cries.
Older girl assigned to sit with arm around him.
He cries, and cries and cries.

An elderly man, he describes episode to brother.
With smarmy voice with smarmy smile:
“I thought Ida was an elegant lady.”

Part II: The Italians

Uncle Nick dies of pneumonia.
Uncle Nick is a member of an Italian-American sub-culture.
Stops a bullet. Or, an effective equivalent.
Who knows?

Aunt Mary, an Irish domestic, alone with kids Robert and Maryanne.
Back to the Old Sod.
It don’t work.
A letter to her mother-in-law in the Bronx.
Rosa De Florio (not one to ignore a plea from blood!) sends out a call for money.
Her eight boys and two girls respond.

Aunt Mary, the kids in the De Florio home, East 221st St.
Aunt Mary gets a job.
Moves out with kids.
Puts them in New York public schools.
Italian name and Irish brogue.
Oddities among their classmates.

 

Author: Charles R. Vermilyea, Jr.

On OMPJ  |  Website

Photo Credit: Michele Canciello on Unsplash