Part four of an interview with educators in the Leominster, Massachusetts area. Topics include: Joeseph DeCarolis, a school principal in Leominster and other locations, introduces himself. Vincent DiNino, a teacher in Leominster, introduces himself. Why their families settled in Leominster. How immigrants learned English. What Leominster was like. Memories of early education. Social clubs for Italian Americans. Bilingual education and preserving cultural heritage. ; 1 SPEAKER 1: Actually, I think he already gave that anyway, especially during – we'll get back to you… SPEAKER 2: Sure. SPEAKER 1: Because you were actually born in Italy. SPEAKER 2: Yes. SPEAKER 1: And that's important. JOE: I'm Joe DeCarolis. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. JOE: I was born in Pittsfield, Mass. All four of my grandparents came from Italy. Uh, my mother's folks came from Calabria and my grandparents in Leominster, I'm not quite sure. I should know that. Uh, principal in Leominster for 25 years, I was principal in other places, for a total of 31 years; uh, and in the local schools, Lincoln School, Leominster Junior High School, uh, Leominster High School, Fitchburg State College, University of Mass., University of New Hampshire. I was all over the place. Uh, I live in Leominster now. I did… uh, I traveled [a little] also with my family, came back to Leominster. I've four children living, grandchildren, out here in Leominster, attending Leominster schools. We have a business − an insurance business. My parents would have been very proud of their grandson, but unfortunately they're gone to the great beyond. But, uh, I look forward to the future of Leominster where our kids are in the public education right now. SPEAKER 2: He was also all over the football field. (FEMALE VOICE) GROUP: [Laughter] SPEAKER 2: He was a football player… SPEAKER 1: Were you ever a coach? JOE: Yes, I coached. I played and, uh, I help now with my grandson playing the [unintelligible - 00:01:24] and my son coaching the Leominster High School offensive line so we're still involved in it, in that activity. I belong to most clubs in town − the Sons of Italy, the Elks, the Knights of 2 Columbus, Board of Directors of the Leominster Credit Union and other activities. Leominster Country Club, where I play a lot of golf; and my sons and my grandson also do that. VINCENT: My name is Vincent DiNino, and I was born in Corfinio, Italy in 1940. I came to the United States when I was 16. I remember my boat's trip. The boats – the boat I came over was the uh, Christopher Columbus − and the sister ship of that boat was the Andrea Doria, which met, uh, an early uh, fate, sinking; and I always thought it could have been the, uh, Christopher Columbus that would be sunken instead of the Andrea Doria, and now where would I be? So I've always been thankful that I did reach the shores of the United States. And to give a brief perspective, I never really intended to come stateside because when I started schools in Italy, in the middle schools, they ask you what kind of career you intend to take and the choice was you could take foreign language to match the kind of career that you wanted. And for most intents and purposes, you cannot take German because Germany was defeated. Yes, you could take Italian. You should take Italian because that was your country. And French or English were the foreign languages that were recommended. Now, if you did not intend to go to Australia or Canada or the United States, you should take French, because French was the international language of trade and commerce, industry. And that's what I did. I took French in middle school, not knowing that later on, about three years later, we would be coming stateside and I would come to Leominster, Massachusetts, not knowing a word of English − but knowing French quite well, Italian, of course, and having some Latin. So when I started school at first at the junior high and then at the high school, I was fortunate enough to be able to take foreign languages − but not to learn the foreign languages, to do reverse engineering and learn English. So I took Italian. I took French. I took Latin. Of course, I already knew the languages insofar as they were being taught in those grades; but I would learn the vocabulary and the 3 structure that pertained to English. So that's how I got through high school and I was able to get to college. And I went to college in Worcester − first Assumption and then Clark. I did get a degree in Education. And I had a good background in Electronics. The Dean of Students at Clark was so impressed with my thesis that he said, "I've just been given a post to be President at Leicester Junior College. Would you join me and set up a language lab there?" "Oh," I said, "Fine." Beautiful first job − and it had some perks, like resident at a very subsidized rate, so it fit me perfectly. And I stayed with Leicester Junior College until Becker Junior College bought it out in1970. Then as I had been teaching foreign languages and one of those languages was Spanish, I saw that there was a need for bilingual education in the area and I applied to the Leominster public school system, which apparently saw me as a good candidate and I worked in the Leominster school system for 10 years, until my parents were both diagnosed with cancer. And I decided that at that time, since I was the only child stateside − I have two sisters in Italy, but far away when there is a sudden illness or a big problem. So I said, "Well, I'll take a couple of years leave of absence and see if I… if I can help." And of course, the school system was kind enough to allow me to do that. And while I took care of my parents, who were getting weaker and weaker, I also started to do a electronics repair business in my garage, a relatively large garage in which we didn't park cars anymore, but we had TVs and VCRs and all kinds of electronic stuff that I always liked to tinker with. So it seemed to be okay. And at this time too, one of my close relatives, my aunt, had a stroke and couldn't live by herself so we took her in. And I was also taking care of her while doing the electronics business. And when the time came to decide whether I should be back for the schools or continue with my business, I decided that probably at that time I wanted to see what's running your own business look like. And I started electronic equipment repair, which I'm still running, in spite of the 4 fact that the electronics business has met with great competition from overseas, especially Southeast Asia. And most consumer products are very inexpensive to purchase and are disposable. But we do some products which are not disposable, in the thousands of dollars cost area – like projection TV sets, which are still relatively good insofar as business profit. SPEAKER 1: Okay, thank you. I was wondering if each of you could tell me, why Leominster? Why did your family settle here? SPEAKER 2: Why did my family…? SPEAKER 1: [Unintelligible – 00:08:38]… settled here. First of all, I have to say, it's a lot of people to keep track of. So even though you may have said something at the beginning − for example, you may have said [unintelligible – 00:08:48] in Leominster, I just… sorry about that if I'm asking you a question that maybe you answered a little bit. SPEAKER 2: Okay. SPEAKER 1: But I really want to know, why is it that your particular family settled in Fitchburg or Leominster? Did they follow another relative or was it because of work or…? SPEAKER 2: I wish I knew all of that. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. SPEAKER 2: My paternal grandparents were in Leominster. And my maternal grandparents were in Boston. But when people were coming here from Italy, my grandmother… I don't know what you would call her in this day and age. But she was the one that people went to, for some reason. And I don't know whether she had been established, maybe, for a few years − and most of the people that came from a [unintelligible - 00:09:50] settled in Leominster, on Lincoln Terrace. And that's the first house that I remember my grandparents being in. When my parents were married, they moved to Leominster. I guess it was the woman's place to move to wherever her husband was. And both my grandfather and my dad were 5 employed at Dupont. And then my dad went on… I think in 1937, was the first detective police officer in Leominster, part-time for two years. And then in 1939 was promoted to a full-time position. They had to pass the Civil Service Test and all that went with it. SPEAKER 1: Italian Citizens Club helped him with that? SPEAKER 2: I remember him studying for it as a child, even – though I'm not certain of that. But I do know he belonged to Italian social clubs − the Salvini Club up on Lincoln Terrace; going to the Elks and the Knights, and all of those things. I really can't speak to that. I was too young; I was only maybe five years old. PELINO: Because my family was kind of mixed, in that my father's family were all in Corfinio, Italy. On my mother's side, her parents came to the United States in the early 1900s and settled around Everett, Massachusetts. And my grandmother had her six children all born in Everett. My mother was one of them. But then after the first World War, my grandmother went back to Italy, went back to Corfinio, with all of her children; taking all of them with her, primarily to take care of her father, who was alone at the time. He was… so she went back to the family homestead, so to speak, in Corfinio. And that's where my mother and her brother and sisters, you know, grew up. At the time that they went back to Italy, they were – some of them six years old, eight years old, in that range. And my mother grew up and got married. Met my father and got married in late 1930s in Corfinio. And then after the war, we came to the United States. That was in 1949. And we went to Cokeburg, Pennsylvania. My mother had a great uncle who lived in Cokeburg and he had a small business. He had a bar room and a restaurant, you know, combination. Coal mining was the way that people make their living in that area unless you own some small business or perhaps you own land and farmed. So my father went to work in a coal mine. At that time, the mines went on strike. They were out for three to six months. It was a very difficult time. And my great uncle suggested to my parents that we should come to Leominster. We had 6 other relatives here. My grandmother had a brother living here in Leominster. And one of my mother's sisters − my aunt, who came in 1949 − settled here in Leominster. So he suggested that for the betterment of the family, for greater opportunity, we should move to Leominster, which we did, in 1950; and the family's been here ever since. That's how we came in to settle in Leominster. That was all on my mother's side. My father's family is still all in Italy. SPEAKER 1: Now in 1950, how old were you? PELINO: At that time I was 11 years old. I came in 1949; I was nine. I came early; I believe it was February 1 when we landed. I can't remember the name of the ship, but they were sister ships, I remember that. One was the Vulcania, and the other was the Saturnia. And I believe I came on the Vulcania; that was quite a trip − have a lot of fond memories about it, my first cruise [laughter]. JOE: Was it in the winter or the summertime…? PELINO: It was winter. SPEAKER 2: Sure. I'm real curious to know where – which port you came in to. Was it Boston or was it…? PELINO: New York. SPEAKER 2: Okay. JOE: Oh, yeah. SPEAKER 2: See, that's the thing. I don't know where my grandparents came in… PELINO: Oh, I can remember the ship going to Canada and making a stop and letting some people off in Canada, because that was another, you know, port of entry. But then it did go down to New York and that's where we landed. JOE: Pelino went to Pennsylvania. They couldn't pronounce his name so they called him Paul [unintelligible - 00:15:04]. So when he came to Leominster, he said it was Paul [unintelligible - 00:15:07].7 PELINO: That's true. That's true. My uncle changed my name to Paul Marshall. I have report cards… I had report cards with that name. But coming to Leominster and registering here, I went back to my given name. SPEAKER 1: Now why did he suggest that? PELINO: That was a funny story. I never knew until in the mid-50s, he came to visit, you know, the family here. And particularly, his brother that I mentioned, lived in Leominster. And I asked him. I said, "Uncle Frank, how come you changed my name?" And he said, "Well, you know, this is, you know, the land of opportunity. You could be almost anything you want to be. And someday you could grow up and be a lawyer, or you could be a doctor or whatever, and you're going to have your name on the door. And people are going to come by and see that long name, they're going to be afraid to pronounce it and they're not going to come in." [Laughter] That was his answer. I said, "How come you never changed yours? And he wouldn't answer that question [laughter]. But he was a wonderful man. He married − around 1935 – he married a lady from Yugoslavia. And the small town of Cokeburg had a number of ethnic groups, Serbians, Croatians, all regions of what we know as Yugoslavia; Polish, Russian, Italians, of course. And they all had their social clubs, you know, just like we found here in Leominster. But they all congregated − and my uncle's one of them – in a bar room, particularly on Friday nights, which was payday. So you heard all kinds of… all kinds of languages. And my aunt, Pauline, actually spoke − not only English and Italian, which she spoke much better than I ever did − but also a little bit of Russian, Polish, you name it. And she picked it up, you know, from working in the restaurant, in the bar room. And one of my best friends was a Croatian. His name was Sam. And I don't think I ever had anybody in my life that I was closest to and who influenced me more as a friend than Sam. And I only knew him for about a year and a half. SPEAKER 1: The bar room was in Pennsylvania then, not Leominster.8 PELINO: Yes, right. He was in Pennsylvania. And like I said, it was one of, you know, a number of ethnic little clubs. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. JOE: [Unintelligible - 00:17:54]. My four grandparents came for family. They wanted a new life. My mother's family went to New York − to Rome, New York. Rome is a very highly populated Italian population. And then they migrated to Pittsfield, Mass.; GE was flourishing… Actually they were in the grocery business; Italian imported and [unintelligible - 00:18:23] goods. My father's family in Leominster migrated to Leominster because of family and got involved with plastics; DuPont's – my father later started his own factory. When I went in the Army and I came out thinking I was going to be a millionaire because I was going to take over this plastics factory, but he sold it to buy a bar. Then my grandfather was out of work and he wanted to put him to work, so he bought a bar and he worked the days and my father worked the nights. But we spent most of our lives in Leominster. I call Leominster home even though I was born in Pittsfield, grew up across [unintelligible - 00:19:10]. My father's a cop would watch over us at downtown and give me a good [unintelligible - 00:19:15] go home and [unintelligible - 00:19:17]. Because if he would have crossed the street and said [unintelligible - 00:19:19] and Dominic, I [unintelligible - 00:19:21] around downtown, they took care of that. Going to the public schools as a young Italian kid in the beginning was a little difficult, you know. And the good thing was that the area, Leominster in those days was set up in ethnic sections − the Italian section, the Irish section, the Protestant section. So you were comfortable in that way, okay. Eventually, we started to play ball against the other sections of town and that broke the ice, and you made friends with the kids from different sectors, the Irish section; and intermarriage started to happen. And all of my brothers and I married outside the Italian culture, maybe…9 SPEAKER 2: That was a no-no. That was a big no-no. JOE: It was a big no-no. You didn't marry outside your culture in those days. That just didn't happen. But as I say, as things went on and we played ball together. We went to school together. We went to college together. That kind of broke that ice and people intermarried. I say we had a bar – we were given the opportunity. We made the opportunity to start our own businesses, okay? My brother went into a very successful semiconductor business. Now the industry is on 128; it's huge… major, major. He retired young, okay. My son owns four agencies − insurance agencies − in town. He started one and bought three. So opportunity was there if you wanted to take it and there was a tremendous desire on the part of all the people that I knew − my best friends all wanted to either be in business, or be in education. We had some tremendous people who were Italian. I can think of Christine [unintelligible - 00:21:13] was my first Italian teacher that I had in Lincoln School. I had her for two years in a row. We went fourth and fifth grade in the same room and then we went… SPEAKER 2: She was the second Italian teacher in Leominster. There's Mary McCall and Christine [unintelligible - 00:21:27]. JOE: I didn't realize that. Then she became Mrs. Mcgrall; she married [unintelligible - 00:21:31]. JOE: That's right. JOE: And he had a business, Mr. Mcgrall. SPEAKER 2: Yes. JOE: But I became… and she took a liking to me and I would run all her errands, go down to the store, buy her lunch and that kind of stuff; but it got me kind of enthused towards education. And I liked the aspect of working with kids and doing things that I liked people doing for me. So while I got out – actually, when I got out… I went to school; all my friends were joining the Army. So I got out of school, went home, told my mother that, "Mom, I'm going into the Army." I was getting ready for the 10 football season. She almost passed out. But when I got out, I got married. And I had a new aspect, a new view on life; so I worked – I went to school 8:00 in the morning with Pelino. We went together and I would go to [unintelligible - 00:22:28] at 3:00 and work to 11:00. And I did this for four years; I had two children. And my wife is Irish and [Swedish] and she could cook good Italian [unintelligible - 00:22:40]. SPEAKER 2: Did you speak English when you started school? JOE: Yes, yes. I figure a little Italian… in fact, the good thing for the parents in those days, that they could speak Italian and say things and you didn't know, so that the – and that was common in all families. [Laughter] My friends, most of my friends, don't speak Italian, and that's sad. I did take Italian when we were [unintelligible - 00:22:59] high school, three years of Italian. I'm not sure I learned a lot for long. I did plenty to get by, got good marks and so forth, but don't think that I recall [unintelligible - 00:23:10] but I don't know [unintelligible - 00:23:11]. And I'm very sad about that. SPEAKER 3: It's a matter of not using it, you know. (FEMALE VOICE) JOE: Exactly. SPEAKER 3: And I went… I took lessons from Vinny. JOE: I'm very jealous of people who… You did, huh? SPEAKER 3: Yes, I did. JOE: [Unintelligible - 00:23:23] night school, right? SPEAKER 3: When my mother was here we get [unintelligible - 00:23:27]. Yeah, we had a great time. JOE: I'm very sad about that. I never used it and then never kept it, you know. It was like Geometry, if you didn't use it, you lost it. And that's true today. And I wish I could have passed it on to my four children and my grandchildren, you know, and I can't do that. SPEAKER 3: I agree. JOE: And none of them speak a second language, which just too bad.11 SPEAKER 4: It's amazing. Do you mind my breaking in? (FEMALE VOICE) JOE: No. SPEAKER 4: I knew you loved it. I hate [unintelligible - 00:23:52]. [Laughter] [PELINO]: You know her well, don't you? SPEAKER 4: Maybe 12 years difference in age, right, between Joe and me? And yet, when I went to school and all of my friends didn't speak English − so within 10 years, he's going to school now… JOE: That's true [unintelligible - 00:24:11]. That's true. But you know, I can remember − I think Jeannie talked about it [unintelligible - 00:24:17]. Leominster had about five, maybe more, Italian clubs. The Calabrese, the [unintelligible - 00:24:24] and my dad belonged to a couple, as you said yours did. And every Sunday, off we would go with my father to the club and they would play cards, and they would drink wine. And my father would come home with a homemade bottle of wine; it was like somebody gave him a thousand dollars. He had a homemade bottle of wine and it bought – that was his, okay. But that's – and the people that I met in those days, the kids are still my best friends today. It was ties; there were ties, neighborhood ties and club ties − and they never got broken. PELINO: No, I had Mrs. Mcgrall too. She was my first teacher when we moved to Leominster. And I got a little Mrs. Mcgrall story. First day, I got there, registered. He said to me now, "Now, Pelino, school starts at quarter past eight." I said, "Yes, Mrs. Mcgrall." And we don't live too far away, [unintelligible - 00:25:24] right around the corner from Lincoln School. And so that first morning, I showed up about 8:23 and she called me inside and said, "Pelino, you're late." I said, "Really?" She said, "Yes, school starts at quarter past eight." I said, "Okay, Mrs. Mcgrall, I'll be here." The next morning I showed up about 8:20. She pulled me aside again. "Pelino, you're late." "Mrs. Mcgrall, I promise, I'll be here on time." The third morning, I got there about 8:17 and she said, "Pelino, I 12 don't know what to do with you. I talked to you twice already. School starts at 8:15." And the minute she said 8:15, the light dawned on me. To me, quarter was 25, because I first learned 25 cents. You learn money first, right Vinny? [Laughter] So up until that moment, I didn't make the connection that quarter, you know, quarter of an hour was 15 minutes. I thought I was in plenty of time. I don't know why she's [unintelligible - 00:26:28] every morning. [Laughter] But it was a funny experience; but we're a Southeast school and we have the bilingual program. You know the—Vinny remembers—that was one of the things that I – having learned that. You're a little bit more sensitive to other ethnic groups, okay, and their particular cultural backgrounds, so that you're not quick to judge them based on your standards. That was a lesson for me; and another lesson was always talking to the kids and having them look at me. And if they didn't, you know, my finger would go under their chin, you know, I'm talking to you, you know, look at me. Until one of the bilingual teachers explained to me that in their culture, that's disrespectful to look at the adults' eyes when they're talking to you. And it – you know, something entirely different from what I was used to. I was looking for respect from the youngster by having the youngster look at me, and I was asking him to do something that was disrespectful to his culture. And it's one of the things that was not very helpful, you know, years later in helping the classroom teachers and others adjust to different ethnic groups. JOE: You asked a while ago if I spoke Italian or took Italian. I started the first bilingual program when [unintelligible - 00:27:57] down the Southeast school in 1972. PELINO: Seventy-two, 72. JOE: Okay. But when I was going to school, it was the desire of an Italian family to have their kids speak English; no bilingual education, okay? And it annoys me today that we are still having people fight to save their culture. Oh, I want to save the Italian culture. And I think the Irish people should have their culture. But I also feel that you've got to give in to the 13 flow of civilization and what's happening. And we had to speak English, okay? We had to go to school. Now, if I may put it crudely, if I felt lousy, you know, my mother would say, "Go to the bathroom and go to school." That was it. You went to school, okay? Today, if there is a little headache or a big test or something, the kids don't come to school. If it rains, lots of kids don't come to the school. That's the advantage I think we had over today's youth, okay? I have to tell my own children, you get those kids to school. That's your main job, you know. They cry about getting sick, you always can go get them out; you [unintelligible - 00:29:09]. SPEAKER 1: So what's the intent of bilingual education, initially? JOE: It's to teach kids English, but written in to the law was the fact that they had to have so many hours of their culture each day, okay? We didn't have that. The culture was… is the one that you decided to live in, okay? We decided to live in Leominster, in United States of America, who spoke English, okay, and you were going to speak English, okay. I said the only advantage of Italian in my family is my parents can speak and talk about us and we didn't know it. SPEAKER 3: They all do. JOE: I guess it's coming back now, because they're going to change that [battle] of the law but it took 28, 29 years, okay? SPEAKER 1: So was the intent to keep it for a short period of time? JOE: I think so. SPEAKER 1: And then to grow out of it, so to speak? [PELINO]: [Unintelligible - 00:30:05] maximum of three years. SPEAKER 3: Three years, I thought. JOE: Three years? VINCENT: The program was conditional… JOE: Right, right. VINCENT: Bilingual education, so I guess the first thing is that you have to allow for a transition. And sometimes in transition they take one, two, three years, 14 and sometimes it may take a lifetime. Of course, everything has got to be within certain limits, because money is involved, because people's feelings are involved. And you kind of strike a balance between what some people want and what the necessities of the system dictate, I think. SPEAKER 4: The other thing too is that I think it's shifted from being primarily Spanish-type bilingual education. And then we had this whole influx of Asians come in and how were we adapting to that − that was a big transition. And I don't know what role bilingual education played for them. JOE: But there wasn't such a thing, though, as bilingual education. SPEAKER 3: Not when we went to school. JOE: When the Italian who came from Italy… SPEAKER 4: That's right. JOE: Or the Italian kid grew up in an Italian household where the parents spoke Italian, there were no such thing as bilingual education. You go to school; you learn how to speak English. And that was it. SPEAKER 1: Is it possible that the other ethnic groups now coming in have assimilated more quickly because they don't have bilingual education [unintelligible - 00:31:36] Spanish? JOE: I hope so. The only answer I can give you is, I hope so; because they're going find out their success is going to come quicker. PELINO: Okay, I think that Vinny said it well, what he said [unintelligible - 00:31:48] was transitional bilingual education. And there is a transition that needs to take place. In my own experience, while I very quickly picked up, let's say, the street language, I was able to converse, you know, very quickly, inside of three, four months. Part of that was the fact that I spent my first summer with one of my great aunts in Michigan City, Indiana. And she had a nephew that came to visit that summer, who was also nine years old; you know, my age. She didn't speak any Italian. Her nephew did not. My uncle had his own business selling Italian grocery products and did a lot of traveling, so I spent the whole day with her and 15 her nephew Floyd; go to the beach every day, every couple of weeks. We saved up enough money from cashing in bottles and cans. She would take us to Chicago, and, you know, go to a museum. I remember the stockyards; huge, huge. I couldn't believe how big the stockyards were at the time. So I assimilated the English language quickly, but only in terms of being able to speak in everyday terms, okay. School was a different matter. And I think this is partly what, you know, Vinny is speaking about in that I had to − similar to what he… he used his other foreign languages to translate into English − okay, I was doing the same thing in Italian. It wasn't until the 7th Grade, in junior high school, that I was finally able to read a Science or Mathematics problem in English and think in English. Prior to that time, I read it in English. If Jean was my teacher, I could read that book, just like I can read Latin; doesn't mean I understand it but I can read it. I can pronounce, okay. The fact was that it wasn't until then that I was actually doing my thinking in English. Prior to that, my thought process was in Italian and it was slower; because I had to read it in English or hear what the person was saying in English, translate it internally into Italian, get the answer or get the understanding, and then send it back out in English. One of the differences, as Jean mentioned, some of the other ethnic groups is that they have an advantage in that they're smaller in numbers, okay. They also come with, perhaps, some different priorities. And the… most people in the area associate bilingual education with Hispanics. But that's only because that particular language group is here. If you go in to Boston, Vinny would tell you they probably have a couple dozen of bilingual programs in all kinds of languages, okay, because they have the population that required that and the program that was needed to support that population. There is a need for a transition. I know of family members, I know of others who came and, you know, you were drawn into school, sink or swim, immersion. That's the term they use, immersion, okay. And I was able to survive that; but there are others that did not. I 16 think if we think back into our own families and we go back and think long enough, we'll find a number of people who, because of that immersion − because perhaps the support wasn't there at home to say that education is a priority for you, I want you to succeed, that's your future.− it became easier sometimes because of family need or whatever, everybody else, they drop out of school and go to work to help support the family. And there was a lot of that that happened. If anything, the transitional bilingual education program helps to keep kids in school. We don't gain anything. The individual doesn't gain. The family doesn't gain. Society doesn't gain when anybody drops out of school. I mean we [unintelligible - 00:36:07] you that. Nobody gains by that experience. And I think that anything we can do to keep kids in school, you know, for the full term is going to pay dividends. And if bilingual education, you know, comes with a cost, − yes it does; and it should be transitional − but as Vinny said, you know, some people can do it in one year and we used to get kids out of the program in a year; some took two, most took three. We had very few that stayed beyond the four year – the three years. As a matter of fact, it was school committee policy; as Assistant Superintendent, I would have to present the case to the school committee and ask them to allow, upon recommendation of the Bilingual Director and the teachers and the principal, to allow youngsters to stay in their program for longer than three years. And I never made any request more than three or four or five in any given year, out of over a hundred, 120, 130 kids in the bilingual program. So you know there has to be a balance. Yes, I understand, you know… where Joe and others are coming from. I have the same feelings. You fear as an individual, you need to make an effort to assimilate into the society. I mean that's why you're here. SPEAKER 2: [Unintelligible - 00:37:20]. JOE: But you need to keep your own culture too. I'm sorry, the same way that you are that my kids don't speak Italian. That's my fault.17 SPEAKER 2: Yes, yes. They're with more pressure. VINCENT(?): [Unintelligible - 00:37:31] okay. JOE: Now my grandparents [unintelligible - 00:37:36]. Okay, because and you ask, why did they come to Leominster, why did they come to Pittsfield? Because family was there! There wasn't such a thing as aid welfare, okay. Families took care of families; so it was important that they learned quickly so they can go out and work, can make their money and get their own apartment. There were very few Italian people those days owned their own home, you know; families – if you lost your job, you moved in with a sister or brother, with your family, and you'd share. So the need to learn was much quicker then. Today, you sign up, you get welfare, you get relief. And for some that's very important, I understand that, okay? But we also have maybe taken away incentive for some of these people. We make it too easy for some. VINCENT: You know, it's very interesting to notice that these problems that the United States have been experiencing for maybe the past 20 or 30 years are now occurring all over the world. I mentioned that my niece was visiting from Italy just this summer and it was tied to all the terrorist happenings. So she was able to visit many areas in the United States very freely, without hindrance, which would probably not be the case now. But talking to her, she would mention that even in Italy, there are a lot of immigrants; Albania, for instance, from North Africa. And these are people that say we know our rights. They pitch their tent in the public square and they're expecting the municipal services to provide for them. And of course, one of the complaints was that you couldn't hear the church bells because they had their loudspeakers announcing the Muslim rituals of prayer every so many hours. And there too, you have a clash of cultures. Of course, they wouldn't come to Italy if they weren't looking for a little better life than what they had where they left. And what are you going to do with them? You have to take care of the children, make sure they go to school, make sure that you could teach them in whatever 18 language they're using. Now I'm sure that the resources are smaller in a country like Italy. They're not the same as the resources that are available in a country like United States − and yet the problem is there. And if you don't want to have problems like they have in the Balkan countries or in the Middle East, you have to try to accommodate these different cultures the best way you can. And I think education, although it will not solve all the problems, if you can keep the kids in school and if the kids can get along with other kids, Albanian, Italian, from Morocco, from Algeria, from Tunis, whatever, then maybe you wouldn't have a kind of topsy-turvy world that we're presented with or that we have to cope with. So this idea of education, in a narrow sense, yes, it's important to a certain ethnic cultural entity. But in a larger sense, the world is very small now. Email goes everywhere. CNN and all the public media present you with pictures that you can't turn off. And maybe we don't have the skills just yet to cope with this kind of change, but we have to use what we have and do the best we can. And I think that maybe education is the place to start. You got to figure out what do those people need. Well, they need a job and they need to make money. And they need to have a sense of self-worth. If you tell them that, you know, that in your country, new laws apply; they should go to church, not to a mosque. Well, then you start to challenge them at their very core and you started to develop resentment. And you can't do that anymore, because even though you may have the might, there are people that if you put them or their shoulder against the wall, just like an animal which can't escape, they'll do anything that may destroy themselves in the process but will harm you; and at all cost, you want to avoid that. So that's the way I see education as a central issue for the world. It may not solve all the problems, but it sure is a good start. SPEAKER 5: It's a common denominator. In the same way that Joe talked about breaking down some of the barriers between the state of French and the Italians. There were sports, okay. The minute they started to integrate to athletics and then you made friends, you know, from the different ethnic 19 groups and that started to break down the barriers. And in the larger sense, education I think, you know, serves in the same way. We have much more common in this world than we have differences. And maybe Vincent is right. We just don't have the skills yet, perhaps, and the knowledge not to recognize that or deal with it. SPEAKER 1: But it also seems to be a logistical nightmare and financially impossible to offer bilingual education to all ethnic groups, so where do we go from here? PELINO: Well, those are the limitations. SPEAKER 5: It boils down to people who are called legislators, telling us what to do because it is popular with some people, okay. Educators don't go into factories and tell people how to run the electronics factory, okay? Bilingual education and all the laws that are coming out now are made by people who really don't know about education. MCast, I don't think educators are quote against MCast as such but they're against the fact that people are making the rules for MCast and they really don't know what they're looking for, okay. And that's what's happening and that's what's turning people off about education. Educate – legislators, they've got their fingers into education, much too much, and should leave it to the people who are trained to do it. PELINO: But the legislators are the ones that provide the resources. VINCENT: Unfortunate. PELINO: You know I can think of so many things, I'm sure all of us, the hundred plus billion dollars, billion dollars that we spent fighting the Gulf War − and that was a very brief period of time − I don't know who's going to tally up how much you know disengagement is going to cost. But there's a cost. And what happens is that the need is felt to be so immediate, whether it's a threat or whatever, that all kinds of resources and money go into it without really balancing isn't worth it. And I'm not saying it's not, okay. But we seem to respond to those kinds of crisis in an immediate way with all kinds of resources and yet when you look at education, when 20 you look at some of the other health, you know, human needs that people have, we don't see those problems with the same kind of immediacy…/AT/jf/mjv/mm
The Chameleon Literary Journal has served as Norwich University's arts and creative writing magazine since 1961. Under the mentorship of its advisor Professor Sean Prentiss, third-year student Lydia Brown analyzed all past publishings in order to understand the extent to which Norwich University students represented LGBTQ+ members, people of color, and women throughout the years. This internship also allowed her to explore the overall history of The Chameleon Literary Journal, including its distinct differences from era to era. As the final product, such findings were accumulated over the course of a single semester and comprised into the following written report. ; Winner of the 2022 Friends of the Kreitzberg Library Award for Outstanding Research in the University Archives category. ; Brown 1 Looking Back on the Representation of LGBTQ+ Members, People of Color, & Women An Analysis of The Chameleon Literary Journal, 1961 — Present Lydia Brown Department of English & Communications, Norwich University EN 415: English Internship Professor Sean Prentiss Fall 2021 Brown 2 Abstract The Chameleon Literary Journal has served as Norwich University's arts and creative writing magazine since 1961. Under the mentorship of its advisor Professor Sean Prentiss, third-year student Lydia Brown analyzed all past publishings in order to understand the extent to which Norwich University students represented LGBTQ+ members, people of color, and women throughout the years. This internship also allowed her to explore the overall history of The Chameleon Literary Journal, including its distinct differences from era to era. As the final product, such findings were accumulated over the course of a single semester and comprised into the following written report. Brown 3 The Chameleon | 1961 - Present Brief Historical Background Founded in 1961, The Chameleon Literary Journal continues to serve as Norwich University's arts and creative writing magazine under a team of student editors. Norwich University undergraduate and graduate students are welcome to submit various pieces for review, such as visual arts, drama, poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction. Sean Prentiss, a published author and professor of creative writing, was selected to be the advisor of the journal when he arrived on campus in 2012. Since his arrival, he has assisted the journal in becoming multilingual by translating students' creative writing pieces into multiple languages. In addition, three-four creative writing awards are issued annually to writers who distinguish themselves amongst the rest of the student body. Brown 4 Introduction Significance of Representation Representation is a system for unambiguously organizing values, ideas, and conduct — all of which enable communication and social exchange amongst members of a particular group or community. From birth onward, an individual's self-c 1 oncept and values are affected by the surrounding environment. Adolescence is an especially critical period for identity development as the classroom serves as the primary site of socialization, although the American K-12 and college school systems have previously marginalized students who were perceived as different. Women are also encouraged from an early age to adhere to the traditional role of a homemaker, rather than pursue vocational training, higher education, and careers in STEM. As the reader will observe in the following excerpts from The Chameleon Literary Journal, Norwich University is no stranger to marginalization as women were not officially admitted for enrollment prior to the mid-1970s. Telltale signs found in the language used by Norwich student contributors indicate that slurs, stereotypes, and insults used against minorities and women were normalized for much of the Chameleon's history. It was not until the early 2000s that there appears to be a significant social shift within the student body due to the increasing presence of minorities and women on campus. Based on these findings, American society seemed to finally be becoming more inclusive, allowing minority Norwich students to express themselves freely, develop social stability, and gain a sense of acknowledgment through positive identity formation as well as representation. 1 "APA Dictionary of Psychology." American Psychological Association, https://dictionary.apa.org/social-representation. Brown 5 Baby Boomers | 1946 - 1964 Brief Historical Background Following World War II and the Great Depression, a significant spike in birth rates occurred throughout the United States. Approximately 76.4 million babies were born over the course of these nineteen years. Most historians claim that this phenomenon stems from the general population's desire to establish their own families — an undertaking that was previously postponed due to World War II. The Servicemen's Readjustment Act also gave soldiers an additional reason to have larger families as the G.I. Bill granted stipends for college tuition, job-finding assistance, and housing expenses. During this time period, economic growth began to increase and the majority of Americans had an optimistic outlook for the future. This encouraged families to relocate from the sparse countryside to the bustling atmospheres of nearby cities. Once these cities were overcrowded by newcomers, plans for large residential communities were undertaken by housing pioneer William Levitt who created the suburbs as a result.2 However, those with xenophobic tendencies followed quickly relocated to the suburbs as cities became miniature melting pots of integrated immigrants with various political, social, and economic backgrounds. This sparked disputes among the American people as legalized statutes remained persistent in enforcing segregation at both the state and local capacity.3 2 Nohria, Nitin, Anthony Mayo, and Mark Benson. "William Levitt, Levittown and the Creation of American Suburbia." Harvard Business School Case 406-062, December 2005. (Revised March 2010.) 3 The first three years of the Chameleon were released during the Baby Boomers generation but were mostly written by students who were born during the Silent Generation (1928-1945). Brown 6 Baby Boomers Overview of Significant Events • Brown v. Board of Education becomes a landmark Supreme Court case (1954). • Civil Rights Movement begins (1954). • Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man on a public bus (1955). • Montgomery Bus Boycott tackles segregation on the public transit system (1955). • Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American, is lynched in Mississippi (1955). • 1956 Sugar Bowl becomes the first integrated college football game in the South (1956). • Civil Rights Act becomes the first federal civil rights legislation since 1875 (1957). • Little Rock Crisis prevents students from enrolling in a racially segregated school (1957). • Greensboro sit-ins initiate protests regarding the South's policy of segregation (1960). • Nashville sit-ins initiate protests regarding the South's policy of segregation (1960). • Gay Liberation Movement begins (1960). • Alliance for Progress initiates improved economic cooperation with Latin America (1961). • Katherine Johnson assists NASA's 1962 Friendship 7 Mission (1962). • Civil Rights Act establishes federal inspection of voter registration polls (1960). • Children's Crusade addresses segregation within the school system (1963). • Martin Luther King Jr. leads the March on Washington (1963). • Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique (1963). • President Johnson proposes the Great Society to combat poverty and racial injustice (1963). • Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination based on race, religion, and sex (1964). Brown 7 Baby Boomers The Chameleon Highlights "A young woman driving a truck!? That was unusual, no doubt about it…Stupid woman, all guts, and no brains! … Maybe you can imagine what went on inside the young man when an officer stopped him and hurriedly said; Never mind, mister, there's nothin' you can do, she's dead, just some dirty n***** woman truck driver" (1963). 4 —- An excerpt from "The Wanderers" by R. Reid The use of profanities towards both people of color and women appears to be a commonality amongst Norwich student contributors from the Chameleon's founding in 1961 through much of the decade. In this short story, "The Wanderers," terms such as stupid and dirty are used to target a woman of color for being a trucker. The author continues to expand the character's description by using calling the woman the N-word. Deriving from the Spanish word negro, the N-word is now considered taboo as its connotation has been predominantly used by white people to demean those of color. Black social identity has been especially damaged by the usage of this word as it severs their overall sense of national belonging. 5 4 Complete usage of the word is censored in respect of the black community. 5 Pryor, Elizabeth Stordeur. "The Etymology of N*****: Resistance, Politics, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North." Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship before the Civil War, 2016, https:// doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469628578.003.0002. Brown 8 "…I saw everything. The city has been purified, swept clean, and now fosters only the black scars and in glorious moments of the past…You liar! You had to see the city die! You had to see it spill its false entrails out in the rotten streets to be devoured by the cleansing fires. This place is no longer dirty…" (1961). —- An excerpt from "The Dream Monger" by Anonymous In this short story, "The Dream Monger," the phrase cleansing fires reveals itself to be the cause of death and destruction. Like the Holocaust, mass genocides often surround ideologies associated with ethnic cleansing. This allows for a geographical area to become ethnically homogeneous under an establishment of power. In 20th-century America, for example, Anglo- American colonialism constituted the genocide of countless Natives in America and around the world. Such events will never be widely coined as genocide, however, due to the number of those who survived exploitation, disease, malnutrition, and neglect. 6 The term black scars also leads to further speculation that this short story may involve post-slavery events of America's racial segregation system. One of which included the Tulsa race massacre, decimating the Black business ecosystem and killing 6,000 community members. 7 Many other excerpts were found focusing on a more negative portrayal of the BIPOC community and women, although there was no mention of LGBTQ+ members.8 6 Anderson, Gary C. Ethnic Cleansing & the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America. University Of Oklahoma Press, 2015. 7 Kapadia, Reshma. "The Tulsa Massacre Left a Lasting Impact on Wealth." Trade Journal, vol. 101, no. 22, 31 May 2021. 8 Many other excerpts were found focusing on a more negative portrayal of the BIPOC community and women during this time. However, there was no mention of LGBTQ+ members. Brown 9 Generation X | 1965 - 1980 Brief Historical Background Those who grew up during this time were accustomed to having a sense of independence from an early age. This was caused by the increased divorce rates throughout the United States, the unique dynamics of single-parent households, and dual-income parents who were not able to spend as much time at home. Most parents found a life-long career in computers, business management, construction, or transportation. Although routinely working long hours, they still managed to find a healthy balance between exhibiting their creative freedoms within the workplace and maintaining personal relationships with their children. Also referred to as latchkey kids, Gen Xers often spent their downtime conversing with friends via email, channel surfing on the television, or playing video games. They also seemed to have a deep interest in musical genres associated with social-tribal identities, including punk rock and heavy metal. This meant that music became an important self-identifying factor, even influencing the type of attire an individual wore on a daily basis. In the 1960s and 1970s, a countercultural movement known as the hippie era catalyzed other self-identifying factors — especially for those who identified as members of the LGBTQ+ community. American writer Allen Ginsberg formed the core of the movement as he openly opposed all military efforts, sexual repression, and capitalism.9 Ginsburg also identified as gay, serving as positive a role model for members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies alike. 10 9 Silos, Jill Katherine. "Everybody Get Together: The Sixties Counterculture & Public Space, 1964-1967." University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository, 2003. 10 Eleven years of Chameleon issues were released during Generation X but were mostly written by students who were born during the Baby Boomers generation (1946-1964). Brown 10 Generation X Overview of Significant Events • Selma to Montgomery marches promote voting rights for African Americans (1965). • Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American Supreme Court Justice (1965). • Immigration & Nationality Act outlaws de facto discrimination against immigrants (1965). • Voting Act outlaws racial discrimination in voting (1965). • Malcolm X is assassinated (1965). • Watts Riots occur in light of Marquette Frye's arrest (1965). • Nation Organization for Women is established (1966). • American Indian Movement is founded (1967). • Detroit Riot sheds blood between black residents and the Detroit Police Department (1967). • Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated (1968). • Fair Housing Act outlaws discrimination regarding housing (1968). • Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman elected to Congress (1968). • East Los Angeles Walkouts are organized by Mexican American students (1968). • Stonewall Riots call for LGBTQ+ members to respond to police raids (1969). • Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg becomes a landmark Supreme Court case (1971). • AIM protests against injustice under law enforcement towards Native Americans (1972). • Roe v. Wade becomes a landmark Supreme Court case (1973). • Billie Jean King wins the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match (1973). • Beverly Johnson becomes the first black model on the cover of Vogue (1974). Brown 11 Generation X Relevance to The Chameleon "The pedestrian Walks, talks, and discriminates On such vital and valid criteria as Color, breeding and religion. Sees sex, and is offended. Grows indignant. Has a firm conviction that freedom of speech sometimes goes too far When it lets Martin Luther King "cause trouble" and "incite" riots" (1965). —- An excerpt from "The Pedestrian" by Jacob Sartz Unlike most pieces of writing from the 1960s publishings, this free verse poem seems to call out the discriminatory tendencies of others. The author especially targets any person whose ideologies are rooted in racism, sexism, and other gateways leading to unequal treatment. By labeling them as the pedestrian, such subtlety creates an effect where anyone can be the principal character and thus the reader may begin to question their own actions. As the author begins to shift towards a more political ambiance, African American activist Martin Luther King Jr. is mentioned. From the pedestrian's perspective, however, King is known to overstep the principle of free speech with the exception of cases where it benefits the white majority. Brown 12 "He had gone through a variety of different girls in the next six years, and he had accumulated an assortment of different names in his address book, including a few of the local sweethearts that he'd called up in dire sexual emergencies… When he had heard that his little "streetlight girl" had been married, he put a check next to her name in the book as he had done for several other old flames that had been put out of commission for one reason or another. He thought of her a little while after that, but closed the book as he had always done" (1970). —- An excerpt from "The Street Light" by Paul LeSage Unlike our example directly above, there are several alarming factors sprinkled throughout this short story, revealing how a man uses the sexual objectification of women to his advantage. The man's use of an address book further proves this implication as the women he has been sexually involved with are jotted down in writing. Visually speaking, the reader may think of a grocery list or an inventory of stock goods when it comes to the address book's description. The man proceeds to check off the women who no longer sexually benefit him all while refusing to use their real names, ultimately dehumanizing them in the process. This allows the reader to further explore the harmful effects of sexual objectification, pushing them to decipher the differences between sex and sexualizing.11 11 Many other excerpts were found focusing on a more negative portrayal of the BIPOC community and women during this time. However, there was no mention of LGBTQ+ members. Brown 13 Generation Y | 1981 - 1996 Brief Historical Background Many of those who were either born into this generation or lived through it prioritized their careers and personal interests above marriage. This means that they were having fewer children than their predecessors. Like Gen Xers, Millenials were known to be tech-savvy with a specific preference to communicate through email or text. MTV brought them further reason to enjoy screen time when the cable channel was launched in 1981. Originally created to showcase music videos, MTV quickly moved to television personalities. Michael Jackson, for example, served as the precedent for television personalities and leading artists, topping the charts throughout the duration of the 1980s. He eventually became one of the most well-loved television personalities who dedicated much of his offscreen time to charitable efforts. Prince, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, and many others followed closely behind. Based on the increased media representation of minority artists, it's safe to say that this particular time frame allowed for people of color to debut their own music videos for the first time. This urged the public to gravitate towards soul music and R&B, marking the start of this generation's willingness to embrace black creators. Alongside music, technological advances in STEM were budding with breakthroughs. Women paved the way towards many of these breakthroughs under large startups and federal organizations, inspiring younger girls to do the same through higher education. 12 12 Eighteen years of Chameleon issues were released during Generation Y but mostly written by students who were born during Generation X (1965-1976). Brown 14 Generation Y Overview of Significant Events • Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Week is implemented in May (1979). • Boston African American National Historic Site is established (1980). • AIDS Epidemic begins, causing numerous deaths in the LGBTQ+ community (1981). • Sandra Day O'Connor is nominated as the first female Supreme Court Justice (1981). • Federation of Survival Schools leads legal education seminars for Native students (1984). • Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian-American in space, dies in the Challenger disaster (1986). • Minneapolis AIM Patrol refocuses on protecting native women in Minneapolis (1987). • Sally K. Ride becomes the first American woman in space (1983). • Susan Kare made typeface contributions to the first Apple Macintosh (1983). • Michael Jordan is named the NBA's "Rookie of the Year " (1985). • Nadia Perlman invents the spanning-tree protocol (1985). • Carole Ann-Marie Gist becomes the first African American to win Miss USA (1990). • Freddie Mercury dies from AIDS (1991). • Rodney King is brutally beaten by LAPD officers (1991). • AIM revives the Sun Dance ceremony in Pipestone, Minnesota (1991). • Los Angeles Riots result in numerous deaths and $1 billion in damage (1992). • Mae Jemison becomes the first African American woman in space (1992). • National Coalition in Sports & Media Forms is established by native leaders (1992). • "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" bars the LGBTQ+ community from military service (1993). Brown 15 Generation Y Relevance to The Chameleon "I slowly adapt myself to another man's world, But I soon realize that my character is a reflection Of a foreign spectrum I see myself through another man's eyes, My words come from another man's mouth, And my ideals are relocated from another man's mind" (1980). —- An excerpt from "A Nostalgic Experience" by Noble Francis Allen America's social construction has continued to uphold whiteness throughout the duration of its history, while people of color must condition themselves to that of the norm. In this case, the author speaks in the first person, signifying their position as the principal character who is faced with having to mirror the way others perceive the world. This implies that the narrator may have had a weakened sense of self-identity at the time this poem was written. Self-identity is an especially important feature as it consists of the traits, characteristics, social relations, and roles that define who one is. An individual's racial and ethnic 13 background is also included within the same realm due to the distinguishment of their given group's cultural values, kinship, and beliefs.14 13 Oyserman, Daphna, and George Smith. "Self, Self-Concept, and Identity." Handbook of Self and Identity, edited by Kristen Elmore, 2nd ed., The Guilford Press, New York, NY, 2012, pp. 69–104. 14 Woo, Bongki, et al. "The Role of Racial/Ethnic Identity in the Association Between Racial Discrimination & Psychiatric Disorders: A Buffer or Exacerbator?" SSM - Population Health, vol. 7, 7 Apr. 2019, p. 100378., https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100378. Brown 16 "Across his back is a deerskin quiver, and in the quiver, there are seven feathered arrows. Gripped in his sweaty palm is an oak bow. A golden-handled sword, whose blade is as long as a man's leg, hangs from his waist. Its once binding shine has been replaced by a thick coat of blood. His skin is the color of golden honey, and his hair is the reflection of yellow sunshine… A woman emerges from the foliage of the wildwood. Warm sunshine gleams off of browned skin. Raven-black hair drops over a slender neck, and ends upon soft shoulders. Unsuspecting almond-eyes gaze wildly at the sky. She is nude. Her breasts are round, full, and tipped with chocolate nipples. A thin waist gives way to broad hips, and eventually slender legs" (1980). —- An excerpt from "A Blind Odin" by Mitchell T. Kubiak This short story, "A Blind Odin," depicts a deep contrast between the description of a man and the description of a woman. The man embodies characteristics associated with a skilled hunter, such as strength and courage. The woman, however, is only described based on her physical features, all of which seem to align with the male gaze. For those who are not familiar with feminist theory, the male gaze is perceived from a masculine heterosexual perspective with aspects of voyeurism, objectification, fetishism, and scopophilia attached.15 Further descriptions of the woman's bodily proportions also suggest clues about the author, although it is crucial for the reader to understand that Norwich University had very few female candidates at the time this short story was written. 16 15 Snow, Edward. "Theorizing the Male Gaze: Some Problems." Representations, vol. 25, 1989, pp. 30–41., https:// doi.org/10.2307/2928465. 16 Many other excerpts were found focusing on both positive and negative portrayals of the BIPOC community and women during this time. However, there was no mention of LGBTQ+ members. Brown 17 Generation Z | 1997 - 2009 Brief Historical Background Gen Zers are the first to experience technological advances from birth onward. Once the majority reached adolescence, it became evident that there was a growing demand for portable devices. Although the first smartphone was released by IBM during the early 1990s, its overall bulkiness and poor battery life were not ideal for communication lines. Apple has since become the most popular phone brand in the United States. It also helped that the company released the iPod, a portable music device with, at the time, the ability to store over 200 songs. The same year also marked the events of several terrorist attacks on September 11th. Two jet airliners shattered the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in a series of terrorist attacks, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring twice as many. Those responsible were later identified as members of al-Quaeda, a militant Islamist organization led by Saudi Arabian terrorist Osama bin Laden. Life became all the more difficult for Muslim Americans as they continuously experienced the dangers of Islamophobia on a daily basis. Such dangers surrounded an ongoing spike in hate crimes, ranging from cold-blooded murder to vandalism of places of worship. Even when there was a slight decline in hate crimes years later, Muslim Americans continued to struggle with employment discrimination. Many of those who practiced Islam were either laid off or turned away during the hiring process for reasons directly relating to their religion. By the end of Generation Z, religion no longer served as a determining factor during the hiring process and diversity became a primary focus in the workplace. 17 17 Thirteen years of Chameleon issues were released during Generation Z but were mostly written by students who were born during Generation Y (1977-1995). Brown 18 Generation Z Overview of Significant Events • Gary Locke becomes the first Asian American governor of a mainland state (1996). • Kalpana Chawla boards Columbia as the first woman in space of Indian origin (1997). • Serena Williams wins the U.S. Open Women's Singles Tennis Championship (1999). • Maurice Ashley becomes the world's first black Grandmaster in chess (2000). • Permanent Partners Immigration Act is introduced to Congress (2000). • Equality Mississippi is founded as an LGBT civil rights organization (2000). • Millennium March on Washington raises awareness of LGBT issues (2000). • Elaine Chao is selected as the first Asian American to be Secretary of Labor (2001). • Patriot Act allows the indefinite detention of immigrants and warrantless searches (2001). • Cincinnati-based riots spark unrest following Timothy Thomas' death (2001). • Balbir Singh Sodhi's death is deemed the first fatal act of violence as a result of 9/11 (2001). • Dennis Archer becomes the first African American to be President of the ABA (2002). • Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health becomes a landmark Supreme Court case (2003). • Grutter v. Bollinger becomes a landmark Supreme Court Case (2003). • Same-sex marriage is first legalized in the state of Massachusetts (2004). • Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon are wed, becoming the first legal same-sex marriage (2004). • Condoleezza Rice is named the first black woman to be Secretary of State (2005). • Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (2007). • Barack Obama is elected as the first African American to hold office (2009). Brown 19 Generation Z Relevance to The Chameleon "You called me a fa***t and said no one would love me But I am here to say what goes around comes around And now it's your turn to get knocked down" (2004). —- An excerpt from "The Bastard Son" by James A. Hoffman Now used as a slur in reference to homosexual men and boys, the term fa***t has its own unique origin. The term's former use in the Norwegian dialect was originally emplaced to describe a bundle of firewood. Because these bundles were large in size, the term eventually moved towards describing heavyset women who were often seen as slovenly and thus placing them near the bottom of all social classes. When British English ha 18 d made a far greater influence on the Scandinavian languages, the term was combined with bugger, also known as a person who engages in anal or oral sex. Premodern Europe was known to persecute heretics during this time, including homosexuals, as they did not conform to the belief systems of the Church. 19 This short story, "The Bastard Son," is one of the first positive representations of LGBTQ+ members found in the Chameleon as the narrator gains the courage to speak against negative attitudes and feelings surrounding the LGBTQ+ community. 18 Johansson, Warren. "The Etymology of the Word 'Fa***t'." William Percy. 19 Karras, Ruth Mazo. "The Regulation of 'Sodomy' in the Latin East & West." Speculum, vol. 95, no. 4, 2020, pp. 969–986., https://doi.org/10.1086/710639. Brown 20 Generation Z Relevance to The Chameleon "Mother, you are the greatest woman I know. I have based my life upon yours, all the great things you have done and all the obstacles that you were able to overcome; the thing that I admire most about you is the fact that you were a single mother of four and didn't need a man's help, but I always knew that was a great challenge for me, in this world that is much too different from the one that you grew up. To me, that was the greatest obstacle that you conquered" (2004). —- An excerpt from "Mother's Love" by A.M.T Lebron In this dedication, "Mother's Love," the author retrieves past memories in writing to celebrate their mother. It is not often that Norwich student contributors write about the entailments of motherhood. Although it remains unclear whether the author's mother was divorced, widowed, or remained unmarried, the family has a relentless source of love for one another and proceeds to use their shared affection to overcome challenges. Such challenges include economic hardships and increased states of stress as a single mother often relies on one source of income. There is also reason to believe that those raised in similar households develop a sense of independence resembling that of their mother. Some may even develop additional 20 internal resources that will allow them to construct their own identity far from the gender roles typically seen within the American household. 21 20 Kinser, Amber E. Motherhood & Feminism. Seal Press, 2010. 21 Many other excerpts were found focusing on both positive and negative portrayals of minority communities and women. Brown 21 Generation Alpha | 2010 - Present Brief Historical Background Many of those who are either born into this generation or currently living through it witness technological advances at an accelerating rate to the extent of replacing the previously known means of childhood entertainment with mobile devices and streaming services. The dawning of this generation also brought Instagram, the most frequently preferred social media platform to date. The thought of having children was generally delayed across the United States following the economic crisis of 2008, while young adults reportedly dealt with increasing stress from education debt. Following the economic crisis of 2008, it is not uncommon for young adults to deal with increasing stress from education debt. Many Gen Zers who previously planned on extending their families during this time were also affected as financial worries prevented them from having children. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused further economic turmoil when small businesses had to close down to prevent the spread of the virus. Those who were employed under larger corporations, however, moved their offices to home. Between dual-career families and remote work, the boundaries separating professional and personal life became blurred. 22 Such challenges have proved that the young faces of Generation Alpha are capable of resilience, utilizing their own diverse backgrounds to tackle the more difficult questions. This includes advocating for fairness in all aspects of society and questioning the validity of gender. 22 Jha, Amrit Kumar. "Understanding Generation Alpha ." OSF Preprints, 20 June 2020. Brown 22 Generation Alpha Overview of Significant Events • Apple's iPad is released, also known as the first touchscreen tablet PC (2010). • President Barack Obama begins his second term (2013). • Defense Against Marriage Act is struck down by the Supreme Court (2013). • Black Lives Matter emerges as a political movement (2013). • Michael Brown is fatally shot by a Ferguson police officer (2014). • Nine African Americans churchgoers are killed during a Bible study in Charleston (2015). • Same-sex marriage is legalized in all 50 states (2015). • Pulse Nightclub shooting causes the deaths of 49 LGBTQ+ members (2016). • Unite the Right, a white supremacist rally, leads to three deaths in Charlottesville (2017). • Me Too movement is relaunched following the Harvey Weinstein accusations (2017). • Director Jon M. Chu breaks box office records with his film Crazy Rich Asians (2018). • California Synagogue shooting causes the injuries of three and the death of one (2019). • President Trump's wall receives $2.5 billion in funds under the Supreme Court (2019). • Kobe Bryant, along with his daughter, dies in a helicopter crash (2020). • Geroge Floyd is murdered by a Minneapolis police officer during an arrest (2020). • Kamala Harris becomes the 49th vice president (2021). • Spa shooting in Atlanta leaves eight dead, with six being of Asian descent (2021). Brown 23 Generation Alpha Relevance to The Chameleon "It had only been four days since I was bought from the Greens. The Green House was known for cutting off the body parts of slaves and letting them bleed out slowly or waiting for them to die of infection. They used to take other slaves to the field and pick different parts to cut off. If they cut off too much and you couldn't work anymore, they'd leave the bodies in the field as an example of what happens when you make mistakes. " (2019). —- An excerpt from "Mixed Voices" by Alain Cropper-Makidi The author moves to educate the reader on a particular building utilized during America's slavery period. Also known as the Green House, the building lay separate from the main house and lodged slaves who were being punished for fieldwork mistakes. Whipping, burning, branding, raping, and imprisoning were some of the most common punishments for slaves. However, the Green House resorted to dismembering the slaves' limbs and allowing them to bleed out. This short story, "Mixed Voices," also addresses that some slaves received educational instruction from the main house's mistress. This was most likely executed in secret as slaves were generally prohibited from reading and writing out of fear that they would forge travel passes and escape. 23 23 "Literacy as Freedom - American Experience." SAAM, Smithsonian American Art Museum, https:// americanexperience.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Literacy-as-Freedom.pdf. Brown 24 "One day You tell me that let's be Together I shake my head Say I'm tired of your lies Rather to get myself alone" (2020). 有⼀天 你对我说我们在⼀起吧 我摇摇头 说我厌倦了你的虚伪 宁愿孤独 —- An excerpt from "Untitled" by Zenghui Zhang Like several others, this poem was both written and translated by a student under Professor Lenny Hu. Since his arrival at Norwich, Professor Hu has assigned his Chinese students the task of writing and translating poetry. This allows them to expand their Chinese literacy and gain a sense of passion for the language itself. As the Norwich language department continues to grow, translations will continue to be included in future Chameleon issues for the benefit of promoting diverse students and staff who already understand or aim to learn beyond that of the English language. Brown 25 Conclusion Sustains & Improves After reviewing all past issues of the Chameleon, it is clear that Norwich's literary journal previously published pieces of writing representing LGBTQ+ members, the BIPOC community, and women in a negative light. This was especially true from 1961 through the late 1990s. Gradually, the Chameleon has begun to positively represent our communities. During our current time period, for example, positive representations have become the primary focus under Professor Sean Prentiss and his team of student editors who have made a conscious effort in improving the Chameleon as a whole. Student writers who distinguish themselves amongst the rest of the student body are oftentimes selected for awards. One of which is the "Be You, Be True Prize" for the best writing by or about the LGBTQ+ community. Additionally, many Norwich University professors currently include culturally sustaining pedagogies within their curricula. Such pedagogies include seeking nontraditional texts, merging language varieties, and encouraging students to explore cultural spaces. To maintain as well as improve such efforts, Norwich University affiliates must remain aware that America's long history of combating minorities often resulted in bloodshed. Although not to the extent of our previous generations, similar events still continue to occur today. Therefore, as one of the most renowned military colleges in the United States, it is our responsibility to protect minority students and ensure that they perceive themselves as valuable members of the community. Without them, the future stands for nothing. Brown 26 References Anderson, Gary C. Ethnic Cleansing & the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America. University Of Oklahoma Press, 2015. "APA Dictionary of Psychology." American Psychological Association, https:// dictionary.apa.org/social-representation. Jha, Amrit Kumar. "Understanding Generation Alpha ." OSF Preprints, 20 June 2020. Johanssen, Warren. "The Etymology of the Word F*****." William Percy, pp. 356–359. Kapadia, Reshma. "The Tulsa Massacre Left a Lasting Impact on Wealth." Trade Journal, vol. 101, no. 22, 31 May 2021. Karras, Ruth Mazo. "The Regulation of 'Sodomy' in the Latin East & West." Speculum, vol. 95, no. 4, 2020, pp. 969–986., https://doi.org/10.1086/710639. Kinser, Amber E. Motherhood & Feminism. Seal Press, 2010. "Literacy as Freedom - American Experience." SAAM, Smithsonian American Art Museum, https://americanexperience.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Literacy-as-Freedom.pdf. Nohria, Nitin, Anthony Mayo, and Mark Benson. "William Levitt, Levittown and the Creation of American Suburbia." Harvard Business School Case 406-062, December 2005. (Revised March 2010.) Oyserman, Daphna, and George Smith. "Self, Self-Concept, and Identity." Handbook of Self and Identity, edited by Kristen Elmore, 2nd ed., The Guilford Press, New York, NY, 2012, pp. 69–104. Brown 27 Pryor, Elizabeth Stordeur. "The Etymology of N*****: Resistance, Politics, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North." Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship before the Civil War, 2016, https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/ 9781469628578.003.0002. Silos, Jill Katherine. "Everybody Get Together: The Sixties Counterculture & Public Space, 1964-1967." University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository, 2003. Snow, Edward. "Theorizing the Male Gaze: Some Problems." Representations, vol. 25, 1989, pp. 30–41., https://doi.org/10.2307/2928465. Tenaglia, Sean. '"Seeing Yourself in the Story:' The Influence of Multicultural Education on Adolescent Identity Formation." The Virginia English Journal, vol. 68, 2018. Woo, Bongki, et al. "The Role of Racial/Ethnic Identity in the Association Between Racial Discrimination & Psychiatric Disorders: A Buffer or Exacerbator?" SSM - Population Health, vol. 7, 7 Apr. 2019, p. 100378., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100378.
Part one of an interview with John Clementi. Topics include: Memories of John's father, Sandro Clementi. His father's work history and how he became an executive in the plastics business. His father's business contacts in Italy. How his father brought new designs to his company and how the company grew. His father owned a pool hall. John's memories of the family trips to Italy they would every summer when he was growing up. What Italy was like around 1960. Speaking Italian in the United States and in Italy. Italian dialects. John's thoughts on discrimination. John's experiences at Leominster High School and at Deerfield. How John went to Boston College Law School. John left litigation work and joined his father at Plastican. How he met his wife. What Latvia, his wife's homeland, is like. How John and his father divide tasks at Plastican. What sort of products the company makes. The ethnic diversity that exists within the company. ; 1 LINDA ROSENLUND:This is Linda [Rosenlund] with the Center for Italian Culture. Today we're with John Clementi, a [Plastican] located on Industrial Road in Leominster. And today is Thursday, December 13, 2001. John is the son of Sandro Clementi and brother of Anna Canlangelo. So, John, um, could you tell about, first of all, your father, your -- you were telling me before I turned the microphone on that he's really… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. Um, he, um… you know, I think that people that know him, that have known him for any given amount of time would, um… what I think, would all agree that he's just a, an extremely talented, um, gifted person, uh, has the ability to, uh, look beyond the present. He, he, he has a remarkable gift for, for being able to predict trends the way that, that the world is heading. He has a wonderful knowledge of, uh, human nature, um, which is [unintelligible - 00:01:14]. And he – and he's just a very talented executive. I think he has, um, he possesses all of the skills that one would think of in terms of being a very, very effective, uh, executive. Um, and, and I, I think he, he's been able to… exhibit those skills in all sorts of different situations and venues. [Unintelligible - 00:01:34] remain a constant, at least in my experience, having worked with him over the course of the last, uh, 25 years or so. LINDA ROSENLUND:Growing up, was, was he the owner of the… JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, um, growing -- no, I think that he… Plastican really wasn't formed until, um, late '60s, early '70s. Uh, I remember my dad in various roles. I remember him as the proprietor of a, um… of a pool hall. Um, and, and going with him on Sunday mornings, uh, to go clean the pool hall up. I remember him, um, as a, um… as a foreman in a plastics factory, um, working at the [unintelligible - 00:02:21]. And, uh, him sort of coming home, um, eating dinner and then go work another job, so, you know. I 2 think I -- my first true recollections of my dad are probably in that capacity. I still remember the blue uniform and the, you know, the grease and the plastic chip. I mean, I was at an age, I think at that time, I was probably maybe four or five years old. And if he did, then I wasn't old enough to understand. I clearly remember is that, you know, he would come home briefly and back. It's still sort of a joke. At the time, the Mickey Mouse Club was the popular children's show. They came on at five o'clock. And if you would ask my father, to this day, Mickey Mouse, he sort of has this negative psychological reaction because it was sort of his signal that it was time to go to work to the other job. And so that's sort of the way I remember my dad coming home and spending with us, you know, a brief amount of time around dinner and then going back out to work another shift. LINDA ROSENLUND:Asking him how it was that he became involved with Plastican, and it's my memory that he was perhaps worked in sales? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes. I think we need to kind of go back before Plastican. His first involvement with a proprietary company was with Yankee Plastics. And that would have been back, I think, in 1956. And I think that's where the story comes in about the real estate agent and being made aware of this particular company. It would be around the time that I was talking about earlier. He was working in a plastics company anyway. He was working at Star Manufacturing Company as a shift supervisor. And as such, he more or less had to know the ins and outs of operating the plow from -- I mean, even as a child, in those days, he was literally hands-on. He would come home, as I say, covered with grease and plastic dust in his hair and on his clothes and so forth. He knew intimately the details of running a plastics operation. 3 He was also fortunate, you know, I think he would tell you that he was, in that the owner of that company was an Italian himself. And his name was Nick Dimassa, D-I-M-A-S-S-A. And Nick had been in the United States for a long time. He was the kind of person who -- you know, he was a boy, he was a very elegant figure, you know, just sort of the [block] of white hair and always had a [unintelligible – 00:05:25]. He was a successful manufacturer back in those days and my dad worked for him. And my dad often tells me the story that… you know, I think Mr. Dimassa told him, you know, that instead of making money for him, for Mr. Dimassa, that at some point maybe… well, because he was too talented to work for other people. Then the opportunity arose with this company, Yankee Plastics, which was a small action molder or custom molder that manufactured the kinds of things that are really no longer manufactured in the United States anymore. And by that, I mean… LINDA ROSENLUND:Making that no longer made. JOHN CLEMENTI: Right. So… LINDA ROSENLUND:Like what? JOHN CLEMENTI: Like, you know trinkets and giveaway items—small, little things. And basically for other companies, for other people. It wasn't a proprietary line. It was a line of products that were manufactured for the others. And the product line, from what I could tell, at least at that time as a child, you know, seem to have evolved and that the things that he made were bigger. You know, [unintelligible - 00:06:32] larger. And that line seemed to evolve from the kinds of things that we were just talking about into things like pitchers. And the company evolved into a proprietary housewares manufacturer. And I think probably the turning point for that company, for Yankee Platsics, happened to… in the early '60s, that probably had emerged as a leader in 4 design, especially in plastic design. Because I think it's safe to say that plastics is an ersatz material, a substitute for something else—wood or net, or -- in a sort of view it's a surrogate, whereas in Italy, at the time, emerging from the war, plastics was a new material. It was different. It had a higher value to most people. And subsequently, extraordinarily talented designers in Italy were designing plastic housewares, and my dad saw that and realized that very mundane items were being designed to be extraordinarily beautiful, and brought some of those designs to the United States and began to manufacture them on a proprietary basis, and began selling them to companies that were at the time, you know, the equivalent of the big-box retailers that we know of now as K-Mart or Walmart. It would have been a Woolworths or WT Grant. And so he started manufacturing these products for those kinds of companies, and I think that's really where the company began to assume a different… LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, did he hire anyone from [ideas forward]? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, it was interesting at the time. From around 1960 on, we would spend a good part of our summers in Italy. We would go back to the ancestral town, Corfinio, and the whole family would. And, you know, while we were there, my dad made business contacts in the north of Italy, Turin and Milan, where the plastics business was happening—not only just for Italy but for Europe, in a way. And he made contact with various designers, the most prominent of which was a house called Leonardo, and had some designs done for plastic housewares. And I mean mixer, decanter design, that was just kind of thing where, if you saw it today, it would be just as beautiful today as it was. You know, classic, modern design. And he picked up on that. And, you know, purchased some designs from that house and began to sell them, manufacture the products and sell them. 5 He didn't even know the process but continued, I think is… you know as we continue to maintain a relationship with Italy in terms of going there in the summer, I think he was probably more aware of what was going on in Europe, both by way of Danish and Swedish and Finnish. Right from the very start his proprietary line probably had an edge in terms of quality. I think he was probably… he was a leverage, I think, pretty much to the Hilton those days. But I think that what happened was, once these designs hit, they were just enormously successful. In fact, there was one item, I think if you ask him specifically, there was one item that really was all the [doctoring gamble], which item was sort of a revolutionary item. It was the decanter that now I think we all probably recognize, the one with the measuring lines on the outside and the flip top, little spout on the top, you know, where you take the soft lid and put it on top. And now it's an archaic item, but in those days I think it was a bit revolutionary in that it replaced, you know, the glass pitcher that lemonade would go in, for example. That, I think, was probably the item that provided most of the working capital to go ahead. I would say that was the most significant item. LINDA ROSENLUND:Ask for a design they have an idea of art and then they make contact with? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, in those days there was a—and there still is, in fact—a national houseware show in Chicago. And I believe that they saw it in Chicago, because my dad would exhibit with everybody else. And I think they saw the item and liked it and tried it on, and it became wildly successful [unintelligible - 00:11:42] a springboard for other items. In fact, I think that was the first, and then the items from Italy that were really high fashion came later. So that, I think that was probably the item that really made the difference. And of course, you could -- the world thinks that 6 came from that. In other words, you had the decanter, now you make the tumblers that go with the decanter, and it sort of becomes a set, and off you go. And there are other sets then, you know, that… pitchers and tumblers, you need bowls, and so you make bowls. And then you need colanders. You know, all of that sort of houseware items that we've come to realize is sort of … you know, the staples of plastic housewares—laundry baskets, lace baskets, all of those things. The line eventually evolved and grew so that it went from things like small tumblers to wastebaskets and trash receptacles, big, 34-gallon trash receptacles. The company evolved, such that from, let's say, from, 1967 it went from a small custom molder to a full-blown housewares manufacturer with a proprietary line. There's a real difference. I mean, custom molder, you're a job shop working for other people. And then as a proprietary line, you are a brand name, and you are manufacturing for yourself. And I think that was a crucial revolution, really, as far as… LINDA ROSENLUND:After more… JOHN CLEMENT: Yeah, I think -- you know, in Leominster, where in those days there were scores of custom molders, custom molders being people who manufactured items for other companies. You know, I think everybody's dream was to have their own proprietary line because you could essentially control you own fate. And my dad was… you know, enough of a visionary to realize that even early on, and thus the importance of coming up with designs that were at the time, at least, you know, innovative and different and would provide an [entrée] in places like Woolworths, for example, that he might not otherwise ever be able to get into given the existence of companies like Rubbermaid at the time. So I think that was a big, a major factor in, you know, being successful going forward. 7 No. Mr. Dimassa was the owner and chief executive of the company called Star Manufacturing, and that's where my dad was a shift foreman, where he learned the art and science of plastics. And he left Star Manufacturing to purchase Yankee Plastics, which was not much more than a garage type operation, very small manufacturing plant with, you know, with not much in terms of sales and not much in terms of machines. But he left Star Manufacturing to buy Yankee Plastics with his life savings and start, you know, in the business as a proprietor. I heard them talk about it. And I heard my dad talk about it and… basically say, I think, with a lot of admiration, that my mother just -- my mother never ever reminded him of what he was doing and what the risks were involved and, you know, the potential downside. Basically, she was there to support him in whatever he felt he needed to do, and that she always basically had faith in what he was doing. She never had much doubt that it was going to be successful. Yes, yes, yes. LINDA ROSENLUND:… while he was at Star Manufacturing? JOHN CLEMENTI: I'm not sure of that, but I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that he was doing both, yes. He was working two jobs at the time. LINDA ROSENLUND:I never really understood… JOHS CLEMENTI: Well, I think it's… again, I hate to speak for him in that regard, but I think it's because it was a [solicit] income that didn't require a tremendous amount of sophistication if terms of the language, in terms of, you know, business relationships, banks, regulatory agencies. You know? It's a pool hall. People put down money and play pool, and that's that. So it's fairly straightforward, easy kind of business to get into. That doesn't mean you're necessarily successful at it, but it's… you know, if I had to guess, I would think that was the reason. 8 LINDA ROSENLUND:Well, I don't want to put words into his mouth or your mouth either, but I can remember, when asking him about social clubs, he said, "Oh, no. I never belonged to a club," but I got the impression that the pool hall was… JOHN CLEMENTI: I don't know. I don't know about that. I think he probably met a lot of people that way that he might not have met otherwise. But I never had any impression from him that it was a social thing. To me, it was strictly, from what I could tell, a business thing. And it wasn't… again, from what I could tell, the clientele there was not… Italian. It wasn't Italian American. It was just at the pool hall in another town and, you know, in the early '50s. And my dad would always say that, you know, was unfortunate, but pool halls always did well when economies didn't do well. Because people were laid off and had time on their hands, you know, what do you do? And, you know, the pool hall is strictly, from what I could tell at least, an economic thing. LINDA ROSENLUND:At the pool hall, when he fought Yankee… JOHN CLEMENTI: I believe he did. You know, I'm pretty sure that he did. In fact, I think that it was before he did that, and it wasn't simultaneous in my recollection. LINDA ROSENLUND:Are there any differences in your whole life… JOHN CLEMENTI: Gee, you know, to tell you the truth, no. My life, my social life was more or less the same as it always was, which is substantially different from the way things are nowadays in a sense that, you know, people visited each other unannounced. You know, people would show, you know, the Italian talking about the Italian, relatives and friends and acquaintances. There was certain informality, you know? It was not unusual maybe a couple nights a week to have people show up at your house for coffee after dinner and talk, or in the summertime to show up and sit up on the porch or whatever. You know, and that continued 9 right on through. So to that extent, nothing really changed. My dad had been working a lot of hours anyway, so he continued to work a lot of hours. And really, our lives… you know, at least for a child, which is what I was, really didn't change. I mean, I think it's fair to say things, you know, things got moved. When I was in the second grade, we moved to another house that was newer and nicer. But substantially, not different from what it was before. So I can't say that life really changed at all at that time. Again, I didn't perceive that anything had changed. The big thing that would've convinced me as a child that we, you know, that we were doing well and that, you know, my dad was a successful person, was, you know, the trips that we would take to Italy in the summertime. Because at a certain point, I realized that not everybody went to Europe every summer. You know, as time went on I realized what a big deal that really was. LINDA ROSENLUND:Were you going to… JOHN CLEMENTI: At the beginning… I can't remember exactly. I don't think she was still living there, but we had -- we just had lots and lots of relatives there. And we have -- the ancestral home was there, and it's still there, the house that my dad grew up in. And at the time, there was sort of a ritual that happens with Italian immigrants from Central Italy and Southern Italy that have kind of gone on this, you know, sort of the… the exodus from Italy, especially in the post-war. They returned in the summertime, usually for the month of August. And it's a little known fact, but there are… tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of Italian immigrants in places like Australia, Argentina, Canada, huge number of Italian immigrants. France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium. And these people in the summertime returned to Italy because, among other things, it's vacation in Europe the whole month of August in Italy. No one works. It's a vacation month. 10 And people -- it's kind of a class reunion for everybody. And so, for example, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that our little town of a 1,000 people becomes a town of maybe 3,000 people in August. And so this became sort of a ritual with our family that we would go back for the month of August and… you know, my dad would basically see the people he grew up with, his classmates, his friends, his relatives. And my mother too, because obviously my mother was brought up there as well. And so, you know, it sort of became, as I said, a ritual, or something that was expected. Of course, in the meantime, my dad was, you know, was also doing business, going to design houses, mold makers and talking to the people in the business in Italy who were sort of making it happen over there. And, you know, would build some tools in Italy, get some ideas et cetera. SPEKAER 1: Do you want me to stop this? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. And as I say, for my dad it was business and pleasure, you know, well… nice for me because it afforded me a chance to see cities like Milan and spend some time in big cities whereas… you know, outside of the usual tourist traps, if you will, and get to visit, you know, some companies, and to see Italy as an economic entity as opposed to a tourist entity. And I have to say it was a significant education to me. Because among other things, it allowed me to keep the language, which, you know, was usually lost at some point. But that became I think a very important part of our lives, because for 10 years, I'd say from 1960 to 1970, I think we went every year. Yeah. And just last year my daughter, who is now a senior at Dartmouth, learned Italian and spent a term in Sienna. And we were able to visit her there and that was just a real joy. I was thrilled that she decided on her own that Italian was the language she wanted to learn. And so that was sort of gratifying. But we, 11 the family has been back to Italy, and… I think they enjoy very much and I think they're proud of that side of the family that it's of Italian heritage. I hope that they, you know, continue on and will… learn more about Italy and become more involved with the culture. But that's something they almost have to do on their own, simply because having married someone who is an Italian, it becomes a little bit more difficult. LINDA ROSENLUND:… recruit some of his friends in Italy that have come to America? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. I think… interesting, going back to Italy in those years… I never perceived an overwhelming desire on anybody's part at that time to come to America. Because I think by then, it was pretty much over. Italy was enjoying an economic boom. People were doing well. There was a migration in Italy. People from the south went to the north to work—places like Turin and Milan—to work for companies like Fiat, you know, Pirelli. You know, big companies. And so, there was very little impetus at that time for anybody to come to the United States. I think that was pretty much over. LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, when you… JOHN CLEMENTI: All the time. And it was, it was sort of a wakeup call, because when we first went to… Italy in 1960, it… it was a lot different from what it is today, in many ways. Our little village was primitive. There were maybe three automobiles. There were only a couple of television sets, and they belonged to fraternal organizations. There was no television before until eight o'clock in the evening. It was just so different from what we as Americans expected in terms of lifestyle. Most of the houses didn't have full indoor plumbing. Animals—horses, oxen—were used for transportation. People worked in the fields largely with their own physical labor. It was a very rudimentary agrarian 12 economy, much like what you would see in a third world country today. It would be unfair to call it a third world country because there were obviously other things going on in the big cities, et cetera. But for a ten-year-old child, it was a real eye opener. It was very exciting in many ways to be able to be stepping back in time. But by the same token, I realized that it was a life that was substantially harder than what I was used to. And the natural result of that was to think, "Boy, if we didn't come to the United States, this is the way we would be living now." LINDA ROSENLUND:… back to the village? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, extraordinarily well. All of our relatives and friends were happy to see us. I mean, they really couldn't have done more for us. They were very lavish in their hospitality and would just about do anything for you to the point of almost being an embarrassment. And so to that extent it was just wonderful. For me, it was a lot of fun because, as I said before, at that time there was a language gap. I'd learned Italian before I learned English, but then I went to school, and, like most American kids, children of immigrants, you don't want to speak the language in public. And so the Italian, while you could understand it, you were always hesitant to speak it. And so when I got to Italy, if I wanted to communicate, I realized that I got to try to speak it as well. And… they had some fun with me and, you know, my brand, my version of the dialect that's spoken in our little village. But we got along well and we had a lot of fun, and it just sort of drew from there to the point where when I was in high school, going back -- I don't think that it was sort of like, "Oh, he's back again." And, you know, I knew everybody and they all knew me, and it was sort of like going to a summerhouse, like [unintelligible - 00:29:35] or something. It was, it became that kind of thing. 13 LINDA ROSENLUND:… dad must have spoken the dialect as well? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes. LINDA ROSENLUND:So how did he communicate with the businessmen…? JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, it's interesting, this whole notion of the dialect. I think you'll find, even in Italy today, that some sort of switch goes on and off when you enter the region or when you enter the village. You speak dialect, but when you're anywhere else you speak Italian. It's a phenomenon that I don't think exists here in the United States, where people speak both pure Italian and dialect. And this is true wherever you go. And I noticed this when we do business, as we still do today, with companies in Italy, especially up north. We communicate in Italian or in English, but I know that the people that I'm dealing with, the principals, they'll communicate with their employees in their dialect, which I absolutely don't understand. And if I communicated with my relatives with them present, they wouldn't understand me either. LINDA ROSENLUND:I thought that was more of a recent… JOHN CLEMENTI: I would think, and I hate to speak for Italians, but I think what they would tell you is that people who -- descendants of peasants, say, for a lack of a better term, when they would go to the big city, would speak relatively poor Italian, simply because they spent all their time speaking dialect. But they would know, they would know what they should be saying. And so as time has evolved and education became such that everybody is literate, everybody in Italy speaks the same language. But when they go home, they speak their dialect. And it's a really interesting phenomenon that I don't think as an American I would ever come close to understanding if I didn't go over there to see it firsthand, how someone could be extremely literate. Well, for example, I have a cousin who has written a book—actually, I think books—about classical history, Julius Cesar et 14 cetera. Extremely literate in Italian, and yet when he walks down to the piazza to talk with the guys, boom. He speaks dialect, and just as quickly can go in and out of that mode. So it's a phenomenon that I think still exists, probably to a lesser extent, because I think young people with mass media, watching television, listening to the radio, the Italian becomes modernized, and it is what it is. LINDA ROSENLUND:… now there find it difficult being [unintelligible - 00:32:44]? JOHN CLEMENTI: It's in central Italy. LINDA ROSENLUND:But did he found it difficult going to the north and being taken on seriously by the businessmen up there? JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, I don't think that occurred because… let's not forget, I mean, in the business world he was American. And it was an American company. And even though he spoke Italian, speaks Italian, knows the culture, you know, I think that's the way he was dealing. I think he was always taken very seriously. However, that doesn't discount the fact that there is a, to this day, a dichotomy between north and south. There is a certain… I don't know how to put it, but there's a definite culture clash between the north and the south of Italy. And the northerners view themselves as much more sophisticated, refined than the southerners. And as the southerners, you know, have a similar view of themselves compared to the northerners. In fact, there was actually a movement in the north of Italy to secede from the country. There were this movement, as recently as four or five years ago, for people from the Po Valley to create a country called Padania and secede from the country of Italy. And it doesn't look like it could be real, but I assure you, very real phenomenon. But that was there, and I think that's still there. But I don't think it ever affected my father's ability to do business there. 15 LINDA ROSENLUND:What about accent? JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, again, I think that America has been remarkably fair and welcoming to my father and people like my father. I've probably been -- you know, my father, and people like him who have accents that become self-conscious about it and so forth, I think my dad would tell you that he's been treated fairly, you know, by banks, local banks, who had faith in him early on. And I don't think he's ever forgotten that. I honestly believe that when it comes to discrimination, I think it's there, but I think that to be fair about it, I don't think it's ever been an impediment to me or to meet people, Italian Americans who have a certain sensibility, a certain sensitivity, you know, that it exists. I mean, you know, there will always be… you know, the untoward comment, the, you know, the references, you know, the mafia references that [unintelligible - 00:36:02] me personally. LINDA ROSENLUND:Not even at… JOHN CLEMENTI: Not even at Deerfield. In fact, particularly not at Deerfield. And that's one of the reasons why I personally love the place so much. Because, you know, I think everybody knows and everybody knew at the time, you know, Deerfield was sort of the quintessential Yankee. But the headmaster at the time, Mr. Boyden, Frank Boyden, who's sort of a giant in secondary education, he treated us all the same, and I never… certainly institutionalized from Deerfield. You would get a wise comment from a kid here or there, you know? I chucked out to the usual ignorance that you would find in a high school. I felt that Deerfield, to me, was crucial in my life. I think it was the single most important… Well, let's see. The ethos at Deerfield then and even now was, work hard, play hard. And a certain discipline at the place. By discipline I don't mean a military style discipline, but there was a 16 lot of work to do. It was hard. It was a real interaction between the faculty and the students. And I often tell people, we were as students probably respected by the faculty far more than we deserved. And the place sort or inculcated a sense of responsibility, a sense of giving back to the community. You know, a sense of [unintelligible - 00:37:50] your affairs in a courtly manner. You know, being mind and being understanding. You know, I don't think that was necessarily happening in high school for me. I think it just took my… just took who I was and sort of took me to another level, sort of challenged me, stretched me. I often feel I could've graduated from Deerfield and not gone to college, I'm not sure how much of a difference… It was mine. I mean, I was just going through my sophomore year. You have to realize, it was 1966, and the world was sort of getting to be a little topsy-turvy. You know, the drug culture had made [unintelligible – 00:38:38] in Leominster. And, you know, it was just a confused age. I was doing well in school, at least in terms of grades, but I didn't feel I was achieving very much. But I was probably doing well in a group of… really doing all that well. I thought I was just going through the motions, to tell you the truth, and I felt this sense of malaise about it that, you know, that hammer is going to fall here sometime. And you know, I don't like the way this… and, you know, I just started researching prep schools. I just thought I need to get out of here, down to Deerfield. There were kids that I'd gone to school with who had left and gone… More than anything, what happened was I went --when I was feeling this malaise, I just decided to go to the library and pull out catalogs, where I can get some catalogs. And, to tell the truth, they were very exciting. You know, [area in Dover], 17 Deerfield, you know, the idea that you could play sports on any level, you could study subjects that weren't necessarily offered in high school, and I think the idea of being away from home. I wasn't afraid of it because I've, you know, gone to Europe. It was kind of all of those things put together. I mean, my parents were a little bit taken aback, "Why do you want to leave? What's this all about?" But, you know, after going through the process, the tours and all of that, I think they kind of said okay, and so off we went. LINDA ROSENLUND:So you apparently knew… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. But at time it was fairly clear that we could afford it. I think I knew that in my mind. After all, as I said before, we've been going to Italy now for, you know, at that time, seven, eight years, six, seven years. And so I didn't doubt that that was the case, so… LINDA ROSENLUND:… get the sense that your family was very successful and perhaps -- so [unintelligible - 00:40:58] the other students. JOHN CLEMENTI: [Unintelligible - 00:41:01] at Leominster High? I mean, I had that sense, you know, occasionally, but it really wasn't an overriding factor. I mean, I was pretty much of a happy camper in a way. I had a lot of friends, I loved sports. I was on teams with people. I never felt different, I never felt singled out, I never felt exceptional. It was really… as I said before, it was more a question of worrying about sliding down the slippery slope, if you will. Because, you know, I knew friends that, you know, one year were afraid to go to a dance and in the next year were dropping acid. So it became a kind of thing where I really felt that I wasn't going to progress hanging around. I thought I needed a change of venue. You know, I mean, the factual answer is yes. But I never -- it was important in a sense that they monitored my grades and spoke to my teachers and made sure 18 that I was doing what I ought to have been doing. But I think as time went on, as I got into high school, I think their ability to influence what was going on became less and less, simply because the issues I think became more and more complex. And, you know, they were dealing with them was less and less, simply because now instead of talking to a teacher, you have to talk to every one of these teachers and you need to have a better knowledge of what was going on. I think another thing that I've realized quite honestly is I think is the reverse of what you were asking. I was a sophomore in high school. I believe there was a switch for my philosophy of tracking students to a philosophy of open classrooms. And I have been attending school with same group of kids more or less since seventh grade. And as a sophomore, all of a sudden I realized I was in classes with kids that I'd never been in classes with before. And I think I came to the realization, and then I looked around and I thought it was me, and I thought, "Oh, I'm no longer in the top group. I'm now in the lesser group." But then I realized there were another two, three kids that I knew were very bright, that I knew were, you know, smart as anybody in the class, if not smarter, that were with me, but that there were classes where all the kids were bright. I don't know if this is true, but I surmised that if your parents were on the ball, if your parents knew what the score was in school, that they knew who the good teachers were. And along with the program, then you would be one of the guinea pigs in the open classroom. And this is sort of getting back to your question, "Why did you go to Deerfield?" I think what really set me off was an English class that I was in, in which… it was pretty clear that the class remain in the [gamut] from the brightest kids in the school to probably the least talented in the college curriculum. And the class 19 became a series of same kids putting up their hands, coming up with the answer, being ridiculed by the kids that didn't have the answer, who felt insecure and [badly]. And then what would happen is you would just realize this wasn't advancing the knowledge of the class. And so I thought: "If this is the way it's going to be, then it may be time for me to…" that was another; that was a pretty important fact that I neglected to mention, but… I felt badly for the teacher. Because what happened was she just started teaching to the mean. It all fell apart, in my opinion. [Laughter] SPEKAER 1: And I'm talking about… during high school. JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, I hate to speak for him, but wouldn't have surprised me if he did. I think he probably did. LINDA ROSENLUND:Did he push you for an education to go to college, or… JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, I don't think he ever did. I don't think he ever expected me not to go to college. And by that time, having gone to Deerfield, you know, that was a totally different culture. And, you know, everybody was going to go to college. In fact, the game changed when I went to Deerfield. Another big reason why I went to Deerfield is in those days I really wanted to go to an Ivy League college. Go to on Ivy League college? Well, interestingly, my sophomore year in high school I was on the debate team, and we had a pretty good debating team in those days. And we went to [unintelligible - 00:46:37] which were up at Dartmouth and Hanover. And I remember to this day, because it was in February and it was classically Hanover, snowing all day long. But… I just, you know, I want to do it, this is where I want to go. You know, I want to go here. At that point, I think that kind of finalized the decision to leave Leominster, because my ability to get there would be seriously stained. And so, you know, I started applying to these other places, [unintelligible - 00:47:11] whole 20 thing evolved. My parents had interestingly -- it's funny, because I had a discussion with my dad about it. You know, my dad, his recollection is he sent me there. My recollection is I wanted to go there. Because really, we have no relationship to any of those kinds of schools. Back to funny story. When I… about that time, and it was in the winter, was in February, I think, I had applied to all these schools and I was now on my schedule. And my dad was still working, you know, hands-on. And I'll never forget, we had an interview at Phillips Andover Academy. And my dad was still, you know, he picked me up, he was still dressed in his work clothes. We went to Phillips, sitting in the admission's building. You know, there's old piano, old room, books, and a fireplace roaring. And it was really warm, and dad was just exhausted. And he just fell asleep. Officer was critiquing my [laughter]. And so, you know, that was kind of my recollection of that episode, which now I think is really funny and is really kind of -- but now I think about it, it's like, "Sure, he was tired. The guy was working really, really hard. He was exhausted." I mean, I dragged him out of the plant to come to this… I knew what was going on, you know, in those days. Not then, you know, they didn't know. They kind of got it from other people, it's the kind of deal was, you know, Philly, you know, that kind of thing. And I think in Deerfield they kind of started to get the idea, because Deerfield was the soul, it really still is. It's just, you know, [unintelligible - 00:49:12]. And don't forget, it was 1966. You know, [GI dye] shirts, long hair, the whole bit. Boom, Deerfield, you know? Coats and ties, suits, you know? You think they were kind of blown away by that. I think they thought to themselves, "This is the best thing that ever happened." You know? My mother tells me now that it broke her heart when I left. 21 LINDA ROSENLUND:What were parents' weekends like or parents'…? JOHN CLEMENTI: It was… it was fine. You have to realize, going back, in a way. And so, you know, I think that kind of went away. There's a kid growing up and that's why I see these Hispanic people working here a lot, and I really emphasize. I know what it's like. You know, they want the same things we want. We all want the same things. But Deerfield was… my parents, I think they're very proud of Deerfield. They… it's something I wish they had, gone to public schools, but quite frankly, I just… in this day and age I just never felt… I just didn't feel that public schools were living up to -- I went to Bancroft school in Worcester, and then they went to Deerfield. My girls went to Deerfield and my son is at Deer- -- I have a long Deerfield tradition. LINDA ROSENLUND:You keep the tradition? JOHN CLEMENTI: But I can get them to go elsewhere but they keep following me. So [unintelligible - 00:51:06] letters at Dartmouth. I have senior and freshmen, both of whom went to Deerfield. They've had wonderful careers. Now I have a son, Alex is a freshmen at Deerfield, and… yeah, I think when I went it was $3,700 a year. It really is. It's a… LINDA ROSENLUND:Follow up with you a little bit, then you decided to pursue a law degree? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah, I went to law school. You know, it's something I wanted to do from when I was in high school, really. And you know, it was… I went to Boston College Law School. But, you know, I had to decide what I wanted to do—did I want to go to a big city and, you know, could I come back here. I'd been interning here for this firm that I eventually joined. And they liked me and I liked them, and so when it came to, you know, the time to figure out what I wanted to do for a living, I'd lived in Boston at that time for three years. And that was great, but I -- there was a 22 chance to, you know, make an impact going back to my hometown and going to a small town all the time. You know, all the time. And, you know, I think it was just… have a guaranteed job in the city and all that stuff. I thought that that's what I wanted to do. So I joined the law firm and… I enjoyed it and had fun. I liked the people a lot and I liked the law a lot. And it was really a joy with people I met in the law. And at the time I was doing mostly litigation. I was mostly in court doing mostly criminal work. And… that was fun. But at a certain point I realized that's not what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life. And just about at the same time I came to that conclusion, this company, Plastican had been formed and had been a going concern for about… seven or eight years. And… we had a plant; you know, in Leominster, about 70,000 square foot plant, and there was potential to get it bigger and to do other things. But my dad, at that point the jobs and so forth became much more specific in a point became this, "Listen, there's a lot to do here. There's a lot of potential here, but I'm at the age where I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to go [unintelligible - 00:53:56] all over the United States to do what we need to do." And so, I thought about it and realized that it was exciting, it was a lot of upside potential, and so I left the law and joined the company, and in sort of a COO, beneath my father. And the first task at hand was to set up some sort of a operation in the west, and so I went out and scouted the west and decided upon Dallas. And we… at the warehouse operation there we built a plant, begin to manufacture product there, and established a plant in Dallas in Texas. That was in 1978. And off we went. And then, a few years later, we realized that we had a plant in the east, a plant in the west, but there was a lot of business in the southeast. Florida 23 was a growing state. Georgia, the Carolinas. We really needed a place, a plant there. And so I, you know, we did the same thing, and I went down to and scouted the Southeast and came upon Macon, Georgia after much research and lots of trips to Georgia. In the meantime we add it on to the plant in Dallas, and since add it on to the plant in Macon. And then three years ago we built, we purchased a plant in Phoenix, Arizona, and so now we have a plant in Arizona. As for the Plastican side, we have four plants, and we're selling people coast to coast, so to speak. LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, you get an experience with the plastic industry? JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, yeah. You know, in high school was the summer job, you know, was… you know, before it was time to go to Italy, in June, July, we worked in the plant, and so… but it was all about in terms of how it works and what you do. I had experience with that. I was here all the time in the summer, so I knew everybody and I knew everything that was going on. Well, you know, that's interesting. Yes, because I did have a part time job after school working at a local accountant's kind of doing arithmet- that was sort of after school from, like, 2:30 to 5:00. So I guess the answer is yes. I don't know how that happened, but I did have a part-time job, yeah. I think it was just the winter, because I didn't play any sports in the winter. LINDA ROSENLUND:… that you were [soft]? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. To be honest with you, I don't remember. I think I probably wanted the money. You know, in high school you could use a little more money. Yeah, I played baseball. It's the sport I cared about most. And I played football too. And that was another reason actually that I went to Deerfield, because Deerfield had great baseball, got my hand at another level. And so that was another impetus. 24 I think they just assumed that that's what kids do. It's interesting because… my parents never saw me play. You know, my dad was always working and my mother, you know, didn't really care, which was fine with me. And… it's another story. My dad saw me play the last game I ever played on the parents' weekend, right before graduation. And it was interesting, because he… you know, he was sitting in the stands and so forth and so on. And… so, we played the game and that was at that. After the game he said to me, "You know, I was talking to this really nice man in the stands, and he said that he thought you were a pretty good player." "Well, that's nice," I said. He said, "Well, you know, it's interesting. His name was DiMaggio." Well, it wasn't Joe DiMaggio, and I don't know if he was related to him. As it turns out, it was Dom DiMaggio, who played for the Red Sox, played centerfield for the Red Sox, and his son Paul was in my class. And, you know, it was kind of funny that, you know, Dom DiMaggio tells my father that kid's pretty good. Who's that kid? And he says, "That's my kid." And it was the only game he ever saw me play. And to this day, I have this sort of… conflict, you know, when I see, you know, soccer moms and little league parents and so forth. I think myself, all the fun I had playing, my parents weren't there. And I'm thinking, "You know, maybe I had a lot of fun because they weren't there." And I didn't have to do anything for anybody, you know? You know, I played, and whatever would happen, happened. And inevitably I had fun, and that was at the end of it. You know, I didn't have any dad telling me what I should have done or mom screaming at me for doing something or -- you know, it was kind of -- I left it there. So when I talk to parents now about that whole thing, you know, who feel compelled to see every single game, the every single practice. And I personally don't feel that way; I just don't 25 feel that way. I go to watch my kid play football, but, you know, if I don't go I don't feel it as a big deal. I don't have to do it. You know, that's another story. And so, the Dom DiMaggio thing was really, was a fun thing, to this day. LINDA ROSENLUND:Did you ever feel like you could go beyond? JOHN CLEMENTI: As I got older I realized how far I was away from going on. At Deerfield I played with guys that went to the major leagues. And, you know, I realized what the difference is. There's a difference, you know? [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:… like who? Who played in the major league? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, there's a guy who's now the coach at Brandeis, a guy named Pete Varney who's a footnote in history because he was the fellow that caught the famous pass in the Harvard-Yale game, 29-29 tie with the… the headline in the school paper was: "Harvard defeats Yale: 29-29." They scored I think, 26 points in, like, three minutes to tie the game, and he caught the extra point that tied the game with no time left on the clock. So Pete Varney was a footnote in history. But he played for the Chicago Red Sox and, you know, he's a big, strapping guy that could really hit. And the, [Ralph Teiner], the announcer of the [unintelligible – 01:00:45] for the Giants was at Deerfield. You know, just the slew of kids. A kid named Willie Roberts who played for the Houston Oilers and footballer Gary Bonner who said, "All the Russian records are…" you know, you can tell. I mean, there's a difference. I wasn't a very good athlete. I was a good player because I really liked the game and I knew how to play it, but I didn't have the ability to become [laughter]. I wish I did, but I didn't. LINDA ROSENLUND:And getting back, we talked about this just a little bit before I turned the recorder on.26 JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, well. I mean, I ask the same question you were asking me. Because their kids, you know, they were… people from our village, from Corfinio, that are living here in Leominster who gave their children Italian names—Sandro, Pulino, Vega, Rosana—I mean, real Italian names, which are lovely and I love -- you know, I love them. And I said, "You know what's this, John? Why not Giovanni?" And dad and mother both said, "No! We named you John on purpose so you wouldn't get stuck with one of those names." Kind of interesting that they were thinking that way. To me it was kind of surprising that they were thinking that, because, you know, I think about it now, my dad was 22 and my mom was 21. It took a little bit of thinking, you know? No, I was born… LINDA ROSENLUND:But coming in, I thought you were born in Italy. JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, that's kind of interesting the way life works too, because she is very similar to me in the sense that her parents immigrated at just about the same time. And they were born in Latvia and were displaced people because they were invaded by the Russians, and then by the Germans. And they were taken to war camps in Germany. And her parents met in the war camp in Germany. All of these people who were displaced people were given the option of returning to their homeland or [remain there]. And because Latvia had been occupied by the Soviet Union, by the Russians, the word had gotten out as to what life was like on the other side. They decided not to go back to Latvia, and I guess were able to immigrate to the United States through the auspices of a church group, essentially as refugees, but even more so. So my wife was born in Germany. They didn't emigrate until… they immigrated though. It's interesting, you know, marrying a Mediterranean, marrying a [unintelligible - 01:03:52], 27 essentially in Nordic culture. But I think the common bind, you know, bound, being bound together by the immigrant thing, we understand a lot of the same things. You know, the bit about all of that stuff. All of the things, the feeling awkward, the sharing understanding of those things. Grew up in New Jersey. And it's really funny, you know, I've… her dad was a very successful contractor. And… she and her siblings all went to private schools. She went to private school. It was sort of like the same thing. The same thing happened, you know. You think you're unique and you realize you're far from it. LINDA ROSENLUND:How did you meet her? JOHN CLEMENTI: Blind date. Blind date. It was the Feast of St. Anthony in the North End. And law school at the time and a friend of mine who was living in Boston who said, "J, you know, my girlfriend has a friend, you know, up from New Jersey," and, you know, "would you like to go out with her?" "Sure, why not?" In those days, and I guess still today, every week in the summer there's some feast or another, and I go up there. It was a bit of a happening, and so… we had a blind date, and that was that. LINDA ROSENLUND:[Unintelligible – 01:05:29] JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, it's really… I think back now, and it really is. Because you know, immigration, from Western Europe was over for the most part, by then. You know, there were very few immigrants that came to this country, you know, much after, 1948, '49. I meant, from Western Europe. I mean, they came from other places, from South America and Asia, Africa, but not many from Western Europe. So, it was -- yeah, it was… I think so. Yeah, definitely. You know, I guess, of the heart, it doesn't work that way. [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:And a different religion. 28 JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, she's a Lutheran. Yeah, I think it… my parents were remarkably disciplined in bearing, in that regard. And so were hers. They were both smart enough to know that, you know, if this has been what's… you know, go along and let's respect the choices and… you know. You know, it's been fine. It's really interesting. They feel both. As I say, my oldest one speaks Italian. My middle one really looks Italian. And my little guy, you know, I think he's at that age where, you know, he doesn't really feel -- but, we went to Latvia last summer, visited Latvia for a week. And it was great because I wanted to go, I wanted to see one of these former Soviet countries and see what life is like there. But it was good for them to see where their grandparents came from and, you know, to really get -- when I say, you know, they've been to both places and I think it's fair to say they feel a real affinity for both places. It really was… the impression you come away with is that it's a country that's really trying hard. Very interesting. You see construction cranes everywhere in the capital city, which is Riga. And very interesting phenomenon there. The country is divided in half ethnically. Half of them are ethnic Russians and half of them are ethnic Latvians. Who are, the Latvians are basically Teutonic in what they are, you know? They're very Germanic. And the Russians are Russian. And there's a real split there. And there's a great deal of resentment left over from the Soviet occupation. And there's resentment both ways. And the leadership of the country is very interesting, because when the country was liberated, children of immigrants -- and immigrants could come back as citizens. And so the prime minister of Latvia is a Canadian woman. And all of the signs in Latvia are written in three languages: Latvian first, English second, and Russians are not too thrilled about that. But the Latvians understand that, 29 you know, English is the -- it's really interesting. I mean, it's just, watching the country develop. You know, the average income there is, like, $250 a month, you know? They email some in Latvia. They're fully aware of everything that's going on in our culture, movies, CNN. Kind of, like… community is in sort of a weak fog, everything that's happened in the last 20 years up an away, and kind of bringing the country into the modern period without having to go through all the baggage of what has gone before. So, it's a real eye opener because all of the vestiges of Soviet domination are still there. I mean, these horribly snotty apartment buildings that are so depressing. You know, it's depressing architecture. And on the other side, avant-garde, hard music. It's a country that is leaping, you know, just jumping right out of the '40s into the, you know, the 2000s without anything in between. And it's happening. LINDA ROSENLUND:Are you hoping to do business…? JOHN CLEMENTI: Honestly, we don't export much of our products, so I never really thought -- on a personal level, no. I think it's just the… it's interesting. You fly through Frankfurt, boom. You know? Connect to Riga. Yeah, it's only an hour. Then from Riga we went to Stockholm, Sweden, which is only an hour. And there's a flight to Estonia. LINDA ROSENLUND:From Stockholm? JOHN CLEMENTI: Mm-hmm. Probably. We were in Stockholm this summer ourselves, we were in June, been there in June. LINDA ROSENLUND:Is there actually, by Stockholm, it was the… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, I was surprised. I don't know why I was surprised, but Stockholm just impressed me massively. It's a really beautiful, beautiful city, very impressive. You know, they have that magnificent park across the bridge, really impressive to me. LINDA ROSENLUND:… all of a sudden they've been able to…30 JOHN CLEMENTI: Infiltrate [laughter]. You know, that's a funny kind of situation. By the time that I became a member of the club, I think there was no longer any need to infiltrate. I think that that had changed completely. I remember a very dear friend of mine who was a member at the time—I was a lot younger—asking me if I wanted to be a member. Really hadn't given it much thought, and I said no. And since I've spoken to Jewish people, it was a real thing there. You know, there was, there were clear notions of the time when a Jewish person couldn't be a member. And I think some of those people sort of said, "Well, you know, that was then. This is now." So, you know, to me, I kind of view it as a… doesn't have nearly as social significance it might have had 20 years ago, or 25 years ago, when it really [unintelligible - 01:12:13]. It's no longer relevant to me. I don't think it's any longer a symbol of anything. I don't think so. LINDA ROSENLUND:No? JOHN CLEMENTI: No, I really don't. No. I think those days are long gone, honestly. You know, they may exist somewhere, you know? In the South, or you know, New York. Maybe it's important what club do you belong, but I don't think it's important at all. SPEKAER 1: … product these days at Plastican? JOHN CLEMENTI: Five-gallon bucket is and always has been the most important product. It's the workhorse of the rigid packaging industry. You know, we package everything from swimming pool chlorine, driveway sealer, paint, driveway, drywall compound, detergents, industrial chemicals, you name it. And back then it's five-gallon buckets. So it's a staple item. Lots of them, but that's the good news. The bad news is there are lots of us doing it, and so it's a very competitive business. You know, technology has always been an important part of what we do, and so…we try to keep on the cutting edge in terms 31 of technology. And only can make them quickly but also to make them well, so that the quality of the product is consistent over time. Packaging products get transported vast distances, and so it's important that the seal is really good and that the product is real good. We purchase recycled resins, and so we manufacture product out of recycled plastic, reclaim containers from customers that want us to so that we can assist in closing the circle. We have a very interesting product, which is the curbside recycling bin, the blue boxes you see on the side of the road. We manufacture those as well, and we manufacture those for the state of Massachusetts. And what we do there is we use recycled resin to manufacture the recycling bins, and so it's kind of -- well, I don't know. The way we kind of divided the tasks in the end, I basically run the day-to-day operations. I'm [unintelligible - 01:14:42] marketing personnel, human resources, purchasing, for the most part, the day-to-day operations of things. My dad, on the other hand, is concerned with things like capital purchases, big machines, molds. And he purchases raw material, resins. You know, the raw material. That's kind of the way we divide things. So, you know, the day-in-day-out headaches are mine. And [unintelligible - 01:15:19] aspect is his. That way, you know, we're constantly talking, so it's… we're always engaged in a dialogue about how we should do this how we should do that. And when one of us is on vacation or away, obviously the other takes up the slack. You know, I think it will continue to be more competitive going forward, you know? With globalization and consolidation, there are fewer and fewer companies to sell to. And this is an issue, that more and more purchasing power. And so the only alternative is to become more and more competitive. So… you know, I will be focusing our efforts on ways in which 32 we can make the company more competitive and more user-friendly to the buyers. One of the things about consolidation is with the added mass these companies are adding, what they do is they expect their vendors to provide more and more by way of service. Whereas you might have had good quality and good price, I think going forward that might not be enough. We have some products for the swimming pool industry in particular that are really innovative. "How I get these darn things off?" And with consumers [unintelligible - 01:16:50] is that you have to make sure that they don't come off. And so if you run into a conflict -- but we think we designed some products that make it easier to take the lid off and put it back on while making sure that nothing leaks in the meantime. So that's where -- I think that's the most exciting item that we're introducing. For those who have a one-gallon paint can, that has revolutionized things as well. LINDA ROSENLUND:Packaging? I mean, do you do everything on…? JOHN CLEMENTI: R&D? Marketing, mostly. So yeah, I will do that here. So this is our latest baby. LINDA ROSENLUND:Is that on the market yet? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. Not yet. LINDA ROSENLUND:… revolution. I think the other… JOHN CLEMENTI: Maybe. [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:Well, you never know… JOHN CLEMENTI: You never know. SPEKAER 1: Is security an issue here? JOHN CLEMENTI: In terms of intellectual property? Yeah, it's an issue everywhere. So far so good, though. I mean, our products have been patented. We spend a lot of time and effort. I think we're pretty secure, but who knows? Here, I think in Plastican we have about 300. I think companywide we -- I think we have a very good 33 track record. I mean, I'd bet that fact that four employees that are going to be celebrating 30 years with us in a couple of months. We have very little turnover management, almost none. As far as our shift employees are concerned, the day shifts are very stable. It's really the -- it goes with the nature of the beast. When you're running 24 hours a day, there are some people that would only work 11 to 7 and 11. And there are other people that would never do it. The toughest shift tends to be 3 to 11, because it's kind of in the middle of the day and… that shift. But other than that, we're pretty fortunate with turnover here. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we're no different from any other manufacturers in the Commonwealth. We have a lot of people of Hispanic -- I think we have a cross section of the people who live here. LINDA ROSENLUND:Can you mention that again? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. Well, we have a lot of Hispanic employees. I'd say it's probably the major ethnic group that we have. And we also have a lot of Asians—Koreans, Vietnamese, Hmong. And so it's pretty much the reflection of the people that live in our area. I would hope so. I'd like to think that we've give people opportunities to advance themselves, you know, professionally, economically. I too provide opportunities to people. As I said before, we've been fortunate in that our recruitment and retention, we've just been very successful people come here. But I think everybody wants to leave a legacy of fairness and opportunity, and I hope to do the same./AT/lj/es
Part two of an interview with Settimio "Babe" Pellechia. Topics include: His children's education. The Italian traditions Babe's family tries to keep. Memories from Lincoln School. How Italians in Leominster were treated while Babe was growing up. Social clubs in the Leominster area. Babe's experience in World War II. His thoughts about September 11th. The Italian Colonial cooperative grocery store. Pride in being Italian. ; 1 SETTIMIO: … did very, very good from the hill. But no, we felt that he lacked the basic knowledge at the very beginning in schooling. The first three years were completely lost. But I think it was no fault of his. He couldn't see, and we didn't know it. We didn't know that he couldn't until one day we had an exam for some reason. He had glasses and he said, "Now I can see the blackboard now." We said, "Why didn't you say that before?" He said, "I thought everybody saw it," you know. So that could have been part of it, too, that he just didn't get it. We believe in education: my daughter had paid for her own education, my daughter went to Smith, and she got a graduate from Harvard. So education is the number one priority. We didn't have it. Isn't that something else? Going through, paying for all that education? LINDA: It is. It's remarkable. So it sounds almost as if it wasn't an option for them to work at the motel or… SETTIMIO: No, no. They had to go to school. They had, definitely. My daughter -- my son-in law -- my daughter always, because she was, she graduated out of Smith with a 3.9, so she just ate up school, and as far as I could -- she just -- I used to help her do her spelling, she insisted. You know, there are three columns of spelling and I'm supposed to bring them down. So what I would do is one night I just went in diagonal and I go back, and she said, "Dad, you missed a word." I said, "Well then, that's enough for me." The only thing that I didn't do with her, which was mean, was on math. She had to struggle for math. And one day she did her homework and she did -- everyone was wrong. 'Cause I always used to help her. So just one night I said, "I'm not going to let her get away with that." So it was all set [unintelligible - 00:02:08]. The next night she comes home crying, she said, "You made me get a zero!" I said, "No, you got the zero yourself. You didn't put anything into it." So then I would help her, but she would check. And if I knew she didn't find [unintelligible - 00:02:22], which was, I think even though that she got a zero, it helped her, I think. 2 LINDA: You were talking about Lincoln Terrace and how people had pigs and chickens and gardens. Did you and your wife do that also? SETTIMIO: My wife? LINDA: You and your wife. Did you keep gardens and chickens? SETTIMIO: With all that we had to do? No. LINDA: I could have guessed. I just wanted to know the different generation. SETTIMIO: Nope. My wife always liked that work that she did out there, and I liked what I did. You know? LINDA: Have you kept many of the traditions alive in your family? The Italian traditions? SETTIMIO: Naturally it kind of falls apart. We do a big Christmas meal. We [unintelligible - 00:03:23] children come over, or if they can't make it, because there are times they couldn't make it, [unintelligible - 00:03:29] Thanksgiving. But [unintelligible - 00:03:32] when my mother-in-law was living, we spent a lot of time with her on weekends and so forth. That was strictly all-Italian, you know. Her mom lived to be 99, and she did all the things like that. She was -- she could crochet a bedspread in one month, she'd do a whole bedspread. [Unintelligible - 00:04:00] doing her own cooking, 99 and doing her own cooking and everything. So that's it, but we've got the tradition with that. We got close to her like that. Actually, my parents were gone. You know, they died long before that. LINDA: Who was your closest friend growing up? SETTIMIO: My closest friend when? LINDA: When you were growing up in Leominster. SETTIMIO: In Lincoln Terrace we were all friends; all the guys were very friendly. We all went together. In fact, being in school, in Lincoln School, when I was in sixth grade, I had all I could do to get Cs in spelling and English and anything like that. You know, I just worked hard and I just gotta get a C. But in math I was always a straight A. So at the end of the year, when the principal would ask who was the smartest one in the class, and by all means, I wasn't the smartest, but all of Lincoln Terrace would vote for me, 3 so she got sort of mad. She said, "Now I know Settimio knows math, but we've got people smarter than him in all subjects. Now, we'll have one more vote. We will not have any election this year," she said. That's how close people were. LINDA: So you were going to school at…? SETTIMIO: Lincoln School. LINDA: So was it mostly Italians there? SETTIMIO: Yeah, that school was. LINDA: Do you remember the teachers? SETTIMIO: Mrs. Blunt was the Principal, Mrs. Taylor was the fifth grade, Mrs. Benz was special. I think the others were the younger ones: Mrs. Heinz and Mrs. Lane was there. I think they had newer ones too. But I have to say I don't think they were fair to the Italian people on different things. I like to see justice and so forth, and I don't think there was any justice in that school for the Italian people. LINDA: Can you give me an example? SETTIMIO: Hmm? LINDA: Can you give me an example? SETTIMIO: Just remarks they'd make and so forth. [Unintelligible - 00:06:25] school system. LINDA: That's right. There's a lot of Italians there. A lot of Italians were in education. So you were giving me an example, or you were about to give me an example of how you thought maybe some of the teachers weren't fair at Lincoln School? SETTIMIO: That's the feeling you'd get. Describing something now would be difficult, but in one case, even my brother, the teacher asked, "What makes a good centerpiece in every Italian home that had a bottle of wine on the table?" And he said that he got expelled for a week. They asked the question, and that was his honest answer. So that the -- that was one case that really stuck out when they did that. 4 LINDA: So it sounds as though the teachers really didn't know anything about the culture or the tradition. SETTIMIO: I don't think they cared either. LINDA: They didn't need to care until one became a principal. SETTIMIO: Like I said, I went there six years, and I'm not talking -- mostly the higher up, two old ladies were what they were by then. So old that you could just see it, remarks, much like my remarks and so forth that they… LINDA: Well, speaking about ethnic differences, did you notice anything in Leominster growing up? SETTIMIO: I noticed while we were growing up that people of Italian descent had a rough deal as far as city hall, the banks, especially. They never got a fair shake. Never during that whole time. The difference today is that almost all of our politicians are Polish or Italian, like when you see almost any principal, all but one is Italian. So that's the biggest difference that I can see that's happened. I had a banker tell me when I was billing up and the president of the bank said to me -- I wanted to get some money, to borrow some money, and he says, "You know, you can spoil a baby by giving him too much candy." I said, "I really didn't come here to get candy. I came here to get money." He said, "Well, you've done well. You should just stay where you are," and let it go like that. That's the banker telling me, so I says, "Well, I didn't come here for your opinion either." I said, "I'm still looking for money." So with that, he said, "Well you've got money in this bank." So while I'm sitting at the time, I just saw the door of the bank had gold leaf at that time, Capital, and so forth, Reserve. So I said, "Could you explain to me why the bank would need a reserve?" He said, "Well, you've got to draw," he says, you know, "on the money," he says we've gotta -- I said, "You're asking me to do something you yourself believe in? You want me to take my reserve of my savings and go with other reserves?" With that, he finally gave me the money. 5 But that's funny with banks, with banks I always find it funny you've got to have an answer for everything because they just try to talk you out of things. That's what they do. When I built the motel, that was the time when -- this is the other bank, Savings Bank -- they said, "We'd like to loan you the money. We feel you can do it, but we don't know about your wife. What would she be able to do?" I said, "My wife is able to -- I can prove to you -- my wife was all upset thinking I'd get the loan." He said, "Well, yeah." But I says I've got so much insurance policy, and the whole loan would be paid up with insurance policy. "Is that good enough, sir?" Security, and I got the money. So you had to play with them at that time, and I still think it was because of who we were. LINDA: When did you see that start to change? SETTIMIO: Hmm? LINDA: When did you see that start to change? SETTIMIO: They started dying off and the Italian population kept increasing. They all knew that group for what it is there. We've got to look at [unintelligible - 00:11:31]. I'm sorry I keep… LINDA: That's okay. SETTIMIO: In 25, 30 years we'll probably learn the same thing with the Spanish people. If they fill out the note they're going to be allowed to do what we did, and I hope they do as well as we did. LINDA: Did you see your children go through any of the hardship that you went through? SETTIMIO: No. No. They don't know what hardship is. LINDA: But they're successful anyway? SETTIMIO: Hmm? LINDA: But they are successful anyway? SETTIMIO: Yeah, yeah. They are, yeah. LINDA: Why do you think that is? SETTIMIO: Well, of course they knew they would always have whatever they need from us, and then we always ingrained in them to go out and do better and 6 keep doing things, like -- my daughter didn't take that much, she absorbs education. She was very, very good at that. My son, we had to kind of push him a little bit, but he's glad now that we did that because he notices a difference. LINDA: So did you feel it was equally important for your daughter to have an education? Did she go to Worcester Academy too? SETTIMIO: No. She didn't need it. She graduated with all these kids [unintelligible - 00:12:56] while we lived in Sterling. So, National Honors Society. She got it all as far as marks. LINDA: Would you like to tell me a little bit about the clubs that you had joined? SETTIMIO: The one was -- we mentioned the Italian Society on there. I'm somewhat disappointed it wasn't what it was supposed to be. I really thought what I wanted was a culture society, where we have -- where they teach Italian, where they have Italian plays and Italian speakers, and it didn't turn out that way. They spent a lot of money and made a big place out of it. It's almost -- which they hardly use it, but you need somebody coming in to pay for the bills. So I just call it a glorified ballroom now. So that wasn't -- I didn't like that too much. LINDA: I didn't take the information. Were there any clubs that you had joined in your younger years, or ones that your father and mother had belonged to? SETTIMIO: No, because they faded out. My father belonged to a couple of clubs but they pretty much starting fading out by the time we would be ready for that. I was really active in a lot of other things, charitable things. I've been Director of the Red Cross. I spent 22 years in a hospital as a cooperator trustee and on the executive board. I was President of the [unintelligible - 00:14:46] Club, which is a men's Rotary Club in Sterling. And then I did my bit as far as charity work and so forth. I felt someone's been very, very good to me, and that's why I got into the charitable end of it, to help out.7 LINDA: You see that continuing with this next generation? Do you see that volunteer, that commitment to give back to the community in the next generation? SETTIMIO: I really don't know. I hope they do. I know I really felt -- and I used to say I like that the hospital I fought for was doing something for the benefit of the people. I would always say so, you know. They were going to do certain things, and I said, "This would be better and cheaper." And that's all I could contribute until it started getting away -- I finally left when we got an administrator that just liked to spend money. So after 22 years I said, "You don't need to spend money. Anybody could spend money." So I resigned at that time. The Historical Society, I've been a Director there for years. I'm still on there right now. LINDA: How did -- has faith played an important part of your life? An important role in your life? SETTIMIO: What was that? LINDA: Faith? SETTIMIO: Absolutely. Absolutely. You've got to have faith, you have to be charitable, gotta be fair to one another. That's all really, really important, I feel. LINDA: Think that's an Italian cultural …? SETTIMIO: I've always thought of it that way, yep. See, but oftentimes you take some of the older people, I say that they probably could have done even better, but because they had to work to get to where they were, they just didn't have time for some of those things. So I think they would have been a lot better off, a lot better. I know that. Yeah. LINDA: Another question: getting back to the banks and maybe how they weren't fair enough, did the Leominster Credit Union play a big part in our helping, let's say, Italians in Leominster? SETTIMIO: Italians in Leominster? They were sympathetic to the Italian calling I'd say, but whether they helped or not I don't know that part. Credit-wise, I know they didn't help us in the building. Nobody had the opportunity to 8 sell them anything. And I said this to [Seth] at the time. He was [unintelligible - 00:17:46] he called me up, said, "Some people want to see you. You've got to make money." So the last time I said, "Do you even realize, Seth, that the only way that people will give you money is they've got to earn it?" He had taken me to this bank in New Haven. Not once did they even entertain taking in a bid from me. I said, "You won't be able to get money anymore." The Credit Union did this. I was a little bitter. But they had the opportunity, which I didn't like. I didn't think that was fair; that was -- probably that's one of the things that bothers me most about as long as you belong to when all our lives you got the big jobs. You work hard to get it. I know that my father, it never bothered him how much time he spent figuring jobs as long as he had the opportunity to bid on it. But when they didn't even give you that opportunity, and if you're high you just say "We can get it done cheaper," and that's the end of it. But don't just ignore them. Or even at the hospital, one time we got some bids for some work and a friend of mine asked, he wanted to bid the job. I said, okay, so I talked to the board, I said, "This, also, would like to bid the job." I says, "He's a low bidder. You'll want to give a job." He became the lone bidder and they didn't give him a job. You know, that night, I told them at the meeting, I said, "I don't think this -- I've done this all my life and I don't believe in it. You shouldn't have had him bid if you didn't want to give him the job, because it takes time and money to do that bid. It just isn't fair." LINDA: Just two more things: what was your hardest experience in your life? SETTIMIO: Three years in World War II. That was quite difficult. LINDA: Would you like to explain a little bit? SETTIMIO: Huh? LINDA: Would you like to explain a little bit or share a story? SETTIMIO: No, we're always a family in our own home, and to be away like that. And then under the conditions that you had to live in that you would think you 9 did. But you said the worst thing, that's doing that, although it turned out, I came back, no problems. But even then I worked -- I had to fight to get -- to the top. Now, I was in heavy artillery and, my job was handling 96-pound shells, and of course I just felt that there were better things in life than handling 96-pound shells. There was no future in it. So I hung out with the boys in the survey section, there were eight of them. They did the computing, running the transits, computing for these -- because we had this survey, anything you did on it. And I learned anything that there was to learn on it, and when OCS came, that's officer's training, they get anybody to go that likes to go, and of course the survey is supposedly the brains of the battalion, there's six of them that left for OCS. So I asked permission from -- through the first sergeant and my captain that I'd like to get on survey. And he was nice to me, real nice. He took me a bunch of papers like this here, and they had all these on all circled around, and then they put parts between them. And he said, "I'm going to shake this, and all the cards that fall out, if your name's in there, you can get on survey." My name didn't fall out. And he said, "Now let's see why." Ninth grade -- you have to be a minimum of a high school graduate to get on it, because it required trigonometry and you don't get trigonometry in the ninth grade. You get algebra but you don't get trig. So I said, "But I can do it." He said, "I can't promise you nothing." He said, "You stay with your shells." I still kept there, I started doing it, and I became the -- I became the chief computer -- the [unintelligible - 00:22:24] operator, which wasn't all too good with all the shell people in back now that I'm on the front-line. If we can see the enemy, they can see us. So the payoff. LINDA: I just want you to end with asking you about how you feel about September 11th, what's happening in the country now. SETTIMIO: Terrible, the whole thing is real, real uncalled for. I don't know why you'd have to do something like that. You know, it's murder -- it just gets 10 me that they, that they [unintelligible - 00:23:05] for the world and shelling them and killing civilians. What did they do? Kill 10 people, there's a big [unintelligible - 00:23:16] about it. They killed almost 6,000, let alone the damage. The damage can always be fixed, but lives -- life is gone, you know. Once it's gone, it's gone. So I don't know what the -- what's going to happen. We got to do something to -- somewhere along the line though we've changed. We used to -- every year, immigrants had to register at the post office. Why did they discontinue that in this country? I don't know if you remember that, do you? Every year you had to go to the post office if you were an immigrant, your address, what you're doing and so forth. So they actually were [unintelligible - 00:23:59] they knew where all -- if they still had that, they would know that these guys, number one, that their visas had gone past and so forth. LINDA: I often wonder what the veterans of let's say World War II feel about the men going to fight now, because at least you knew who the enemy was. SETTIMIO: You don't know who the enemy is in this. This is what they -- you have to fight their game, which isn't -- there again, it's not fair. [Unintelligible - 00:24:37] we fought the Germans. We knew what they did. They were in front of us, we were on one side, you knew what you were doing. But to have somebody you can -- somebody in your home and you got terrorists and just get information, the next day you could be gone. LINDA: Anything else you'd like to share? SETTIMIO: Huh? LINDA: Is there anything else you'd like to share with us? SETTIMIO: One of the other things I thought is -- you see that package right there? That little one right there? You organize this; you're at the grocery store. He closed his grocery store so the Italian Colonial could start. LINDA: What was the Italian Colonial? SETTIMIO: Huh?11 LINDA: I don't -- what was the Italian Colonial? SETTIMIO: A grocery store. LINDA: A grocery store? SETTIMIO: [Unintelligible - 00:25:28] be one up there and they became a cooperative. They all bought shares, and he moved his grocery store right next to the other one with all the stuff that we had, you know. We wanted to leave once they start that. LINDA: Well… SPEAKER 3: They were all Italians that got together and formed this cooperative, Colonial -- SETTIMIO: [Unintelligible - 00:25:54]. SPEAKER 3: And when they finally disbanded, they all formed their own little corner stores [unintelligible - 00:26:03]. LINDA: So what was they -- where did they get -- would they be growing their own produce and bring it in, and… SPEAKER 3: Some of them did that. SETTIMIO: Oh no, they bought it. They bought everything, like a legitimate store [unintelligible - 00:26:20] -- I keep moving this don't I? LINDA: That's okay though, that's not important. SETTIMIO: Yes it is, or you wouldn't have it. LINDA: Or I wouldn't touch it. You're right. SETTIMIO: No, but the -- he was very instrumental in helping on getting this Italian Colonial, because he -- number one, if he can close his store, [unintelligible - 00:26:40] but… and then the other thing was bringing the Italian Colonial, you know, the Lincoln Hall in Leominster, which is now Saint Anne's Church, they started the Lincoln Hall, I believe, when -- in 1926, I believe it was. And it was -- the main purpose of it was to naturalize as many Italians as they could. They wanted to move their building because at that time all the different Italians that come from different parts -- Italy was not unified at that time. 12 It wasn't unified until I think in 1961, '56 or something like that, but all these people -- if one club was running the hall, the other clubs wouldn't go. One of those things that they -- that's why the Lincoln Hall failed, contrary to what their remarks they made in the book in the office at Saint Anne's. They said they foreclosed on them -- they foreclosed because none of them would join it. They shouldn't have lost that, you know. LINDA: So why is it they wouldn't join? SPEAKER 3: Parts of Italy, [Forgia, Saladini, Graphinio] had their own [unintelligible - 00:28:05]. SETTIMIO: You could almost [unintelligible - 00:28:08] Boston and then New York and then somebody in Chicago. If the guy in Chicago is on the organization we don't want nothing to do with it, and New York we don't if we're doing it, they don't want to, and that's what happened to that Lincoln Hall, which we can't -- that was one of the bad things the Italian Colonial let go. We don't -- otherwise we wouldn't have Saint Anne's now. So everything turned out pretty well. LINDA: Like who was Lincoln Hall -- who was affiliated with Lincoln Hall, which group? SETTIMIO: All the Italians. LINDA: Oh, so it was a mixture. SPEAKER 3: The functions they would hold there, if one little group was holding a dance or a social event, the other groups stayed away. SETTIMIO: [Unintelligible - 00:28:51]. This is a letter that was written in 1929, as much of it is in Italian, I don't know if you can understand it. But what it is that unless the people joined and paid their dues, they're going to lose the hall. They didn't do it, so… SPEAKER 3: Sounds like your brother, your brother. SETTIMIO: [Unintelligible - 00:29:24]. LINDA: So you said they were trying to naturalize as many Italians as they could. So Italians from any region? SETTIMIO: [Unintelligible - 00:29:34].13 LINDA: In Leominster or any region? SPEAKER 3: Yes. Danny [Cato]? SETTIMIO: Huh? SPEAKER 3: Danny Cato was on this Italian American [unintelligible - 00:29:45]. SETTIMIO: This is the bleeding Italian Americans in Massachusetts. LINDA: Oh, that's an honor. That's your father, right? SPEAKER 3: Mm-hmm. LINDA: So Ann, do you have anything to add? Can you think of anything? SPEAKER 3: Oh, you were speaking about that cooperative grocery store. Is that where some of the people, when they sold out, they would open up their own store like Chet's Grocery, [unintelligible - 00:30:24], all those little stores? SETTIMIO: Nemo had a little store too. SPEAKER 3: Who did? SETTIMIO: Nemo also. SPEAKER 3: Nemo? SETTIMIO: Yeah, it was very lucrative. You hear [unintelligible - 00:30:35]. I'll just tell you a little story about that. My father wanted to get it going good and at the time [unintelligible - 00:30:43] made cash registers, and he had six-drawer cash registers, so each clerk would have to punch their own if they bought it. So my father suggested that the salesmen should go there and sell it, and maybe it would keep them honest, you know, they'd have their own cash box. So at the last minute, my father told the salesman the night of the meeting, he says, "Now don't get alarmed, I'm going to vote against it." He says, "You called me, and now you're going to vote against it?" He said, "If I vote for it, they won't buy it." They bought it, they never used it. LINDA: So the coop -- did different people sell different things? SETTIMIO: Oh no, it was all -- it was a regular store but it was just owned by a cooperative. SPEAKER 3: It was owned by all of them.14 SETTIMIO: This is interesting too, nothing to do with Leominster, but [unintelligible - 00:31:33] they had in Boston in 1492 when Columbus -- it was unbelievable what they did [unintelligible - 00:31:43] try and list it on that. But you see where they -- just the parade and all -- look the way they decorated their buildings. LINDA: Wow, this is to celebrate Columbus Day? SETTIMIO: Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's all parades and all that. There's a state house. It's so unusual. There were no Italians -- I went through this. I couldn't find an Italian name, but it was a big deal for Columbus. Now, in 1992, nothing was done. LINDA: Wow. I know with my children in school, nowadays there's a big discussion whether or not you should even celebrate Columbus Day. SETTIMIO: [Unintelligible - 00:32:28], mm-hmm. SPEAKER 3: But October is the Italian Heritage Month and they have functions going on almost every day, either here or in Boston or some other place where there are Italians. LINDA: That brings up something interesting though. Did you -- when growing up, did you feel proud of Christopher Columbus and that he was an Italian? Do you remember? SETTIMIO: We felt proud of anyone that was Italian. [Unintelligible - 00:33:00] proud of any American that's done unusual things. I don't feel too proud when they name a building for some politician that got paid all his life and had to -- 15, 20, 30 years they name a building after him. What did he contribute actually as far as for the benefit of the people? But we still keep doing that, you know. SPEAKER 3: There are a lot of things -- there are a lot of Italians that have contributed to the world as we see it today, as we know it today, in the arts and the music, and… SETTIMIO: Did you read the one that I had -- the Italian [unintelligible - 00:33:45]? Did you ever see that one? Yeah? LINDA: No, no… where did this come from? From an Italian American?15 SPEAKER 3: I think I saw this on the board at the Italian Center in Leominster. LINDA: Do your children consider themselves Italian American? SPEAKER 3: Oh yeah. SETTIMIO: I hope so. I know my daughter; she spent more time in Italy than she does here now. Sabbaticals and so forth. In fact she's going there for -- she just got a grant to go there with the grade eight students, give a lecture over there. [Unintelligible - 00:34:30] also, you know, different parts of Rome and Florence and [unintelligible - 00:34:36]. SPEAKER 3: She has a doctorate in Italian. She has a doctorate in Italian History. SETTIMIO: She can read even the old script Italian. She's really -- she spent a lot of time there. She spent six years in Florence, so she can really -- in fact my daughter's very thin and so forth. We went up to visit her one day and went to the grocery store, and I saw my daughter do something that she never did. She literally, with her little frame, pushed a big Italian lady in the line. I said, "Linda, where did you learn that?" She said, "Dad, I'll be at the end of the line all day if I didn't do that." That's what they do. So she learned she's got to get in there. SPEAKER 3: Make her way. LINDA: Where does she teach? SETTIMIO: University of Delaware. LINDA: Oh. SETTIMIO: Yeah. LINDA: Have you -- you ever gone back to Italy? SETTIMIO: Oh yeah. I've been there three times. My wife keeps going, but she goes a little more than I do, because women like to travel more than men. My wife likes to travel. She's been to Jerusalem three times. She's been to Kenya; we both went to South America. LINDA: Did you ever go back to the village of your father? SETTIMIO: Went back up to where my mother was born and where my father was, and also where she was born. You know that. LINDA: Well, thank you.16 SETTIMIO: That's all? We're done? LINDA: It was a long time, two hours. Aren't you tired? It's tiring. SETTIMIO: I just tried to accept what I'm going to do every year what my father did from 19-, from when he came here up until he passed away. I want to make it complete. [Unintelligible - 00:36:47] yeah. That's one project I got to do. The other project I got to do is I got a lot of movie pictures that I took, and I want to put those on VHS and break them down. I got the floods of '38, and I got parades and all that sort of stuff, and I got also Saint Anne's -- the opening of Saint Anne's dedication. SPEAKER 3: Very good history. SETTIMIO: I have a library, and I'm a collector [unintelligible - 00:37:23] stuff. I'm proud of a lot of it too. I got all the directories going back -- that's why it was so easy to do this. I have all these downstairs, these books. I also have it on Fitchburg, I go back Fitchburg 1880, and I keep buying local history, whatever I can get, or anything that originally was made in Leominster, so forth. [Unintelligible - 00:37:51] LINDA: It's interesting. SETTIMIO: The only thing is time is running out. LINDA: Oh, it seems like you come from a long line. It seems like people live a long time in your family. SETTIMIO: Well, they try to do it. Whether they make it or not, I don't know. Time will tell. LINDA: Well, don't give up. SPEAKER 3: Don't give up. SETTIMIO: Oh, no. SPEAKER 3: You have a lot of good work here. SETTIMIO: Huh? SPEAKER 3: You have a lot of good things here. LINDA: Did you mention to me that you had your mother's -- maybe your grandmother's wedding dress? SETTIMIO: Yes, I have it.17 SPEAKER 3: Your mother's or your grandmother's? SETTIMIO: My mother's. SPEAKER 3: Your mother's wedding dress. LINDA: Wow. SPEAKER 3: That was 19 -- what? What year? SETTIMIO: They got married what would be the year 1902, I think, or something like that. LINDA: Wow. SETTIMIO: Would you like to see it? LINDA: I'd like to. SETTIMIO: I think it's in the closet. LINDA: Okay, hold on. This is the end of the interview. /AT/pa/rjh/es
Part one of an interview with Maria Mendoza of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Topics include: Maria Mendoza's parents were born in Portugal, but she was born in Bedford, MA. How she and her husband moved to Fitchburg, MA because of his work in the cotton industry. Her first impressions of Fitchburg and what the city was like when she first moved there. Her work as a stitcher. Her education. Her feelings about politics and government in the U.S. Her feelings about Fitchburg today. How she spends her leisure time. ; 1 WAYNE LUCIER: December 1st, 1973, interview conducted by Wayne Lucier. Place of interview, Mrs. Mendoza's home. Your name, please. MARY MENDOZA: Mary Mendoza. WAYNE LUCIER: And your nationality. MARY MENDOZA: Portuguese descent. WAYNE LUCIER: And your age. MARY MENDOZA: 62. WAYNE LUCIER: Date of birth. MARY MENDOZA: June 15, 1911. WAYNE LUCIER: And what generation are you? Were you born in the United States? MARY MENDOZA: Yes, that would be the second generation now. WAYNE LUCIER: And your present address. MARY MENDOZA: 9 Exeter Street, Fitchburg, Mass. WAYNE LUCIER: And your phone number. MARY MENDOZA: 2-2286. WAYNE LUCIER: And what city were you born? MARY MENDOZA: New Bedford, Mass. WAYNE LUCIER: Okay. And when did you come to Fitchburg? MARY MENDOZA: Hmm, 1941. WAYNE LUCIER: And like from, from New Bedford, when-when you were born, where else did you go? MARY MENDOZA: Springfield. Oh, what, I didn't [go to] Springfield now, don't I, because I lived in Springfield anyway. WAYNE LUCIER: You went from New Bedford directly to Springfield? MARY MENDOZA: Well, we went, uh, Chicopee before, but then I didn't like the place where we lived in and we moved to Springfield. WAYNE LUCIER: And why did you, why did you move to these places? MARY MENDOZA: Because his work, yeah. He has to go and work in there, in Springfield, so there's too much driving. WAYNE LUCIER: Why did you come into Fitchburg? MARY MENDOZA: Mm, the cotton industry. We went in after my husband had to come for the [mildew] and shot at [your health] there. In that, he was attorney to handle some, manage some people in the night shift. 2 WAYNE LUCIER: Before you came here, what kind of jobs did you hold? MARY MENDOZA: Myself was stitching. WAYNE LUCIER: Throughout the whole time? MARY MENDOZA: No. I was a supervisor, because I went up. I went in, I cut the work… well, stitched part of that time, too. WAYNE LUCIER: Before you came here, what did you know about Fitchburg? MARY MENDOZA: Nothing, just my husband, the boss, the superintendent of the cotton industry brought him here. WAYNE LUCIER: What did you think about it after you got here? MARY MENDOZA: Well, I thought it was a nice, old city, small, but peaceful. My thoughts and my mind was always in New Bedford, but after a while, my son was born here and I kind of, you know, learned to like Fitchburg. The only thing that bothers me is what the politicians are doing to it. WAYNE LUCIER: Even then? The politicians were… MARY MENDOZA: No, they were peaceful. We had enough. We had everything we needed if we wanted to work for it. Now, they give us this, give us that, then they turn around and take all we, all the dollars we have, together, put together all those years. And they call it "to help the people." Let the people help themselves, and they're fine. Unless they're sick, they shouldn't be so much helpless. They call it "help." WAYNE LUCIER: Where did you live in Fitchburg when you came? MARY MENDOZA: When we came over here, we went to Marine- WAYNE LUCIER: Maryland. MARY MENDOZA: Maryland, yeah, Maryland. WAYNE LUCIER: And then from there you came… MARY MENDOZA: And then we went to Edwards Street. They sold the house where I was, so I went to Edwards Street. And then we bought this house. WAYNE LUCIER: And all these homes, did you own these homes or…? MARY MENDOZA: No, just this one. WAYNE LUCIER: Were they… MARY MENDOZA: They were rented.3 WAYNE LUCIER: And were there a lot of people living there? You know what I mean, where… MARY MENDOZA: No, one was a cottage, and the other one was a two-family apartment. WAYNE LUCIER: And in this district, were the people… MARY MENDOZA: Oh, those days, they had about 10 children, I guess, [from us]. WAYNE LUCIER: Were they Portuguese people or they were just… MARY MENDOZA: They were French people. But to me, they were people and they were nice people, poor people. But that's why I compare now – things now and then. Then they were so poor, they used to put beans, green beans in a bowl with milk and they call it a feast. Now we have so much. I used to say, you know, once in a while, I used to give things to them because – and they were so pleased with life. They were a paper girl and a paper boy, and they help the father. The name, the middle name was LeBlanc, but the dad name's [nothing]. And yet, they seem to have certain happiness. Now that they have so much in name, yet it isn't enough. My gosh! I never had no trouble, because my heart was here, the day my mother put me in school, you know, to know your language and all that, but she had a summer house there, so that made it… she left me there, and of course, I didn't want it. We come back after my father died and we struggled. She had no social securities, no nothing. Ten children and we get together, and we get along all right. But those times, there was no help of any kind. I remember when they used to – Mr. Simmons, you give him $3 a week, warfare, and he was so grateful. They paid his rent, which in those days was about $2.50 for a three-room apartment. And he was so grateful. Now, they're getting $20 a head and more, but still they holler because they don't go to work, you know. That's why when I get to politicians, you get my blood way up in the air. But the country that I loved to be, it's just like before, not the way in the depression time. That was a bad time. Still, we could depend, we could trust people. Now, we have more than what we need—not everybody, but the biggest part of it—and we can enjoy nothing 4 because we have no faith, no leader, no… That's what's bothering me about the country and about my son and his children. For us, you know, we're almost there. WAYNE LUCIER: Almost there where? MARY MENDOZA: In heaven, I hope. WAYNE LUCIER: [Laughs] MARY MENDOZA: Close to it. WAYNE LUCIER: One foot in the door, huh. MARY MENDOZA: Yeah. Well, before, I never even bothered with politicians, and now with peace, now that I decided for… but going on two years now, I decided to think if there was anything that I could do or help, you know, on my [own], because if everybody does a little something, then the little in every home or in every family would help the country finally. But I told you, I'm sorry, I did, because it gets my blood boiling. I can see it, but all I have is grammar and people that go to colleges and have they call it an education and yet they can't, they do nothing about it. I don't know. So you see, when there's not much that I can say, even the prices are so high that you can't touch this, you can't touch that. Even that, I wouldn't mind it if we had a good leader and if we had some kind of a love in our country, but they bring so many people from all over the world, they each get their different ideas, and mixing them together, of course something's going to blow up. But I shouldn't tell you this, because you know more than I do anyway. But you asked me how I feel. It's a terrible feeling that you can't explain it. And even prayer kind of gets mixed up. Your mind is wondering what's going to be the next minute. WAYNE LUCIER: When you were younger, what type of jobs did you hold? MARY MENDOZA: Well, I've been a stitcher all the way; most of it is stitch. WAYNE LUCIER: How did you learn this? Is this something your mother taught you or you just learned to pick it up? MARY MENDOZA: No. I went to the shop and I guess I asked Mr. Silverman for a job. And he asked me what did I know about the job. I told him nothing. We had a sewing machine, you know, not a [farm]5 machine, a sewing machine. I used to make an apron or… it wasn't me already to cut this, cut that. He says, "Would you bring, come tomorrow and bring some of the things that you did?" And I went home and I couldn't think of anything that I thought was good to show them. So I took myself a dress and an apron that I had bought all a bunch of cloth for $1.00 and took it to him. "Did you did that?" I had made a dress for a doll, but when I was small, I never had a doll. Then somebody, you know, I get a price, a dollar, and I was made a dress. So he says, "Why don't you go in that machine and you play with these pieces of cloth? Do anything you want." And so I made a dress for my doll. And from thereon, you know, I was – he says, "I'm going to give you a job. There was the floor walking. I want you to help me. When some work is wrong, you tell them that; show them what they did wrong. We take it out of the block." I said, "I don't have enough education for that." She says, "Well, just mark one dress out." And from thereon, you know, when I get away, [unintelligible - 00:09:33] I could hand in my papers and mark with kind of cloth, how many yards, what I did and all that. So that's how I learned it, at work. WAYNE LUCIER: Where was this first place? It was in -- MARY MENDOZA: Silverman and Sons, New Bedford, Mass. I worked there nine years. It's a dress shop. And from then on, I get out of there was, well, I don't like to get myself fancy [battle], but it doesn't work with me. But I used to be an assistant to the floor walk. She put me like, you know, there's [above] a hundred bills' work and there 400 bills is a lot of work and we checked the work. And anything that we think that wasn't going to pass, we put it in a box and I sit in a machine next to the office and fix it in some way, surely it can be done. She said, "Use your imagination. Whatever you do, it's done." Those days we're making, I think it was $14 a week. And boy, that was a big pay for me. It was big, because the other girls were making five or six dollars. And I thought, see, the language didn't do… I pay attention to what she said, because I could scribble like any human being that comes from Europe and he 6 takes that paper with their parents with somebody there that they know from [unintelligible - 00:10:49], they can do it. In three months' time, I could write a letter. Not like you do, or you know, the people who go to school, but I could write it. If I could do it those days, then everything goes so slow. The kids today are so smart. They want me to tell me that they need all this spending money and that they do it or not. Oh, I wish I had the chance to talk to that [girl]. He's trying now, but I think it's a bit late. Well, never too late, I guess, they say. So that's the way it is. And, you know, the two of us together, we bought our home. We always had our car. I don't call my house luxury because everything is going to be 40 years that I'm married next April. So everything is old but that. The rest is all furnished. They rented things that is in there. It's not all new, but it's not the one, the furnishing I had. And still, you know, we're happy, until this crooked stuff come up. That's the only complaint I got about it. Not the country, but the politicians. I love the country. WAYNE LUCIER: Do you belong in any clubs? MARY MENDOZA: No. I belong to the guild in the church but I quit, because in some of them, we go to the cottage so I never – I mean no meats or nothing, so I told the priest, I can't belong to anything which we enjoy very much when we go down there. It's just a little weekend near the water. WAYNE LUCIER: Where's this? MARY MENDOZA: In the Buzzards Bay. Fairhaven is the town. We pay the tax. And now you can't even go there. That's not funny when you work so hard and we had so much. The country have plenty and look what… Oh, gosh, going… I don't know. No matter what I say, it ends up on the… And I was so happy that I was going to retire this year. And, you know, going here, not going too much in it anyway. Just going a bit, that's enough good time for me. And I don't do any more than I would do at home, but just go and wipe my feet, go in the water, that I enjoy very much and the air. That's the way things are now. You stay home and get old to the point 7 that there's no faith of any kind all because of the… oh, gosh, no, it's really terrible. And the young people, they have so much power. There's so much – not understanding, they don't have any, but so much knowledge, and yet they don't put it to good use. They put it to steal. That people can't keep their doors, they can't go out in peace and say, "When I want to go home, would I have the junks that I left home?" It's not a – I don't know, you can't put into words. WAYNE LUCIER: Things have to get better anyway. MARY MENDOZA: Oh, they have to because if this is it, the good Lord will punish all of us, because, you know, it's really too much. They go stealing. Murderers walk free. That's really… Only they think they're doing some good to themselves, and how wrong they are. There going to be a time where they don't have no body and no soul to go with it. WAYNE LUCIER: What type of education did you have? MARY MENDOZA: Fifth grade? WAYNE LUCIER: What city was it? MARY MENDOZA: Oh, it was in New Bedford, A. Lincoln School, Abraham Lincoln Elementary School that I went to. And there was sitting among us, there's love for the Abraham Lincoln story that I could learn most anything. And I was 17 years old already. WAYNE LUCIER: Do they mix boys and girls in classes? MARY MENDOZA: Yeah. Then it's always the funny ones that don't want to learn. They're cracking jokes, and there's a couple of serious ones. I don't know, she says, "Well, you don't belong with these. Where did you go to school?" I said, "I didn't." I went to school, you know, in Europe, in school which [unintelligible - 00:14:48] high school I finished there. But that was it. Over there, they call it high school the way I -- it's different, the grades from here. WAYNE LUCIER: You went to school in Europe? MARY MENDOZA: Yes, I finished the school. WAYNE LUCIER: What type of school?8 MARY MENDOZA: Regular school, but I finished almost the secondary of high school in Portuguese. WAYNE LUCIER: Was it harder over there? Is the school harder? MARY MENDOZA: Well, we don't have no fun. We go to all the school at 8:00 and we get out at 4:00. And now, we have after that, it's one hour for dinner. WAYNE LUCIER: So you learn the same things, too? MARY MENDOZA: You learn, you read, you write, you learn about the histories, about… well, most of it is reading and writing, see what other countries are doing. You get into a history which I was beginning to get into it other than… well, let's put it that way. I only have what would you call junior high, huh. WAYNE LUCIER: Yeah. MARY MENDOZA: Yeah. And we don't learn no stitching, no cooking, no nothing. That's up to our mothers to teach us that. That's the difference of our country, make the people work and learn and love it at the same time. And when you get home, you do what your mother tells you. You do wash clothes, you iron clothes, you wash dishes, and you help, you know, when they bake bread. It's really an interesting life, though. We do a lot more. Here, everything is bought. When they get the rough going, they can't take it. I remember these things; we get our potatoes, our beans and all that. I was fortunate that I never had to do anything like that. Because it – that St. Michael resources, the woman don't work. The men work like the devil, but they don't do any wives' work either. It's men's work and men's work, and the woman does its washing, cleaning, and that's it, and cooking, of course, and trying to mend the clothes and make their own clothes. Now I guess, I understand everything is different. It's 40 years. I haven't been there now. I was too young to… but what I remember, I remember vividly, though. And that's the way I learned to… you learn to read, you learn some manners. The girls stay in the middle of school and the boys stays on one row in the sides, you know, facing the windows and the girls facing the teachers. And you then, when it's the 9 border, boys will sit like that and watch them. They were writing, they want us to figure that. That at school, that's what we had. That's why a kid there for with the second grade knows more than one over here at fifth grade. Because we have nothing, we have no basketball, no pitches, no nothing – just work, books, and they make you writing and they make you try to explain what you read, you know, how that means. That's the way they learn there which is the same thing over here. They give you a book and you read it and you have to explain that in your own words. But see, there's a difference. It's funny, though, only one hour a day that we had. So when you get to 12 years old, you have to pay for the school because that… WAYNE LUCIER: Who pays for the school? MARY MENDOZA: The parents, and if you don't have it, you stay out. WAYNE LUCIER: Really? MARY MENDOZA: My mother paid for my brothers, and they don't care. They were satisfied. Jimmy was the only one, but he's smart, though. But he likes his tea, strong tea. But he is a pretty, smart kid, and he writes like a professor, actually. And you know, that's the way we were. My brother's used to go, you know, in the farm, like a farm over here. It was about 100 acres of land and when she had it, it was enough to take care of all the children. And when nobody… then she could not – she signed her name, my grandma, but that's all she was interested into it, because she went to school a couple of years, and she says that don't give me no share at all of bread to eat. She quit it. And now, you know, but she worked hard. She didn't have to have no help, no. It's a farm. Of course, she worked there. She got up from 6:00 to 6:00 in those days. I don't remember my mother when I was little. She leave, I was asleep. She would come home, I was asleep. So finally, my grandmother says, "Leave her here." WAYNE LUCIER: She was working where? She wasn't working over there, right? MARY MENDOZA: In New Bedford. WAYNE LUCIER: New Bedford.10 MARY MENDOZA: She was 25 years in New Bedford thing, too hard, only he except two. Not three year, she used to go there every two or three years. She used to go spend the summer there. My father was there. They're rich here. A couple of rich people, my father, very rich, too. But his mother don't want him to marry my mother. And that was it, he was out. And they used to work there every three years, because he was a steam engineer, my father. And he used to – then, he used to make better than average, but he spent it, too. Every three years, he goes to Europe for six months; that's a pretty good life. But he was used to that. You couldn't take him out of it. All my father's people didn't got a home. They claim I have some relations here and I have seen that. I don't know them when I was little. Now, it doesn't feel that. That was an awful thing to do to your children. I've thought about it, they go look far, but on my father side, the lowest one, she's the head of a hospital in Sacramento, California. WAYNE LUCIER: What, your father's what? MARY MENDOZA: Sister. And the other one's, well, they come into paper not too long ago. They'll send it to me. There's your uncle's boy, got injured in [Madeira]. I just go, "Good for him." You know, it doesn't do me anything because we never saw – I only saw one cousin. He was a lawyer. And he was so bad. My mother didn't know what to do with himself. And she said – WAYNE LUCIER: Are you a citizen? MARY MENDOZA: I was born in this country so I consider myself as a citizen. WAYNE LUCIER: Okay. Are you a Republican or a Democrat? MARY MENDOZA: A Democrat. WAYNE LUCIER: A faithful Democrat? MARY MENDOZA: Well, when it comes to good men, I never [unintelligible - 00:21:06], see I belong to this team, and I'm going to fight for it with all my heart if a good man is a good man, and an American is an American. That's all it means to me. But when Roosevelt came in, that was the first time that I voted. So that's when it went, not because I had any special feelings for any… And now, I still say, a 11 good man is a good man. If a Democrat is rotten, we don't root for him. WAYNE LUCIER: Have you ever become involved in a political party, working for a candidate? MARY MENDOZA: No, I never did. WAYNE LUCIER: And what are your feelings about the state government? Is it a useful tool? How was it? MARY MENDOZA: About what the state does? WAYNE LUCIER: The state, yeah. MARY MENDOZA: I don't know. I don't think I'm going to get to those answers because that gets me mad. Oh, no, the state did to me, I think more the city, what the city does than the state. WAYNE LUCIER: What does the city do, then? Is it better than the state? MARY MENDOZA: No, they're copying the state; that's why they call Fitchburg "the Little Watergate." Yeah, and that's… I don't know much about it. So just now, I have no special feeling for the government and even scared of anybody that works for them, because they all – not all, thank God for that. There's a dozen of good ones there somewhere. I don't think they're doing their job. That's – is that a good enough answer? WAYNE LUCIER: That's good. Have you ever experienced any language barriers or problems, you know, when you first, you know, say in your education or today or…? MARY MENDOZA: No, seeing that I'm not much of a social… I really don't… Never bothered me not knowing, I never go any places that I have to be put on. I fall asleep pretty soon. WAYNE LUCIER: How about, have you ever experienced any discrimination in your job due to your language or to your background? MARY MENDOZA: No, that's another left wing. They call this… they're "Oh, we don't like this guy and their people." I never even thought about it. Where I worked, there was a Jewish girl next to me. On the Friday, we eat meat and she eat… we eat fish and she'd eat meat. I ask her, "Why do you do that?" She said, "Well, our religion doesn't call… we don't eat this, we don't eat that." I thought, 12 "Well, it's her own way. Let her do the way she wants." To me, you know, she was – then there's a colored girl then, in [unintelligible - 00:23:34], I didn't understand half of the things she says, the way she talked. But still to me, "She was one of the workers," I said. I don't think there's no discrimination. That's the politicians just make that. And the Black people, they holler that they're getting hurt. They don't think of the White ones, they're getting the same thing. It's the workers that… I can't explain it. The states got the power to come in our pay envelopes and take in the government, to take out [unintelligible - 00:24:05] and we can't say nothing about it. They would have the power to say, "You do wrong, you pay." And we take just so much. And we can't do that, you know. We're not going to do it. You know, I have a son, they need schools. They close the schools. And in Route 12, they got a nice-looking school. It's a small school, but it's all boarded up. And yet we have no own, and then they keep sending for the kids, when they let their kids to come from all over the place. Immigration should be, come down to nothing now, until we get these things straight. Then when they open the immigration ports, they should be slow. Not the way they are, because they – among those immigrants, there's a lot of troublemakers. And that's why our country is rotten and the president is… I don't want to get to talk about him because of his… This is a weekend. WAYNE LUCIER: How about when you went looking for a house? Did you ever have any trouble finding a house, you know? MARY MENDOZA: No, never trouble of that. I always was lucky to find a nice home. Even when I come to Fitchburg, you know, I thought that was really, oh, it's a French town, and I had no trouble of any kind. I moved over here. They say, "You don't only stay here a couple of years." I saw the French. I said, "Well, what's the difference? They're people." WAYNE LUCIER: Who said that?13 MARY MENDOZA: Some of my neighbors. This one is German. She's says, "Oh, you won't like it." I never liked her. I said, "Look, that's their house. This is my house. We all belong to the same…" I never had no trouble. Honestly, I never did. WAYNE LUCIER: Okay. Do you think Fitchburg has decent job opportunities? Let's say, when you came here. Did they have enough jobs when you first came to Fitchburg? MARY MENDOZA: It's better than the average city, though. They get… well, like not every city has [AEG] and they're the ones that complain that they not making enough. But they have the paper mills which you always pay better than the shops. I think Fitchburg has more opportunities than some big cities. WAYNE LUCIER: Even today? MARY MENDOZA: Even today, if people want to work. And the government was fair, and they say, "Look, somebody is sick." Does this sound good? If somebody is… well, like my grandma, she was really an invalid that could do no more. She could not take care of herself. I could pick her up. You know, you need help, that's fine. I'll be glad that they give them people, whatever they need. But when these people, they got to go to the hairdresser every month. I haven't been to hairdresser for two years. I get by, passing, I'm no beauty, but I never try to please the outside world, just my own family. And I don't understand it when they… if they do that, they give so much. And yeah, they get people to have the feeling of doing something for themselves. Like now, you're a young boy, but you're taking care of your home. You used to come here, "See, I did this myself." You learn to love that house. But there's a lot of people, my daughter in law told me the other day, she says, "I'm going to change this living room." I said, "Why?" She says, "It's because it's my work. And I love this house." I could see what she – she was wanting to work. Some of these people, they just don't want to work; that's why the city of Fitchburg has a lot of jobs and still pretty good. The only thing that was wrong with that 14 baby [feast], that's why, you know, we hire… young men's going to have a hard time to get in. WAYNE LUCIER: Who? MARY MENDOZA: Some men. WAYNE LUCIER: Oh, yeah. MARY MENDOZA: When the rough, when things get rough, you walk out. And he's good, he's good nothing. This, you know, maybe this don't mean anything to the reevaluation. This is an awful thing they did to Fitchburg that destroyed their faith, the city, and made people swearing and got… well, they got to go to office. Because the reevaluation, I'm paying the rent in this house. That's what's wrong, very wrong. And yet, they mean to tell me they can't do anything about it, the mayor. WAYNE LUCIER: There's a new one coming, anyway. MARY MENDOZA: Well, I'm going to tell you something. He's not much when it comes to speeches and to looks and all that. He's an old man. But I'm sure he's not going to make it worse. If the councils work with him, he's going to be better than the lawyer. Lawyers always have riches and all that. I think that's why Black Walden stay in, not because he was a bad man, because he's a lawyer. People get so scared, that Watergate, that… You know, it's true. That's why I hope and I hope the council works with him. But he was against the reevaluation. But no, they'll be faced with evaluation. It's bad if some don't pay, some don't own… Do you think it's fair in your own mind that I pay about $18 a week for taxes in this house, between $17 and $18 just for taxes? WAYNE LUCIER: Well, you wouldn't mind paying them if you saw it – I don't mind paying as long as I see something for it, I mean, the money helping somebody, you know, that deserves it. You know what I mean? MARY MENDOZA: Oh, there's a lot of people that deserve, you know, I like to put it, deserve help, that they have no way of going to work. But there's also these people… You know, in Europe, a girl has a baby, she's not married, she's got to struggle. And the second time she has one, they put her away. That's why they have people over there, 15 they think they're straight. They're not. The government is straight. They don't go and help all kinds, you know, induce them to have it, so the others can support it. That's the wrong thing, too. But a girl falls into a misfortune the first time, sure, I give her the help that she needs. But you hear them telling you, "Oh, I'm not going to work. If I go to work, I get less than what I get from the welfare." I don't know. Then they pay babysitters, they have to have a day where… I don't know. I don't understand it anymore. I know that's not the way I do things, the way they do it. The taxes are too high, and there's still people that didn't get no reevaluation at all. They say every five houses, they skip one. Well, I wasn't the lucky one. But one of their men came over here and see the house, if you only know what I felt like doing. So the government is turning the people into killers and to… Oh, boy, if I had a gun, I think I'd shoot him. Yeah, I wouldn't shoot him to kill him, but I'd say, "I want you to get out." But who is making the fuss? Just me, not because I take it to see how we don't know… we're not stupid. Now, one of these days, they're going to get it. People are going to revolt. Boy, and it's not going to be fun and God have mercy on all of us. So it's good that we go out and try to bring peace with them. It takes a lot of it. So that's the way I think of our government and I hope somebody feels better than I do. WAYNE LUCIER: How is your leisure time spent now away from work? MARY MENDOZA: That's it. We go to the summer cottage in summer. In winter, we save, save so we can go in the summer. And we go and every other week, we stay there a week, three days. Now that, I figured, maybe I could stay there and all, biggest part of the week then come back. I'd never liked to stay there, let's say all summer, no. My son and my grandchildren are here. So my heart stays in Fitchburg, too. I'm divided. But that was enough fun for me. Got my family and my husband's family, they're all from there. They come and stay with us. I call that a lot of fun. They don't live there. They live around there. They come and spend the day with us and we go in the water. We talk to our neighbors. That kind of, you know, it 16 was just some things that I never had a chance to do when I'm working. That's my pastime. I don't like big crowds. I like little gatherings, but I don't like big crowds. I don't like going for dances and –/AT/jf/cp/ee
Issue 12.5 of the Review for Religious, 1953. ; A.M.D.G. Review for Religious SEPTEMBER 15, 1953 Pleasure and Ascetical Life . Joseph P. Fisher intergroup Relations " Wiiliam H. Gremley The Religion Teacher . Sls~er M. Acjneslne Practice of the Holy See ¯ Joseph F. Gallen Discipline . c.A. Herbst Questions and Answers Rural Parish Wo~'kers VOLUME XII NUMBER RI VII:::W FOR RI::LI IOUS VOLUME XlI SEPTEMBER, 15, 1953 NUMBER 5 CONTENTS SOME THOUGHTS ON PLEASURE AND THE ASCETICAL LIFE-- Joseph P, Fisher, S.J . 225 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 230 ABOUT BOOKS . 230 SOME DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERGROUP RELATIONS-- William H. Gremley . . . . . 231 A YEAR WITH THE RURAL PARISH WORKERS . 242 PAGING THE RELIGION "TEACHER--Sister M. Agnesine, S.S.N.D. 248 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE--Joseph F. Gallen, S.J .2.5.2 DISCIPLINE--C. A. Herbst, S.J . 272 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 25. Second Year of Novitiate . 276 26. Authority of Superior and Novice Master . 278 27. Sleeping Quarters of Novices . 279 28. Fugitive Religious and Dowry . 280 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September, 1953, Vol. XII, No. 5. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Jerome Breunig, S.J., Augustine G. Ellard, S.J., Adam C. Ellis, S.J., Gerald Kelly, s.,j., Francis N. Korth, S.J. Copyright 1953, by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is her.eby gra,nted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U. S. A. Before wrlt;ncj to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. Some Thought:s on Pleasure and !:he Ascet:ical Life Joseph P. Fisher, S.J. ¯|T IS ALMOST INEVITABLE that a good many young reli- | gious, especially among the more fervent, run into certain difficul-ties in squaring their attitude toward pleasure and their acceptance of it with certain ascetical ideals. Practically all ascetical literature, as in a certain sense it must, enlarges on the danger of pleasure and sometimes almost gives the idea to inexperienced minds that pleasure is evil in itself. Likewise there is the insistence that the harder, the more painful, a thing is, the better. While this is true ~rightly under-stood, . young minds frequently make. no qualifications and hence fall into error. Often enough the lives of the saints seem to confirm their exaggerations. The, attitude of mind engendered by such misunder-standings makes for certain practical difficulties in the conduct of these young religious. They are constantly ill-at-ease when faced with pleasure. They feel their ascetical ideals conflict with the mode of action encouraged by customs, by more experienced religious, friends, or relatives. On certain occasions, for instance, feast days, picnics, visiting, it seems they are expected t~o enjoy food, entertain-ment, comforts of various kinds. But they feel that to do so means they must go back on the truest ascetical principles. Or it may be that they are encouraged to enjoy literature but feel that to do so would be. to lessen their ideals. As a matter of fact in the more. ex-treme cases a young religious may have his or her outlook so shaped by the conviction that pleasure is evil (or at least always very. sus-pect) and pain always good that the whole spiritual life is nothing but a kind of self-torture. As is evident, all religious should know the truth about this mat-ter. In general it may be said that not only is it no sin ~o enjoy moderate pleasure but it can easily be an act of virtue. And the goodness of the act can be indefinitely increased by the inte.ntion of directing it to a higher and nobler end, and even actually and ex-plicitly to our ultimate end. For example, a religious who likes honey may eat it with relish and glorify God by so doing. The religious knows there is no sin in such an action and implicitly understands that the action is in accord with God's designs for human life. As a 225 JOSEPH P. FISHER Reoiew ~or Religious matter of fact, the religious could make this an act of the love of God by quietly considering the Wisdom and Goodness of God manifested in this expe.rience of human life. And so with the various simple pleasures that might conceivably, come into an ordinary day. Thdre is a field of pleasure that may well call for special atten-tion. Nowadays many religious are called upon to teach the fine arts, whose whole purpose is to please. This does not mean of.course that this pleasure may be regarded as man's absolutely last end, but it is a relatively ultimate end. Unlike "practical" arts, the fine arts are not aimed at producing something useful, but something beautiful, which causes pleasure. Now if what w,e said above about the possibility of elevating the goodness of sensible pleasures is true, this possibility is even truer in regard to the pleasures of art. For the pleasure of art is a nobler pleasure than that of eating, for instance. Accordingly, it ought to be easier to sublimate the "good" present in an aesthetic ex-perience. Some may doubt this, recalling what they have heard about the immorality of artists of various kinds a~id the. warnings against being a vapid aesthete. And it must be admitted that for certain temperaments there is a danger. Father Graham, in his book, The Looe of God, puts !t stronglywhen.he says: "Artistic sensibility can and should, when controlled by prudence, lend grace and attractive-ness to the moral life. But it frequently happens that the allure-ments of beauty prove so strong that the response to them tends to degenerate into mere aesthetic indulgence. The lover of beauty is con-cerned above all else with the joyous experience of what is pleasing; when unchecked by other considerations he seeks logically an ecstatic existence of perpetual intoxication, through eye and ear and mind, with beautiful objects." It may be added that if a person is of such a temperament and gives in to it, he will undoubtedly do it to the neglect of duty. Even those who are not especially sensitive to beauty can at times be drawn from stern duty by the siren of pleasure. However, it seems that among Catholics and certainly among religious such aesthetes are rather rare. The difficulty is oftentimes the other way about. Even those whose duty it is to study literature and other works of art try to do so without apprec,iating and enjoying the beauty of them. Such an approach is obviously wrong, for unless literature and the other works of art are enjoyed, they are not correctly comprehended. And one who himself does not comprehend can hardly expect to teach others with any success. So it comes about that some rather fail in 226 September, 1953 PLEASURE AND ASCETICAL LIFE their du~;y by not enjoying what is God's Will that theyshould enjoy than by over-indulgence. For example, if Brother Aquinas is pre-paring to teach English and fears to allow himself aesthetic pleasure in reading Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, he certainly will fail to a great extent in both his studies and his teaching. Moreover, it would be well for men if the right kind of people created and appreciated beauty. Too often the enjoyment of beauty appears to be the monopoly of sentimental, anti-intellectual, or at least non-intellectual, and irreligious escapists. "All things are yours" (I Cor. 3/33) but they won't be if we fear immod'~rately, unreasonably, the enjoyment of the beautiful. Since there is an intimate relationship between nature ahd art. it will help to see first something about the enjoyment of nature. Ac-cording to St. Paul, "All the creatures of God are good and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving . " (I. Tim. 4/4). And "From the foundations of the world men have caught sight of his invisible nature, his eternal power and his divinity, as they are knowri through his creatures" (Romans, 1/20). The beau-ties of nature ought to lead us to God, Who is reflected in nature, the work of His bands. Many misunderstand the place of "creatures" in God'splan for men. They are normally the means by which man rises to a knowledge and love of the Creator. Too many look upon them as "absolutes," things apart from God, things which, if appre-ciated, draw us to themselves and away from God. Such a view is based upon a n.isunderstandlng of. their true nature. Creatures, finite beings, are of their very nature dependent beings, relative beings, not absolutes. They must, if properly understood, be related to the In-finite; they point to the Infinite; their participated qualities are finite reflections of the infinite attributes and should more than remind us of their prototype. For one who understands the truth about the nature of finite beings, they ought to be stepping stones or rather springboards by Which he rises to that full Being Who is the ever-active cause of their ever-dependent existence. "The Contemplation for Obtaining L6ve," which crowns the Exercises of St. Ignatius, tries to impress men with this truth, but many, satisfied with a super-ficial approach, never really understand it. But the saints have understood it. It is a commonplace that St. Francis of Assisi made much of the sacrament of nature. A biographer relates "the following of St. Francis during his last days. "Meanwhile Francis was suffering greatly. Yet amidst his bodily 227 JOSEPH P. FISHEI~ agonies .be continued to find a~ absorbing sweetness in meditating upon the be.auty of God ifiHis creationl All the.crea'tion seemed to sing of the glory of its Creator to his pain-racked senses: and this is the more wonderful when w~ rememb& ho'~ 'pain is 'apt to turn all sensible comfort into bitterness. One day,' when he was suffering more than u~ual in eyes ~ifid head, he had a great desire to hear the viol. One of the brothers attending him, had been a violist in the world. Francis called for him and said: 'Biother, th~ children of th~ world do not understand divine sacraments: and musical instru-ments, which in former times were set apart for. the praise of God, man's wantonness has converted to the mere delight of the ear. Now I would hav~ you go secretly and borrow a vi01 and bring comfort with some honest melody to Brother Body who is so full of pains.' " Now without entering into controversy about the relationship between nature and art, we can certainly transfer 'much 6f what we have said about nature and God to art and God. Whether you say that art copies nature, perfects or .sublimates nature, or helps one ap-preciate nature, in any case, artistic works ~re finite participations of Infinite Beauty an'd, if appreciated as such, can and should aid one to appreciate this Infinite Beauty. In o{her words, art ~can help one use creatures for "contemplation." A man who is impressed by finite beauty can thereby be better prepared to appreciate the Source of all beauty. One may, for instance, never have realized how a cloud re-flects God's beauty Until he has read and appreciated Shelley's poem, ."The Cloud." Pleasure, though an end in its own o~der, may, if handled prop-erly, be a means of drawing closer to God. A certain puritanical bent of mind prevents many from appreciating this fact. This is not to deny that one can practice virtue" by foregoing the enjoyment of l~gitimate pleasure. It is often said that such abstinence from legiti-mate pleasure strengthens the will so,that it wili be strong in temp-tation. There is certainly much truth in this statement, but it is well to rememberthat motivation rather than exercise is the best means of strengthening the will. However, it is clear that a religious would scarcely be imitating Christ very seriously if he endeavored to fill life with every legitimate pleasure. Christ being rich became poor for us. All who are in the way of the love of Christ know that they can manifest and add to their love by sacrifice. Even here it is well to remember that' ChriSt made use of at least some.pleasures of Ills, ¯ such as the enjoyment of friendship and of.natur~al beauty. And 228 September, 19~ 3 PLEASURE AND ASCETICAL LIFE theology will not allow us to forget the fact that all His life Christ enjoyed the Beatific Vision, even though it is true at least at times the proper effects were divinely withheld. As to whether Christ enjoyed the beauty of human art, we do not have much evidence. If he did not, it would seem that was Simply due to circumstances; cer-tainly the enjoyment of finite beauty is a very worthy human ex-perience, and Christ was a complete man. God it is who has given the artistic urge and God it is Who has created the arts in which man "imitates" the Creator. The artist, even though unconsciously, casts an illuminating light on some facet of a created good, and aids us to appreciate more fully, the beauty .of God's handiwork. Of course Christ did not need this aid, but there were many things Christ did not need that He made His own to be like us and give us an example. The question as to how far an individual religious ought togo in the renouncemen(' of even legitimate pleasure is a very personal question. Even one who wishes to go far in this regard ought to understand the truth of the matter, so that he knows to what he is bound and where he begins to practice supererogation. It is likewise well to remember that what may be or appear objectively best is not always subjectively so. An individual's nature, vocation, training, ¯ and the grace of God must always be considered in settling such questions. What is good for one may be bad for another. A novice in the spiritual life cannot do what a tried religious can do; an active religious cannot do what a contemplative can. It dbes seem that most active religious, at least in the early years of their religious life, may well use pleasure, the higher pleasur.es and even moderate sensible pleasures, to help them rise to the knowledge and love of their Cre-ator. In doing this they should not feel that they are turning their backs on Christ, for as they 'get to know His "mind" better and begin to love Him more, they will spontaneously and with peace.and equanimity begin to give themselves to what St. Ignatius styles the Third Degree of Humility, the imitation of Christ in s~ffering and humiliations through love. Certain young religious seem to think that what is really the strong meat of the mystic way is already for them early in their reli-gious lives, for they try to get to God without the use of creatures. Cardinal Bellarinine points them the way quite clearly: "But we mortal men (as it seemeth) can find no other ladder whereby to ascend unto God, but by the works of God. For those who by the singular gift of God have (by another way) been admitted into 2.29 ~JoSEPH P. FISHER Paradise to hear God's secrets, which it is not lawful for a man to speak, and are not said to have a'scended, 13ut to have been wrapt.". At death some religious who have been striving to fly without wings will agree v~itb this statement of Father Martindale: "But may not one of the great 'difficulties' of dying be this--not that yo~u. have worshipped idols--loved created things ~oo much--but that you have not loved them nearly enough? What suddenly appals one is,' that God surrc~unded one with a myriad things of unbeliev-able beauty--like butterflies, or the sea, or uneducated p, eople--and that one has allowed them to slip by almost unnoticed." Certainly one reason many do not get more out of life is that they fail to make Christlike use of one of God's good creatures-- pleasure. "For all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas; or the world, or life, or death; or things present, or things to cg.me--all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's" (I Cor. 3/22:23). OU R CONTRIBUTORS ¯ "JOSEPH P. FISHER is master of novices at the Jesuit novitiate, Florissant, Mo." WILLIAM H. GREMLEY is Executive Secretary for the. Commission on Human Rela-tions, Kansas City, Mo. SISTER M. AGNESINE is nationally known as an expert on methods of teaching religion. JOSEPH F. GALLEN is professor of canon law at Woodstock Coll~ge, Woodstock, Md. C. A. HERBST is on the faculty of the Jesuit juniorate .at Florissant, Mo. ABOUT BOOKS It will be noticed that in this number of the REVIEW; book reviews, book. notices, and book announcements are conspicuous by their absence. The' reason for this is that the varied summer assignments of the editors made it impossible to do the ol~ice work necessary for organizing reviews, notices, etc. The deficiency will be remedied in the November number. 230 Some Developments in Intergroup Relations William H. Gremley IT IS almost anti-climactic these, days to dwell at length on the importance of social and political problems in America occasioned by intergroup relationships. The volume of press stories and magazine articles on the subject,, such as Supreme Court decisions, legislative action of one kind or another or "incidents," either posi-tive or negative in nature, increases daily and 'has come to be almost routine. Scarcely a Week passes without some high official, go+tern-ment or civic, making a major address regarding the international aspects of this issue. That it may be one of the most important topics of our day can-not be denied since, in degree, it permeates almost all other major nation~il concerns, yet, like all social or political issues, it must have proper perspective to be abso'rbed and understood. Unfortunately, the drama and emotion inherent in the problem is a barrier to this perspective. All ioo often the negative--the headlines on race-riots, the grim warnings that we are losing overseas allies, the economic loss from discrimination--dominates the over-all picture with scant emphasis on the positive. And, all too often, the positive is usu~illy limited to gome assertion that "ihe Negro has come a long way since slavery." A brief analysis of some developments in intergroup relations over the past ten years will disclose some positive aspects of far more importance and profundity than the latter remark. The objectives of this article will be to present some analysis of those developments, primarily as they relate to daily situations familiar to most readers. and to attempt a balance of both fiegative and pgsitive aspects so as to present a proper over-all perspecttive. " I Initially, some definitions may be of value as follows: t) The terminology of the problem has, in the past, often been misunderstood. To call it a "Negro problem" is a. misnomer for, in actuality, there is no such thing as a. N, eoro problem in the. United ~tates--nor,.for that matter, a ,Jewish, Mexi.c.o.n, or Puerto Rican .231 X~qlLLIAM H. GREMLEY Review/:or Religious problem or any other issue involving people of one race, .religion, or national origin. The problem, in. terms of a situation demanding attention or correction, is one involving re[ationsfiips between mem-bers of different groups. It is, thus, more accurate to define it as a Negro-white, Jewisb-Gentilel etc., relationship problem. Nothing in the entire range of group discrimination or prejudice has roots solely in one group. A sub-problem, for example, of employment discrimination against Jews or Negroes is dynamically related to the fears, myths, and prejudices of the white Gentile em-ployer. Moreover,. defining the issue as a "Negro problem"-implies a detached and overly-objective attitude toward 15,000,000 people that is quite unrelated to the facts of group discrimination. 2) The term, "intergroup relations" is replacing, in g~neral, such terms as "race-relations" or "human relations." The word "intergroup" obviously pinpoints the is~sue far more than either a phrase excluding religious or nationality conflicts or one embracing all personal relationships, both "inter" a'nd "intra." 3) "Minority groups," as a phrase, is confined solely to a group that, because of some facet of assumed ~roup identity--skin color, religion, language, or group, custom--suffers social, economic, or political discrimination against it. Actually, however, i'minority group" is divisive in itself since it segments people from others and should be used with caution and clarity. 4) " The phrase "civil rights" is distinct from "civil liberties" in that the latter refers to the political or quasi-political freedoms guar-anteed to all by Constitutional safeguards. These would include freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, or right to petition or bear arms. On the other hand, "civil rights" ~ire much rffore social in nature, referring to rights involving places of piablic accommoda-tion, public or privately owned, employment, housing, health and welfare facilities, recreation or education. Somewhere in between the two terms would come rights concerning voting and police pro-tection. II. Perhaps tb~ most important single,development in intergroup relations in the last decade has been th~ establishment of official city agencies to deal with urban problems of this type. Known, for the most part, as "commissions" or "councils" followed by the words "on civic unity," "community relations," or "human relations," they represent a significant phase in the over-all advancement toward September, 1953 INTERGROUP RELATIONS solutions of these problems. In essence,, such, city agencies mean a full realization of and acknowledgement by city authorities that in-tergroup relationships in the diverse populations making up most of America's urban areas can no longer be left to chance or haphazard methods. Just as in decades past, public health, transportation, wa-ter supply, street maintenance, and a host of other various civic con-cerns have been progressively added to the functions of American city government, so too the concerns of intergroup violence, dis-crimination, and individual civil rights are now the official tax- " supported duties of more than 60 American cities. The origins of such city agendes, most of which are goyerned by city ordinance, date from the Detroit race riots of 1943. Shortly after that catast~rophe, a group of Chicago citizens, headed by the late Edwin Embree, then head of the Rosenwald Fund, persuaded the late Mayor Edward Kelly to establish the first such agency. In time, other cities followed suit ~nd today the list includes such arras as Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Buffalo, Toledo, Kansas City (Mo.), St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Denver. Seattle, and scores of others. In addition, many cities, both North and South. lacking a tax-supported agency, have privately supported groups working to-ward similar ends. Basically, these agencies, composed, for the most part, of mayoral appointees serving without salary but with a paid professional staff, have three aims: 1) To prevent or lessen intergroup violence~ u~hether of the col-lective mob type or as an isolated action (i.e., a bombing or an indi-vidual attack). The most singular success in this regard has taken place in Chicago where the police force, after utilizing the guidance and resources of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, has achieved a high degree of efficiency in the prevention of intergroup mob violence. (The Cicero riot of 1951 is a case in point. So strict and effective were police measures taken to prevent a "spilling"'over Of ¯ this affair into Chicago that, while law and order broke down com-pletely in Cicero--adjacent to Chicago-the prevalent tensions in the latter city were kept completely in check.) 2) To d~oelop harmonious relationships bettveen all groups And eliminate the causes of group friction and. prejudice. In this regard, such~ city~ag.encies have,available.,a vast.amount of resource material built up over the last ten years. The material available to schools of 233 WILLIAM H. GREMLEY Review for Religious all type~ and a~ all levels will illustrate. Audio-visual aids, teacher training workshops, and curriculum and school-community relation-ship material are some of the areas where resources may be obtained. In addition, ~xtensive tl~eoretical and practical research has been ac-complisbed regarding such problem areas a~ community organization, employment, housing, health, welfare, recreatiom and civil rights. 3) To safeguard and protect the ci~)il rights" of all groups. A greater divergence among such agencies is found in this objective th~an in the other two for an obvious reason~ The degree of civil rights legally accorded to citizens, for the most part, depends on the local or state laws on the subject. Many states, like New York and Rhode Island, have effective Fair Employment PracticeLaws. In addition, New York has a Fair Education Practice Law that prohibits school "quotas" based on group differences. Conversely the s~gregation laws of the South deny civil rights to manycitizens. Thus an inter-group city agericy relies on laws if they exist and persuasion to pro-tect such rights. In "border" states like Missouri, the agency must depend on persuasion alone to accomplish this objective. In general, the types of intergroup probiems faced by a city agency will depend on the population make-up of the city itself. In cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Kansas City, perhaps 90% of such problems spring from Negro-white relationships. New York City with a Puerto-Rican population of.some 500,000 must consider this particular problem along with Negro-white and Jewish-Gentile con-cerns. West Coast cities with people of Japanese descent comprising large .segments of the Ipopulation, Texas urban areas containing sig-nificant percentages of Mexican-Americans, and Rocky-Mountain or North Mid-West states with American Indian reservations, all have different kinds of problem areas sometim_es calling for different kinds of treatment techniques or materi~ils. III An inevitableconsequehce or ,concomitant.of the growth of both" intergroup city agencies and the extensive resource material men-tioned has beeh the development of the 'intergroup relations "pro-fessioni" For the most part, the usual frame ofreference associated with any profession--research material, academic courses and,degrees, job personnel standards, establishment of a national organization (in this case the National Association of Intergroup Relations,Offi-cials)--- characterize intergroup, relations. Over and above these cri- 234 Sgptember, 1953 teria, however, certain premises exist regarding this'field Which have strong foundation~ not only in law where the c'ase may be but, in all cases, in democratic and religious principles as well. -It may be un-necessars; to ~dd that such principles are wholly consonant with those of the two major religious traditions in America. Both Judaic and Christian concepts of individual dignity, of course, are clear and defined. Man is an individual with God-given rights as well as .God-given responsibilities. In addition, it is inher-ent in his nature to mingle and commune.with his fellowmen. Both singly and collectively, he has rights and responsibilities to others and to himself in'a social sense. It ,is thus essential to th~ nature and work of these city agencies that the premise of natural rights for all should underscore and per-meate their functions and programs. The assumption that the hu-man family is one under God, that variations between peoples of genes or customs do not detract from this assumption., and that, in keeping with this "oneness" under God, all are equally entitled, to basic rights, are fundamental four~ations for inte, rgroup wozk' not only of.the "official" city agency type but in the private an'd volun-teer area as well. Some exa.mples may help, to illustrate these concepts. Labor 1) The dignity of labor, exalted by Christ and sustained by the Popes through encyclicals, certainly means the right to fully utilize one's skills. Yet the record ~f denial ofthis righ[ by r~fusals to hire or to upgrade extends back to the mid~lle 19th Century when (and continuing almost to the 20th Century) such denial to Irish Cath-olics was illustrated by factory signs--"Help Wanted--No Irish Need Apply." Tod~y, through cultural assimilation, neither the Irish immigrant nor those of Irish descent suffer this indignity. In their place, the Negro or those of Jewish. faith.are the major victims of job discrimination. It may be said that, to some extent, every racial, religious, or nationality group whether indigenous or not to America has suffered this type of injustice. Recent advances, however, in this problem 'area give hope for the future. The numerous state and city FEPC laws, the changing atti-tude of many industries, aware of the great economic loss in wasted skills, the strong stand of the American Catholic hierarchy as well as other religious bodies against job discriminatioh--all developments INTERGROUP RELATIONS 235 WILLIAM H. GRE/vlLEY Review/:or ReligiOus for the most part of just the "past decade--indicate .a point in time when this problem will no longer be major. Health 2) Perhaps no area of life involves more compassion or human feelings than suffering brought about by sickness or accident, and in this area, perhaps above all others, divine precepts of mercy and brotherly .love should prevail. Yet, this compassion is, strangely lacking in many American cities when hospital facilities for Negroes are considered. Segregation, even in many Northern cities is the rule despite worthy exceptions and it would be impossible to estimate the amount of loss of life or unnecessary pain caused by refusals of hos-pitals to admit Negro patients. 'For example, in the Kansas City area recently, a young Negro woman, injured in an auto accident, was refused admittance to or hastily transferred from four different hospitals because of her color. Eventually taken to her home, she died shortly after. Competent medical authorities definitely asserted that, with prompt and adequate attention, she might well have survived. ' Adding to this problem is the inability of qualified minority-groups doctors, nurses, and medical technicians to obtain staff ap-pointments to hospitals practicing discrimination. Thus the ,hos-pital rationalizes--"We have no Negro doctors so we don't have Negro patients." In this aria as well as employment, however, encouraging prog-ress has been made in ~ecent years. Laws in many states have been .passed prohibiting hospitals from refusing emergency patients Because of race, color, creed, or national origin. Many single hospitals in ~ities like Chicago, New York, Kansas City, and others have taken the initiative in eliminating color bars and given Negro or Jewish doctors and nurses staff appointments. The number of Negro medi-cal students in formerly all-white attended schools is on the increase, and Negro graduates are finding it easier to obtain interr;ships, par-ticularly in municipal hospitals. Education 3) In the, field of education as well, divine concepts of justice and decency to all mankind are just as strong as the above, but school segregation, with its foolish emphasis on the "separate but'~qual" tbegry, at a time when equal facilitiesAor .minority grqups i.s .p.hy.~si.-~ cally and economically t;nfeasible, continues as a burning, national 236 September, 1953 INTERGROUP RELATIONS issue. The waste, not only in dollars but in imperfect or thwarted personal development because of these barriers amohg children is in-calculable. To fully equalize, for example, the separate public schools of the State of Missouri alone wduld cost $20,000,000 according to a re-cent surveyl--without counting the cost of continuing extra trans-portation for Negro pupils. 'On the other hand, it was estimated that approximately $.1,150.000 a year of tax-monies could be saved by integrating the Missouri public school system. It is in the field of education, however, that the record of ad-vancement in the last decade is brightest. U.S. Supreme Court deci-sions have opened ~graduate schools in the South to all applicants. (Those in the North, for the most part, have been integrated sinc'e the 19th Century.) The forthcoming Supreme Court decision on public school segregati.on may well mean thd eventual end of this-anomaly on American democracy. The record of Catholic school authorities in school segregation matters is most significant. In community after community, in-cluding' Kansas City and St. Louis and even in Deep South areas where school segregation was deep-rooted custom, boId and cou-rageous action by diocesan' or arch-diocesan officials have integrated Catholic schools at all l~vels. Jesuit colleges and high schools, in particular, have a record of many "firsts'" in this respect, welcoming all stu~tents in communities otherwise strongly segregated. " IV Despite the. admirable record of Catholic schools in eliminating school segregation, many serious problems still remain to be faced. Perhaps chief among these is that regarding the efficacy of teachers as well as curriculum material in instilling sound intergroup attitudes among pupils. Chiefly. because of existing residential segregation of minority groups in most American cities, the elimination of segregation in Catholic schools where ~t has been.accomplished does not always mean extensive integration. As a rule, a school attended wholly by white pupils remained white-attended With the reverse true for schools Wholly attended by Negroes or children of Mexican descent. It has been usually in the "fringe" areas--where the population was 1"The Cost of Segregated Schools"--Study by Stuart A. Queen, Washi~gtoa Uni-. versity. Available from Missouri Association for Social Welfare, 113 ~ West High Street, Jefferson City, Missouri. " " 237 WILLIAM H. GREMLEY mixed racially or ethnically--that significant integration of different groups took place. Such "fringe" schools are usually in a minority compared to the total number in any given urban community. Ex-ceptions should be made with reference to any isolated Negro-occupied areas outside .the main such area in an urban center. Even in those cases, however, usually not more than a handful of new Negro pupils were registered after the integration order. This residential segregation has, in some areas where the popu-lation is predominantly Catholic, stimulated several situations of racial violence in which the role of the Catholic school has severely been called into question. Following the Cicero anti-Negro riot of 1951, which occurred in a community estimated to be 65 % Cath-olic, the writer interviewed an official of a local Catholic ~chool. In response to questions concerning the use of curriculum material pro-moting positive intergroup attitudes, it" was indicated, that the teaching of such attitudes was confined to the history classes. Worthy as such teaching may be, it was hardly sufficient to relate present-day intergroup problems to the pupils. Since many of the youthful par-ticipants in that affair were observed wearing Catholic insignia of some type, such limitations were not effective as a deterrent to vio-lence. The Peoria Street violehce of 1949 in Chicago, in which extreme ¯ anti-Semitism as well as anti-Negro prejudice took the form of severe assaults and beatings on bystanders allegedly "3ewish-looking," oc-curred in an area estimated to be 90% Catholic. Teen-agers in both incidents played a predominant role in the violence. It is true, of course, that such incidents of racial and religious violence are by no means confined to areas predominantly or heavily Catholic in population. Numerous other disturbances equally or even more severe than those cited have occurred in urban localities pr(~dominantly non-Catholic. The immediate concern, however, is with the role of the local Catholic school, in social situations involv-ing pre.judice and intergroup violence and in localities where ~ignifi-cant portions of the population¯ are of the Catholic faith. Something Lacking? The percentage figures and role of teenagers in the above two af-fairs pose an important question--what was lacking in the teaching techniques of the local Catholic school that could have prevented such expressions of violence and prejudice at least by participants who 238 September, 1955 INTERGROUP RELATIONS may have been Catholic? That something was--perhaps is-- lacking is obvious. While it may be that such a lack is due to com-munity pressures and mores hostile toward p~ople of different color or religion, it is possible that lack of awareness by teachers of the problem coupled with teaching materials that possibly create disre-spect and prejudice for different groups, may also account for this deficiency. For example, in one type of reader used in Catholic ele-mentary schools, the following quotation is f6und: (The reference is to the American Indian.) "Hello, Mother," cried Tom, as he ran into the apartment house where he lived. On the table in the kitchen Tom saw a large white cake. 'Tm glad that I'm an American boy tonight," he said. "Indians never had cake for supper, did they. Mother?" "I'm afraid not, Tom," answered his mother. "They didn't wash their faces before supper, either, but American boys do that.''2 Apart from the "1o, the poor Indian" attitude implied, it is manifestly unfair to deprive tbe native American of his nationality. The matter of bodily cleanliness, of course, varied in custom among the numerous Indian tribes. It is hardly possible that- respect and dignity for the American Indian as an individual created by God could be implanted in children's minds from this passage. On the other hand, an example of the type of curriculum material that can advance positive attitudes in a realistic social situation sense is found in another reader containing the story, "Toward a Promised Land.''3 Dealin~ with effort~, based on race prejudice; to oust a competent Negro doctor from a hospital, the tale. resolves the situa-tion satisfactorily from both a moral and practical viewpoint. The efforts fail, the ~doctor is retained, and his little son sees another ad-vance toward "a promised land." Both examples above perhaps will illustrate the social impor-tance of developing proper intergroup attitudes among children, ad-mittedly often a difficult task in the face of possible parental prejudice and objections. This social importance, however, is far overshadowed by the spiritual importance. To permit or ignore the development in children of prejudiced attitudes, unchecked or not counteracted in 2"This is Our Town," Faith ~ Freedom Series, Book 3, by Sr. M. Marguerite, 'Ginn E4 Company, 1952, p. 46~ 3"These Are Our Horizons," Faith ~3 Freedom Series, Book 7, by Sr. M. Charlotte, and Mary Syron, LL.D. Ginn E4 Company, 1945, p. 136. 239 WILLIAM H. GREMLEY Review for Religious the school, may be almost as much a negation of. ~hrist'~ ~eaching.as the actual encouragement of group prejudice or bigotry. The re-sponsibility, ofcourse, is no less in the home than in.the school, but in the Catholic school the duty to ~each the'ethics of the brotherhood of man unde~ the Fatherhood of God seems of particular concern. The concern is that of Christ. In her excellent study4 on attitudes towards Jews~ by .Catholic school children, Sr. Mary Jeanine Gruesser states: "Interest in the social attitudes of Catholic children is bound up with Catholic belief and practice. Today the. tremendous~octrine of the Mystical Body of Christ is being .preached and taught with new stress and emphasis. In language that he can understand, the youngest Catholic school child is learning to live the fact that all are members, one of another, in Christ. But the teacher who is really concerned that the child take this lesson away from the classroom and back to his play group in the neighborhood, rnus~ know some-thing about the situations and conditions of intergroup interaction of which the child is.a part, of the attitudes toward other people, other religious and nationality groups, that be has already formed. These are the realities to which the doctrine' must be applied, but the two must be related t:or th~ child." Having stated and, it is hoped, adequately illustrated the prob-lem, some positive resources may be listed that may be of value. Available Resources 1) As indicated, a local city intergroup agency can be of as-sistance in suggesting acceptable audio-visual and curriculum ma-terial designed to counteract prejudice and develop healthy and wholesome attitudes in children regarding people of different groups. ~2) Private agencies such as local community relations bureaus,. some school or teacher associations or local offices of the National, Conference of Christians and Jews also have resources ~eadily avail-able for this purpose. 3) Teacher workshop~ in intergroup r61ations are now available each summer in practically every section of the country. For tb~ most part, these workshops are given at local universities and colleges. A lis[ of them may be secured from the office of the National Associa- 4"Categorical Valuations of Jews Among Catholic Parochial School Children," St. Mary Jeanine Gruesser. Dissertation, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D. C., 1950, p. 8. 240 September, 1953 INTERGRouP RELATIONS tion of Intergroup Relations Offici'als.s Most of these institutes are secular in nature and sponsorship. They are open to all applicants and usually held during the day. A special workshop designed for Catholic religious teachers has been instituted in the Shell School 6f" Social Studies in Chicago. 4) Competent rating scales for determining children's attitudes toward members of other groups are available. Examples are the "Wrightstone Scale of Civic Beliefs," the "Bogardus Social Distance Scale," and the "Grice Scale for.Measuring Attitudes Toward Races and Nationalities." (The latter is available in Sr. 3eanine's study.) As initial steps, such s~ales are extremely valuable in determining an inventory of such .attitudes and measuring the extent of such prob-lems existing in any school. V In conclusion, the international significance of official city agen-cies as resources leading to solutions of group problems of education, employment, health, or welfare facilities is manifest. In essence, they indicatd a "coming of age" for America, a growing realization that America must and can fight its own dilemma on its own grounds. For too long the Communists have pointed a distorted finger of shame at this dilemma in our democracy withoutwas is natural for them--mention of the earnest and valiant efforts made to work 6ut these problems within the framework of our democratic tr'aditions. That we can and will continue to do so, that all group~ and re-ligious bodies, Catholic and 'iaon-Catholic alike, will strive to give substance and body to our great political and religious heritage, is inevitable. Despite the discordancies, whether of violence, discrim-inations, or prejudice, the record of progress in the over-all march of American democracy toward its fulfillment for all, is clear and pro-. found. SNational Association of Intergroup Relations Officials, 565 North Erie Street, Toledo 2, Ohio. "'Opposed to all of these and a billion times rhore powerful is that Love repre-sented by the Sacred pierced Heart of Christ. It is the love for all men, who have equal opportunity tOoshare that tremendous Love, and to return it according as they will, for it has "first loved them and gone down to death for them singly and col-lec/ tively. Such a Lo~,e, even more than the common hand of the Creator unites all men before God. Can men be so callous as to remember race-hatred while kneeling around the Cross of the Crucifie~[ Christ?" '(The Most Rev. Vincent S. Waters, 'Bishop of Raleigh, in his Pastoral Letter of June 12, 1953.) 241 A Year wit:h the Rural Parish Workers [EDITORS' NOTE: The Rural Parish Workers of Christ the King are laywomen de-voted to works oi~ the apostolate in rural areas. Father Edward A. Bruemmer, in whose parish they bare worked for several years, says of them: "[ am convinced that theE are as essential to the welfare of a rural parish as the teaching sisters in the parish school. Perform!ng the corporal and spiritual works" of mercy on a scal~ hitherto undreamed of, they have renovated the face of the earth here." We had planned to give a rather complete sketch of the beginning and growth~ of this work but it is impossible to do that in our present issue. We hope however, to give it later, because we believe it is very important for our readers to know about the va-rious possibilities ot: the lay apostolate. For the present, we content ourselves with printing this informal article written by a Rural Parish Worker who signs herself, Miss Mary. The material in this article can be obtained in brochure form from: The Rural Parish Wokers of Christ the King, Route 1, Box 194, Cadet, Mis-souri.] THE residence and center of the Rural Parish Workers of Christ the King (laywomen dedicated to the service of their neighbors in rural areas) is at Fertile.in the large rural parish of St. ,Joa-chim, Washington County, Missouri'. This is picturesque with its rolling hills, great trees and valleys, but there is evidence of poverty everywhere to mar its beauty. The inhabitanl~s for the most part are a poor, uneducated, generous, loving, and appreciative people. The Rural Parish Workers, cooperating with the pastor, do much to edu-cate, see social justice done, relieve want, spread Catholic Action in the area. I'm spending a year with the Rural Parish Workers, participating in their work and sharing in all their activities. This means sharing in the spiritual life also . . . daily Mass, Prime and Compline or Lauds and Vespers in English, individual recitation ot: the. Rosary, reading and study. This summer when I first arrived, along with two other volun-teers, Miss Pat and Miss Christina, plans for the Open House were already under way. This project is given yearly under the sponsor-ship of a group of men to make new friends for the Parish Workers and spread word of their work. We three pitched right in, helping clean up house and grounds with the neighbors and others who came to help. A week later the big day came. So did 1000 visitors. About the middle of the afternoon Mol~her .Nature came along with the 242 RURAL PARISH WORKERS biggest rain of the season! Many persgns hurried home, but many stayed, so we served food all over the house and on the porches until everyone was happily fed. That night we washed up the biggest gobs of mud and thanked God for a very wonderful day in spite of the rain. Not long after Open House we had a Clothing Giveaway for the needy people. Several times we went on visits in different parts of the parish which is 150 square miles in size. Can you imagine people who live only 50 miles from St. Louis being so isolated as not to see other human beings for weeks at a time? Well, I can state this is the truth. In 3uly a neighbor took us to visit such a family. You can imagine how glad the old couple were to see us. Even though we had been jostled around on the back of a truck (the only way we could get through the woods) and then soaked in a sudden down-pour of rain! Baptisms During another visit a littl~ girl came running across the road. "Could we come over right" away?" A neighbor's new-born baby was dying and the parents wanted Miss LaDonna or Miss Alice to baptize it. So we thankfully watched another child added to God's family in the car of the doctor who was taking the baby to the hos- ¯ pithl. We were present for many weddings in the parish church this summer. But one morning the celebration was for a different reason ¯ . . the baptism of an entire family instructed by Miss LaDonna. We volunteers were happy to witness the event and to take part in 'their joy. Although life with the Parish Workers is anything but routine, there are some things that must be done regularly. Each of us kept her own room neat and clean, and helped with the thorough weekly cleaning. We took turns, two together, in preparing meals and washing the dishes. Each evening one of us volunteers got to milk the goat. This was quite a thrill for us city girls. We volunteers helped Miss Alice with the outside work such as tying up grape vines, wa-tering trees, pulling weeds, raking gravel in the newly-made drive, etc. The Parish Workers' clean-up activities aren't limited t6 their own home, however. One afternoon we all went to watch the completing of the purifi-cation of the spring used by the people of the immediate area. The 243 RURAL PARISH WORKERS Reoieu) for Religious Parish Workers had had the spring cleaned and enclosed in 'concrete with a pipefor'tbe water to run through. This prevents people from dipping their buckets into the .waterand has greatly improved the health of the children in the neighborhood. After an especially b,u~y week we were all preparing for a day of rest when an elderly man came to the door. He bad walked several miles to tell us that his grandson was suffering from a brain tumor and must be rushed to the hospital ira.mediately. Could we get him in? So, this ended our day of rest and sent us on an errand of mercy. Several times this summer Father Bede, O.S.B., spiritual director of the Rural Parish Workers, visited us and gave us many interesting and enlightening talks which broadened our knowledge of the lay ¯ apostolate and helped our spiritual growth. Seven Weeks for doing something you thoroughly enjoy are too short as we three volunteers discovered when the Summer Session came to an end. We all left with heavy hearts. Miss Pat had to re-turn to school. Miss Christina was needed at borne. And I went borne to prepare my winter clothing and tell my family that I in-tended to return in September for a year.of service. Instructions Upon my return [ entered more fuIly into the life of a Parish Worker. Activities began with the start of weekly religious instruc-tions for the public scl~ool children. My class of twenty youngsters is made up of 2nd to 4th graders who have received their First Holy Communion. I find them very attentive and well-behaved with a thirst for knowledge. I had returned to Fertile when the country was most beautiful and the large pears on our tree were ready for picking. I donned a ¯ pair of blue jeans and an old shirt and had the time of my life climbing the tree and shaking down the pears, using the garden rake for the hi~hest branches. Seven bushels of delicious fruit were added to our pantry and shared with our neighbors. In October we entertained the members of the Parish Workers' Advisor~ Board and their wives ata buffet supper. Miss Par'and Miss Christina came to help with this gala affair., We all had so much fun together they were reluctant to leave. But plans were made to get together again when time came for selecting and packing Christmas gifts for.the 250 children in the families we assist during the year. 244 September, 1953 RURAL PARISH WORKERS Travel The distribution and sorting of clothes for these families has been given me as my special project, and I must admit I find it both interesting and helpful. Interesting because of a natural woman's instinct wondering what I will discover in each box I open, for these boxes and packages come to Fertile from all over, sometifnes from as far away as NeW York. And helpful, for in this exploited area wages are very low. Many times we bear of a child out of school bedause of no shoes or other clothing. And for many families the only new baby clothes are those we are able to supply in the layettes generously donated by women and college girls interested in this apostolate I am learning to drive. " If you ask'the Parish Workers how I am doing they ~vill answer, "Wonderfully well." But if.y6u put the question to me ~ am afraid you would receive a different answer. However, I shall keep on-, for often I could help out if I were able to drive the station wagon myself. We travel many miles,each month. Over two thousand is the average now. A number of trips are made to St. Louis, eSl~ecially to clinics and hospitals. One such trip concerned my special ,family. While visiting them one day I noticed the baby looked ill. He was terribly undernourished anyway, and I was truly worried about him. We telephoned a St. Louis hospital and the Sister told us a bed'would be available as soon as we could get.him there. The familywere un-able to pay anything but the baby remained in the hospital seven weeks and is now doing wonderfully. From.time to time I ~ake visits with ~ne of thd Parish Workers. One morning it was necessary to make a trip to the courthouse to see the judge about a f~imily we were helping. I was more than giad to be risked to go along as I would get the opportunity to meet some of the civic officials and learn how,they and the Parish Workers work together to help others. Since I have been here I have learned much about Secularigm and Communism and the inroads tb~y baremade in our country. I am also learning how to detect their prop~an~la in radio programs, newspaper articles, etc. Accompanying Miss LaDonna to the Well-Baby Clinic was al-ways a pleasure., until one day she pulled a fastone and asked the County nurse to give me a typhoid shot. Of course I knew about"it beforehand, but being a city girl I really h~d.~'tthought, much about it., We take pure drinking, water, for gr~inted' in the city, but out here 245 RURAL PARISH WORKERS Review for Religious it's different. All the water is from creel~s and springs like the one the Parish Workers fixed up last summer. The home of the Parish Workers is an old brick house. Major remodeling has made it into a modern home with many conveniences so that they may devote as, much time as possible to their apostolate of serving others. Minor work in the house proceeds slowly, one room at a time, and furniture is supplied by donations. Most of it we repair or repaint, but recently a women's group brought out a complete flew bedroom outfit which the Parish Workers placed in .my room. "Harmonious surroundings help in the development of a Christian home'," they always say. I know for sure they are relaxing at the end of a busy day. The apostolate of the Rural Parish Workers is not well known, although for several years, under the patronage of the Most Reverend Archbishop of St. Louis, they have been quietly working among the poor and downtrodden. So now we send out a monthly memo of recent news to The King's Men, an auxiliary of the Parish Workers. This and other secretarial work enables me to make good use of my typing learned in high school. Christmas There is always activity here at Fertile, but preparations for Christmas are something to behold. First, making of the Advent wreath. Three days before Advent we gathered pine from a large pine forest nearby. I had the pleasure of helping make thewreath, which we hung from the living room ceiling. ¯ With its four candles. magenta-colored ribbons and fresh green l~ine it was a beautiful re-minder of the season of preparation for the great Feast of the Nativ-ity as well as of the long period of waiting for the first "coming .of Christ over 1900 years ago. Decorations in the house were c.hanged to conform with the spirit of the season, and each evening after sup-per, as we lit the candles, one the first week, two the second, and so on, and asked God's help and blessing, we seemed to come closer to the Divine Infant soon to be born again in our hearts on Christmas Day. It was during one of these evenings when all felt in a gay and joyous mood that we selected the °"jewels" for our decorated cross. We finally all agreed on the selection and then could hardly wait for Christmas to hang the beautiful cross with its sparkling stones of red, yellow and blue. Several trips were made to St. Louis and near- 246 September, 1953 RURAL PARISH WORKERS by towns for Christmas shoppi.ng ~and to pick up clothes, canned goods, toys and candy donated by generous friends for "the needy. Also to distribute gifts to our families and friends~ Miss Pat and Miss Christina returned for a week-e.nd to help with the toys, sacramentals, and candy for the children. We were all busily engaged in this task when the Auxiliary Bishop, Most Reverend Charles H. Helrrising, arrived for a short visit with the ¯ Parish Workers. He .gave us his blessing and told us to tell others ot the need for volunteers in this rural apostolate. The following week we packed food for all the needy people of the area. We could gix;e large boxes, due to the generosity of our friends. Gifts and candy were also prepared for our children in the Sunday classes. Several trips were made to the parish church with the station wagon full of people. We live eight miles from church and "many neighbors .would have no way to get to. confession or Holy Mass if it were not for the Parish Workers. Even on the day before Christmas as we worked on the Crib and tree, time was taken so that no one would miss the opportunity to receive Holy Communion on the great feast. As we finished trimming the tree we realized the season of prepa-ration bad ended. Gifts had been hung on the tree ready for the children when they came to visit during Christmas week. They would come with hearts full 6f joyand expectancy to receive their gifts. And we were ready, too . . ." for the greatest Gift of all, ~he Son of God Himself. At Vespers on Christmas Eve the lights from the four candles of the wreath flickered and caught in the jeWels of the decorated cross. A feel!ng of peace and joy filled each of us. Later when we drove with our neighbors to Midnight Mass we could almost hear the Angels singing, "Glory to God in the.highest . . ." And afterwards the gently falling snow seemed to enhance the feeling of peace and love as all exchanged the Merry Christmas greeting. I have written of many things during my first six months with the Rural Parish Workers. There are many more, all pointed to the development of Christian homes, wi~:h interest in government, edu-cation, culture and religious welfarel But you have not the time, ¯ nor I the space to include them here. UPon reading this you may. ti~ink all is Work and no play. But that is not true. Recreation is impor~tar~t in the life of a Parish. Worker. And in the evening you may find us reading, listening to. 247 SISTER M. AGNESINE, Review [or Religious the radio, playing cards, doing hand work according to one's inte~- "ests, and occasionally going to a movie. This summer we even took time out to, go swimming, hiking, picnicking, or for an evening drive. You see, we are just one happy family and all share in one another's joys or" sorrows, working, praying and p, laying together for the glory of God and the service, of.our neighbors. " If I intend becoming a Rural Parish Worker I must spend a pe-riod of reading and instruction, and learning what my duties would be in this area or any area to which I may be sent. Already I have seen the need of the work and the good the Parish Workers are doing. So I say, "God bless them and all their under-takings, and please send more workers for this vineyard." Paging !:he Religion Teacher Sister M. Agnesine, S.S.N.D. " " THE story is told of a prosperous business man who claimed that allMs success was due to a single statement left him as a legacy by his father: "My son, when everything goes wrong with you and ill luck seems to pursue you, then look around and see where you are mismanaging things." Instead of throwing up our hands in despair, as we realize the cryi~ag needs of a world strayed far from its. Maker, suppose that we, too, look around to see whether by any chance we religion teachers might be mismanaging things. Making Religion a Living Reality Granted that we are thoroughly equipped, theologically and in-tellectually, what else is required to assure our success? Let us as-sume that we teach our religion classes regularly and cgnscientiously. We may even boast that our pupils know all the answers. But have we any assurance that they also accept these truths and are prepared to live them? In other words, have we set their hearts on fire with love and motivated their wills with .a strong determination to live their religion intelligently and consistently all th'rough life? Their words alone are not sutticient assurance: neither is their more or less praiseworthy conduct in school. Their religion must be a-living re-ality. It must be~:gme so much a part, of their being that they can- 248 SeptemSer, 1953 PAGING THE RELIGION TEACHER not. lose it without losing life itself. To imbue children with such. a living faith means more than merely teaching Christian Doctrine. It means keeping in mind the fundamental needs of our times and directing pupils to meet these needs according to God's plan. It means, therefore, to help them un~derstand and appreciate God's complete ownership of the world and all it holds, and instilling in them a deep reverence for His au-thority. ,It means helping them to evaluate the things of time in the light of eternity; of making them seeall of life from God's point of view. It means preparing them to meet the problems of life, whether as humble employees, as members of a Christian family, or as leaders of a nation. It means impressing them with a sense of responsibility not only toward God but toward their fellowmen, whom they must recognize as members of the My.stical Body of Christ. It means, finally, giving them a sense of direction, so that they will always and above all things keep clearly in view their eternal destiny. Knou)ing Not Onlg What But Also Hou) to Teach How can the religion teacher,acco, mplisb so tremendous a task? He dare not excuse himself by saying that it is primarily the function of the home to train theyoung for Christian living. For, while he cannot, exempt parents from their duties, the wise teacher will first re-establish Christian ideals in the home through the boys and girls in his classes by teaching them to understand and accept the responsi-bilities of Christian marriage and Christian family life. All of this means more than imparting knowledge. It is not the printed or spoken word alone, no matter bow important in itself, that is necessarily convincing. If the teacher is to gain the desired effect, be must know not only u)bat to teach but how to teach. He must not only inform the pupil's mind but also aim to arouse his emotions to love the faith and to move his will to accept and live it. "Religion is no use" says Father Drinkwater, "until it is accepted and" lived." Teaching b~j Example To teach religion for Christian li~ing, therefore, we must pene-trate the thick shell of modern materialism which surrounds the n~en-tality of even our Catholic pupils. But to be able to do so, we must first of all be living examples of the truths we teach. To the young--. and to the old as well--we are the Church, ~ve are religion, we are 249 SISTER M. AGNESINE Review [or Religious Christ. And unless we outrival in all that is ¯good and true,.in all that is. noble and beautiful in the highest sense Of tl~e ~word, those who, knowingly or otherwise, contrive to shape .the aims, the atti-tudes, and the ideals of the young, we cannot hope to influence them for life. If we.teach that religion must take prec.edence over all other values in life and that therefore the religion lesson is the most imPor-tant of all subjects on the program, then we ourselves ¯will have to put first things first and prove by our regularity and zeal that we mean what we say. Then, too, we will quite naturally do all in our power to make the lesson the most fascinating and interesting sub-ject taught in the school. That means, ir~ the second place, that the teacher must have some knowledge of the techniques of teaching. All too many instructors of religion are still under the impression that all they need to do is to explain the subject ~ind that the child will naturally imbibe what is being said. They do not realize that in spite of a seemingly atten-tive attitude, the pupil is often miles ~way during the religion period : like the boy who, after hearing a long explanation of what it means to be selfish and unselfish, innocently asked the teacher what kind of fish that was. Making the Lesson Purposeful and Effectit)e The following questions may help the teacher to see more clearly whether the proper means are being used to make the lesson effective. Do I know how best to appeal to the child's heart, in language adapted to his age and ability? Do I strive not only to teach the Catechism lesson but more particularly to give children a lasting love and appreciation of those sacred truths? If they are leaving the Cath-olic school or study group shortly after these instructions, am I rea-sonably sure that I have instilled into their hearts the desire to grow in the knowledge and love of their faith, through the grace of the sacraments and also through a desire for further study and readir~g? Do I have a fund of convincing illustrations and stories, prefer-ably out of everyday life, that come close to the experience and un-derstanding of my pupils, so that they will the more' readily retain what I have tried to impress upon. them? Do I giye my students an opportunity to do things for them-selves, to ask questions, and think things througb.? Or do I do all the talking myself and take it for granted that th~ pupils are thinking and learning? 250 SISTER M. AGNESlNE, Review for Religious Do I know how to motivate their wills to action so that th~ knowledge of the truths they have learned will carry over to future years? When I teach the Mass, for example, do my pupils giadually learn to live and apply its beautiful prayers and lessons to themselves, not only for the present but especially for th~ years to come? Do I aim to bridge the gap between the day's seemingly unrelated lesson to tomorrow's realities? The sacrament of matrimony with all its implications is a case in point. How well do I prepare espe-cially those pupils who are about to leave the Catholic school, to ac-cept and appreciate the Church's teachings on the subject, and to lay firm hold on high ideals of Christian family life for future use? Am I familiar with the many teaching aids that are at my dis-posal to make my work more interesting and to help deepen the im-pression? Do I know how to use them to the best advantage? There are charts and pictures, fil~ns and slides in abundance. Can I distin-guish between what is most helpful and what is merely ~ntertaining? Do I realize the importance of making careful preparation for the daily.lesson? To outline my objectives? To divide the subject mat-ter according to its imporian~e and time allotment? To test pupil knowledge and particularly to evaluate my own teaching? reading By wrong, things. Acquiring Skill in Techniques How can the religion teacher acquire a fuller knowledge of those procedures that will best insure success? Here are a few suggestions: By accepting wholeheartedly the~ responsibility to teach ~eligion for living, that is, in a manner that will help those whom he teaches to lead fully integrated Christian lives. By keeping an open mind and realizing that no matter how ex-perienced or learned he may become, there is always room for im-- provement. " By prayerfully and conscientiously preparing the daily lessons and by carefully thinking the subject matter through himself, so that he may present it most effectively. .By keeping in touch with modern methods of teaching, through and lectures, and by observing experts in the field. looking around occasionally, especially when things go to see whether by any chance he might be mismanaging If, then, we are willing to face our problems and to set about en-thusiastically learning how to meet them, we may hope to add our little share in the great work of restoring 'all things in Christ. 251 Prac :ice: ot: !:he I-Ioly . ee Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. ~ T IS both profitable and commendable for religious to study the ~ d0~uments of the Holy See that affec~ their state of life., .This is particularly true at present, when the Sacred Congregation of Religious is exercising a more .positive and directive influence on the lives of religious. This article is devoted prin~ipally to' documents addr,essed to individual religious institutes. These are evidently not a matter of general knowledge but they are of general utility, since they reveal the practice and thee principles of the Holy See. I. ERECTION AND PONTIFICAL. APPROVAL OF CONGREGATIONS 1.Constituti.ons of. a new diocesan congregation. For at least the licit erection of a new diocesan congregation, the local Ordinary must first consult the Sacred ,Congregation of Religious.1 This. con-sultation is to be addressed to the S. C. of the Propagation of the Faith for the .erection of native congregations in missionary countries. Diocesafi constitutions should be compiled in conformity with the Code of Canon Law and the practice of the Holy See as found in the approved constitutions of pontifical congregations. They ate to dif-fer from pontifical constitutions only in the matters proper to dioce- .san congregations. For the attainment of this end the practice of the S. C. of the Propagati~'n of the Faith had already commanded that after the erection of the new congregation: "The Constitutions of the new congregation, in Latin and in the vernacular (at least six copies), must as soon as possible be submitted to this Sacred Congregation so that they may be duly examined, amended, and returned with suit-able remarks to the Ordinary, to be approved by him.''2 The S. C. of Religious now follows the same practice and demands that the local Ordinary present the complete text of the 'constitutions with the con-sultation for the erection of the new diocesan congregation.3 At least one author had previously recommended such a practice to local Or-dinaries.~ The fear, already expressed by some authors, that this oractice 1Can. 492. § 1. 2Bouscaren, II, 158, n. 10. 3Larraona, CpR, XXVIII (1949), 228, nota ). 4Muzzarelli, n. 53. 252 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE will ~ause an excessive similarity in the constitutions of various insti-tutes can be avoided by greater care in the. compil~tion of the spir-itual, as distinct from the canonical, ~rticles of the constitutions. The practice will also preclu,de the opposition that often arises when the ihstitute wishes to become pontifical. This opposition is usually con-cerned" with matters that are thought to be new but which should have been contained in the diocesan constitutions of the congregation, for example,~e system of delegates for the. general chapter and the six-year term~'Bf the superior general. 2. Mbtters to be presented fora decree of praise. A diocesan con-gregat! on ordinarily becomes pontifical by a decree of praise, With which the Holy See practically always now grants an experimental approval of the constitutions for seven years. The conditions neces-sary for pontifical approval are: the congregation by a sufficient test~ of time should have given proof of stability, religious observance, and of spirituai profit in its work; it is sufficient that the congregation number one hundred and fifty ~nembers and.is not necessary that the congregation have houses in more than one diocese. These facts are established primarily from the testimonial letters of the local Ordi-naries. To obtain a decree of praise the following matters are to be sent to the S. C. of Religious: a) A petition for the decree, of praise addressed to the Ron~an Pontiff and signed by the superior general and his or her c~uncillors. b) The testimonial letters of all the local Ordinaries in whose dioceses or territories the congregation has houses. Each local Ordi-nary is to send his letter directly to the S. Congregation. c) The"number of religious and houses. The S. Congregation will be aided in its judgment on the system of delegates for the gen-eral chapter !f the houses are listed in a tabular form that gives sepa-rarely the number of professed of perpetual and temporary vows in each house. d) The name in religion, full name in the world, and a brief biography of the founder or foundress and of the first superior of the congregation. e) The S. Congregation is to be informed of any extraordinary facts, such as visions and the like, .that occurred at the foundation of the congregation or thereafte~ and also of the special devotions and special and. favored religious exercises of the congregation. f) A copy of any special book of prayers in use in the congrega-tion. 253 ,JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious g) A colored picture of the habit of the professed and of the novices. h) 30 typed copies of the constitutions. These should prefer-ably be in Latin, but French or Italian is admissible. The constitu-tions should have been revised, for the new pontifical status and have been previously examined and approved by the local Ordinary of the motherhouse. They are to conform to the Code of Canon Law and the practice .of FheHoly See, and are to contain the norms and safe-guards necessary for attaining the special end of the c~regation. A recent form letter of the S. Congregati6n appears to demand only two copies of the constitutions, but it is not certain that the former num-ber of thirty is no longer obligatory,s i) Information is to be given as to the number of members who were formerly in other religious institutes. j) An historico-juridical account of the congregation from its beginning. k) A quinquennial report, which may be in the vernacular, for the five years immediately preceding the petition and compiled ac-cording to the questions of the new quinquennial report for pontifical institutes. 'A question that can apply only. to a pontifical institute will obviously not be pertinent. ¯ l) It is to be stated whether there are other religious institutes in the diocese with the same special purpose. m) If the congregation is a third order, an attestation of aggre-gation from the superior general of the first order must accompany the petition. n) The. superior general, with the consent of the local Ordinary of the motherhouse, is to designate a secular or religious priest resident in Rome to act as agent for the matter with the S. Congregation. 3. Miscellaneous details. The expense incurred at Rome for the de:- cree of praise is to be classed as insignificant. The. process can be quite slow. One American congregation mailed the necessary mat-ters to Rome in June, 1950, and received the reply in March, i953. During the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1952) the decree of praise has been obtained by ninety-two congregations; the highest number in any one year was twelve;" and eight of the congregations listed have their motherbouses in the United States.6 4. Continuance of superiors in ottice. Muzzarelli states that on the scf. Guti,%rez, CpR, XXXIV (1953), 129. 6Cf.Guti~rrez, ibid., 130-138. 254 September, 1953 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE occasion of obtaining pontifical approval .or of a new approbation of the constitutions the general, provincial, and local superiors.remain in office but only for the time for which they had been elected or ap-pointed. At the expiration of this period a new election or appoint-ment is necessary. The ~ame principle is to be applied to general, provincial, and local councillors and officials. Canon la.w regulate.s precisely the duration in office of a local su-perior, who may not have more than two successive full three-year terms in the sam~ house inclusive of the time in office hnder the for-mer and the new constitutions. However, in the case of higher su-periors the Code merely.prescribes that they are to be temporary and leaves the determined legislation on the duration.and re-election or re-appointment to the constitutions. The almost universal practice of the Holy See in approving constitutions now gives the superior gen-eral a term of six years and permits an immediate re-election only for a second ttrm. A mother general who had two full six-year terms expiring after the approval of the new constitutions is fully eligible for a six-year term, and even for immediate re-election on the expira-tion of this term, under the newly approved constitutions. The time spent in office under the former constitutions is not to be computed, since these have now lost all force.7 II. LAW 1, Observance ot: laud. It is evidently the duty of superiors to en-force the exact observance of all the pertinent laws of the Church on religious, the Rule, and the constitutions. Negligence in the observ-ance of inual[dating laws on religious can have most serious conse-quences, and this is especially true of invalidating laws on the novice-. ship and professions. The S. C. of Religious gently admonished the superiors of one institute to be more diligent in the future in com-plying with all the laws on the noviceship and the professions. 2. Exaggerated custom books. Customs are necessary for order, effi-ciency, and reasonable uniformity, but some custom books have been too minute and oppressive. From unofficial reports and summaries this appears to have been the thought at the meeting of superioresses general of pontifical institutes held at Rome in September, 1952. Greater attention is to be given to the spirit of the law, since the law of any institute should be the incarnation of its spirit. Not many prayers, but prayer is what is necessary. Formalism, legalism, and ;Muzzarelli, pp. 206-207. 255 JOSgPH F. GALLEN ' Revietv for Religious externalism are to be avoided. The centering of the religious life in the fulfillment of innumerable details, formalities, and observances should be abandoned. Religious are magnanimgus souls who have sacrificed everything to attain and intensify the love of God, not fussy externalists. III. HABIT OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN 1. Form o~ the "~abit. Pius XII expressed the. general principle on the habit of religious women when he state~l that it should manifest the consecration to Christ, religious simplicity and modesty, and be in conformity with time, place, work, and hygiene.8 This norm does not demand any universal and fundamental change in the traditional habit of religious women. Furthermore, the prin, ciple is not new in the practice of the Holy See. The Normae of 1901 stated that the habit in material, form, arrangement, and color~ should conform to religious dignity, gravity, modesty, and poverty, and that "it should exclude any adornment that was apt to l~rovoke adverse comment or ridicule.9 In its typical constitutions for diocesan missio.nary con-gregations the S. C. of tl~e Propagation of the' Faith enjoined: "The habit is to be simple, accommodated to the usages of the people and the climate and not to European customs.''1° In the Statutes for Ex-tern Sisters the S. C. of Religious cdmmanded that the habit of these sisters was to be suitably adapted to their external work and also to external and local circumstances.1~ Sincere reverence for the religio~s habit does not exclude neces-sary modifications. The more practical doubts that arise about some habits seem to be of the following nature: Is sufficient allowance made in .the habit as a whole for the heat of summer and the cgld of winter? The cove~ing of tl~e head and face often causes a questiQn in the chance observer by its stiffness, closeness, ornateness, the time evi-dently necessary for laundering, the extension of the covering beyond the face, and in a.few cases this part of the habit appears to be pro-vocative of adverse comment. We may be permitted one illustration of these observations. The extension beyond the, face does not con-tribute to safety in driving an au.tomobile, frequently makes conver-sation somewhat unnatural, and ~nust be an obstacle in such cases as working on .a patient with a doctor. This is not the most serious SAAS, 43 (1951), 741; 44 (1952),.825. . 9Normae of 1901, nn. 66-67. ' lONormae pro Constitutionibus" Cong(egationum luris Dioecesani, n. 19. IIStatuta a Sororibus Externis Seruanda, n. 26. 256 September, 1953 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE defect that has b~en noted in some religious habits. The sane and practical principles of the Holy See are clear in themselves. Each habit should be sincerely examined on its conformity with these prin-ciples. 2. White habit. The Holy See has f~equently approved in constitu'- tions an ;irticl~ permitting the use of the white habit to hospital sis-ters and to those for whom such dress is necessitated or counselled by other duties or the climate. This habit is accordingly in use in sev-" eral institutes in the infirmary, kitchen, in teaching home economics, and. in similar duties. We can argue safely from the practic~ of the Holy See that such a use of th~ white habit is permitted in all insti-tutes of religious women. The white habit should be as similar as possibl'e to the ordinary habit within the demands of hospital effi-ciency, which is its primary use. The ordinary habit does not have. to be worn under the white habit. 3. Change in the habit. A change in the habit of a pontifical insti-tute or of a diocesan congregation whose habit had been submitted to the judgment of the Holy See may not be made wit,ho,ut the permis-sion of the Holy See; in other diocesan congregations the permissior{ of all the Ordinaries in whose dioceses the congregation has houses is necessary and sufficient.12 Since the habit ik prescribed by the consti-tutions, a change must also have been previously approved by the general chapter. It can be safely held that only a change in the ex-ternal appearance of the habit demands these formalities. The Nor-mae of 1901 required the permission of the S. Congregation only for a change in the appearance (t:orrna) of the habit,13 and the Holy See approves constitutions that demand the permission of the S. Congre-gation only for a change-in the form or color. These constitutions. permit the mother general with at least the advice of her council to, make other changes in the habit, for example, in the material, and this norm should be followed by all institutes for a change that does hot affect the externa! appearance of the habit. IV. DOWRY AND RENUNCIATION OF PATRIMONY IN CONGREGATIONS l. Dowrg. The dowry'is and always has been proper to institutes of women. An amount larger than the one prescribed may be re-ceived as a dowry. An institute that does not exact a dowry may ~2Can. 495, '§ 2. 13Normae of 1901, n. 70; cf. n. 69. 257 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reviev2/:or Religious receive a dowry that is f~eely offered as such. A subject may give, comple'te, or augment a dowry during the novic~ship and after first or final simple profession. In all the cases listed above the amount that may be given is unlimited, but any amount accepted as a dowry is subject to the laws on the dowry. ' These statements are accepted canonical doctrine.14 2. Renunciation of patrimong in'a congregation of women. The point here can be more clearly proposed in the form of a case. Sister M. Anita, a professed sister in a congregation, has a patrimony of $50,000. She wishes to give the entire amount to her institute, but can. 583, 1°, forbids her, whether her congregation is pontifical or diocesan, to give away this money during her life without a _dispensa-tion from the Holy See. When asked recently for such a dispensa-tion, the S. Congregation replied that the sister, without any permis-sion. of the Holy See~ could give the money to her institute as a dowry or as an increase in her dowry. If the institute wishes to spend any part of the $50,000, permission of the Holy See will be necessary, because can. 549 forbids the expenditure of the dowry. This per-missio, n will be given if the. institute furnishes satisfactory guarantee of returning the capital sum to the sister in the event of her departure from the institute. The interest on the $50,000 is acquired abso-lutely by the institute, but the capital sum must be restored to Sister M. Anita if she definitively leaves the institute, licitly or illicitly, whether her vows have been dispensed or not,15 This is the prefer-able solution of the case, since it was proposed by the S. Congrega-tion itself. The same solution may be followed in any congregation of reli-gious women for either a professed or a novice. A dowry given during the noviceship passes into the revocable proprietorship of the institute only at first profession and thus is not a violation of can. 568, which invalidates any renunciation or obligation that a novice places on his or her patrimony during the noviceship.16 The institute is the mere depositary of the dowry, without p~oprietorship, use, or usufruct during the postulancy and noviceship. 3. Renunciation of patrimonV in a congregation of men or women. The prohibitior~ of can. 583, 1°, quoted above, applies to all congre-gations of men Or women. However, according to the common in- 14Cf. q. 194 of the Quinquennial Report [or Pontifical Institutes. 1SCan. 551, § I. 16Cf. Larraona, CpR, XIX (1938), nora 17. 258 September, 1953 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE terpretation, this prohibition does not ~xtend to the case in which t'he patrimony is given away, wholly or partially, on the agreement and with secure guarantee that it will be restored if- the religious should leave the institute or be dismissed. Professed religious in congrega-tions of men may thus follow this solution, for example, to give their patrimony to their institute. If this solution is follbwed, no law of the Code obliges the institute to secure the permission of the Holy See for the spending of the money. 4. Partial renunciation of patrimony in a congregation of men or women. Without any permission .of the Holy See, professed reli-gious iri congregations of men or women may with safe pr6bability give away absolutely to anyone even a large part of their patrimony provided the amount retained is sufficient to take care of the support of the religious in the event of departure from the.institute. A patri-mony that is. so small as to be entirely inadequate for such support does not fall under the prohibition of can. 583, 1% and may be given away absolutely to anyone,a7 5. New tendency in povert~l of congregations. There are indications that some wish the poverty arising from the simple vow in congre-gations to be made the same or at least to approach more closely the poverty effected by solemn profession, for example, by permitting the professed of simple perpetual vows in congregations to give away all their patrimony.~8 Only one known concession has thus far been granted by the Holy See in this matter. An institflte of religious women of simple vows obtained the following indult from the Holy See in February, 1951: "With the consent of the Prioress General and of bet Council, and upon a favourable report from the Mother .I_n_st_ructor, the religiou.s __m_a.y.at. tb.e _e.n_~ of .tb_e!_r tert.ianship, that is, about ten years after their first profession in the Institute, and pro-vided they have made perpetual vows, renounce their personal prop-erty present and future in favour of the persons or institutions whom they judge before God to merit their preference." V. ADMISSION OF ASPIRANTS The following articles, found in some constitutions recently ap-proved by the Holy See, will be of interest to other institutes. The candidate is obliged to present a testimonial of her free state, that is, lvCf. Bastien, n. 543, 3; Larraona. CpR, II (1921), 71-76. lSCf. Acta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Perfectionis, I, 377,429- 431. 259 3OSEPH'F. GALLEN " Ret~ietu for .Religious ¯ of her freedom from impediments. The testimonial of good character is to ,be obtained from the pastor or another known priest. ,The S. Congregation inserted the following article in one set of' constitu-tions: "The Mother General is to interrogate accuratgly on the mat-ter of health, especially concerning diseases that are classed as heredi-tary, and she is to record in writing the replies of both the aspirant and her.parents or guardians." VI. P0STULANCY Although the practice of the Holy See was said to demand that the time of the postul~ncy be accurately determined in the constitu-tions, thre'e sets of constitutions recently approved for congregations of sisters state this time only indefinitely, that is, "for .at least six months," and "not less than six months." A. congregation 6f sisters, whose postulancy is six months, re-quested and,received from the Holy See an indult for fivel years to prolong the postulancy two and a half months for all. This pro-longation will make it possible to complet~ a full coll~ge year during the postulancy. The Apostolic Delegate possesses the faculty of shortening or prolonging the postulancy prescribed by canon law.19 VII. SECOND YEAR OF NOVICESHIP 1. Dispensation. Canon law commands only one year of novice-ship, but many institutes prescribe a second year by the law of their own constitutions. The Holy See evidently does not wish an insti-tute to make a ~practice of asking dispensations from this second year. One pontifical congregation added the second year only recently, and {he Holy See granted an indult for three yeats to one of its provinces to have only. one year of noviceship. The province was.in extra-ordinary and urge.nt need of personnel. 2. Ernptogment in external" works. On November 3, 1921, the "S. C. of Religious issued an Instruction for all congregations, pon-tifical and diocesan, on the employment of novices in the external works of the institute during the second year of noviceship. " The Holy See inserts the principles of this Instruction in the constitutions of pontifical congregations. They should, therefore, be contained also in'diocesan constitutions, either approved 6riginally or revised after the promulgation of the Instruction.' These princil~!es are: (a) The spiritual formation proper to the noviceship.must be pri- 19Bouscaren, 1948 Supplement, 131. 260 September, 1953 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE mary in the second year, employment in external works secondary. (b) This employment is allowable only if permitted by the consti- . tutions, custom, or usage of the congregation. (c) The only licit motive for such employment is the instruction of the novices, never th,e utility or advantage of the congregaiion. (d) The employment is to be carried out witb.~ruderice and moderation. Novices are never to have the sole charge of any external employment but are to work under the direction and supervision of an experienced and exemMary religious. (e) Novices may not be sent out of the novitiate house for such employment unless this is permitted by the constitutions, custom, or usage and the motive is exceptional, extraordinary, seri-otis, and based solely on ~be requirements of the. novice's t~aining, never on the necessity or advantage of the congregation. (F) All such employments must be given up for the two full months pre-ceding first profession, and this time is to be devoted wholly to svir-itual formation and to preparation for profession in the novitiate house?0 A congregation of sisters stated simply in a quinq.uennial report that i~ employed the second-year novices in external works. The reply of the Holy See contained the statement that the Instruction quoted above was to be observed.21 An unofficial summary of the Roman meeting of superioresses general quotes the Secretary of the S. Congregation, Father Larraona, as having r~asserted the principles of the Instruction. He is also reported as having stated that there are always dangers attendant upon this work outside the novitiate. The motive for a second year of noviceship has b~en the necessity of a deeper spiritual formation in institutes, devoted to a very active life. This motive is verified in practically all modern congre, gations. No one experienced in the training of young religious will deny that two years are too brief a period for a proper spiritual formation. It is not very reasonable to prescribe prudently a second year of novice-ship in law and then imprudently overturn the law in fact. This is the reason why the S. Congregation insists on the fundamental prin-ciple that the second year must be maintained as a year of novicesbip. Employment outside the novitiate house should be even mor~ care-fully avoided. The practical consequence of separation from the master or mistress o'f novices is almost always'the lack of any spir-itual formation proper to a noviceship. A sincere examination of the ~°Bouscaren I, 302-304. ¯ 21Cf. q. 176 of the Quinquenn:,al Ro~ort for Pontifical Institutes. 261 JOSEPH F. (3ALLEN ReOiew for Religio,,s effects of employing the second-yehr novices in external works will lead to a more universal observance of this most important Instruc-tion of the Holy See. VIII. PROFESSION I. Dispensation from longer period of temporary vows. The Code of Canon Law prescribes that a perpetual profession, solemn or simple, is invalid unless preceded by three full years of temporary vows.zz Only the Holy See may wholly or partially abbreviate this triennium in any institute; since the abbreviation would be a dispen-sation from the law of the Roman Pontiff. The same principle and reason are true with regard to permitting perpetual profession before the completion of the twenty-first year.23 Some institutes impose a longer period of temporary vows by the law of tfieir own constitutions. This period is usually five, much more rarely six, years. These added years are required only for the liceity o~ perpetual profession unless the constitutions certainly de~ mand them for validity. The latter is practically never permitted by the Holy See in approving constitutions. The constitutions of one pontifical congregation of brothers state that the prescribed five years of temporary .vows are required for the validity of its simple per-petual profession. ¯ In diocesan congregations the local Ordinary may dispense from the entir~ added duration of temporary vows if it is required only for the liceity of perpetual profession24 and probably also when it is demanded for the validity of the latter,25 since he is the legislator for such congregations.~6 Many canonis~s would very likely demand that the dispensation be secured from the Holy See in the latter case, if we mawr argue from their similar doctrine on a dispensation from the second.year of noviceship. The local Ordinary has no power to dispense in this matter in pontifical congregations. Some authors .permitted the religious superior who admits to perpetual profession to abbreviate briefly the added duration of tem-porary vows, for example, to dispense from three months of a six-year period, but they restricted this faculty to the case. in which the 2ZCan. 572, § 2; 574, § 1. ~Can. 572, § 1, I°;. 573; 574, § 1. z4Cf. Bouscaren, II, 167. 25Cf. Regatillo," Interpretatio et lurisprudentia, 172; Instituti'ones furls Canonici, I, n. 698. Z6Can. 492, § 2: 495, § 2; 80. 262 September, 1953 PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE added duration was required only for the liceity of perpetual pro-fession. 27 However, in the constitutions of pontifical congregations recently approved, the S. C. of Religious ,has been adding the clause that the Holy Seealone may dispense wholly or partially from the added duration, even when required only for the liceity of perpetual profession. Therefore, the faculty of abbreviation given to religious superiors in the doctrine of authors quoted above is more probably not true. The better doctrine is that they possess this power only if it is expressly granted to them by a general or. particular principle of their law. Otherwise any dispensation from the added duration in pontifical congregations should be secured from the Holy See .and in diocesan congregations from the local Ordinary. 2. Prolongation of temporary prot:ession beyond six years forbidden. The point here also can be more clearly proposed in a case. Brotl~er Francis Joseph made his temporary profession at the age of seven-teen. His profession extended to the completion of his twenty-first ~'ear. At the latter time and after the brother has spent four years in temporary vows, his higher superior is doubtful of his suitability for perpetual profession. May this superior prolong the temporary vows for another three years? Tlhe source of the difficulty is can. 574, § 2, which states: "The legitimate superior may prolong this period but not beyond a second term of three years . " The more probable interpretation of this canon has been that a pro.longation is illicit if thereby the entire pe-riod of temporary vows exceeds six years. The. contrary opinion was admitted to be probable and safe. One of the arguments for the first opi.nion has been the practice of the Holy See. The S. C. of Religious has constantly admitted a prolongation of only one year when the constitutions prescribed five years of temporary vows and has excluded any prolongation when the constitutions imposed six years of temporary vows. It was con-cluded that the S. Congregation did not wish the period of temporary vows to exceed six years. This argument is strengthened by the cur-rent practice of the S. Congregation, since recently approved consti-tutions contain the explicit statement that the entire period of tem-porary vows may not exceed six years. Furthermore, Larraona states that the 1)emporary profession may never be prolonged beyond six years without violating the Code and affirms that this has been de- 27Cervia, 128; Goyeneche, CpR, IX (1928), 325; Schafer, n. 973. 263 J(~SEPH F. G?~LLEN for Religious tided in plenary sessions of the S. Congregation and in audiences.28 He and Guti~rrez state that this same doctrine is based on a reply of the Code~ Commission, has been the constant in(erpretation and prac-tice of the S. CongrFgation, and conclude that a prolongation beyond six years in any institute demands an indult of the Holy See?9 This conclusion is justified by the arguments, even though the reply of the Code Commission has not been published. The solution of the case given at the beginning of t.bis number is accordingly that the vows of Brother Francis Joseph may be pro-longed for two years but a prolo,ngation beyond the six years de-mands an indult from the Holy See, whether the institute is pontifical or diocesan. 3. Place of first ternporar~lprofession. Can. 574, § 1, commands for liceity that the first temporary profession be made in the novitiate house. The Code prescribes nothing concerning the place of sub'se-quent temporary professions nor of perpetual profession, solemn or . simple. Constitutions frequently explicitly state that these may be made in" any house of the institute. For a proportionate reason, the S. C. of Religious.will grant a dispensation permitting the first temporary profession to be m~ide outside the novitiate house. If a motherhouse is under the authority of the one local superior and consists of a novitiate, juniorate, ter-tianship, and an academy for girls, the first profession may be made in any part of such a motberhous~ without a dispen.sation from the Holy See. The canon does not demand that the first profession be made within the part of the house reserved for or used by the novices but in the novitiate bourse. Th.erefore, a first profession m~ide any- .where in the latter satisfies the prescription of this canon. 4. Private devotional renetoal of vows. Constitutions approved by the Holy See often counsel th~ freqiient private .renewal of vows, especially after the reception of Holy Communion. Such constitu-tions usually add that special indulgences are attached t'o the latter ¯ practice. It is true that an indulgence, of three years is attached to such a renewal after the celebration of Mass or the reception of Holy Communion,3° but it is difficult to see why such a fact should be men-tioned in the constitutions, which are to contain.the more funda-mental laws of the institute. ,- 2SLarraona, CpR, XXVIII (1949), 196, nota 17. ~Larraona-Guti~rrez, ibid., 332~ .nota 42. 3ORaccolta, n. 695. 264 September, 1953 5. Special vows. The Holy~ See manifested from at least 1892 that it would no longer approve special vows in new institutes.31 The -same principle has been reaffirmed on more than one occasion. congregation of sisters, approved by the Holy See before 1850, re-cently asked the S. Congregation of Religious for an authentic inter-pretation of its constitutions on the. existence of a fourth and fifth vow. The S. Congregation in its first reply affirmed the existence of ¯ both vows, since the language of the formula of profession and the history of the matter clearly indicated that these were intended as special vows. The fourth vow was the ser'~ice of the poor, sick, and ignorant. This is especially the 'type of vow'that the Holy See will not ~dmit in new institutes, since it constitutes the special end of the institute, is already an obligation of the constitutions, and is accordingly pri-mary remot~ matter of the vow of obedience. The fifth vow, taken also in temporary profession, was that ofperseverance. A. second reply of the S. Congregation clarified this fifth vow: "The fifth vow of persevering in the same vows is to be understood in the following sense. The obligation of persevering temporarily or perpetually, ac-cording to the mind and practice of this Sacred Congregation, is in-cluded in the temporary or perpetual profession. Accordingly the words of the formula of profession on perseverance are not to be ¯ understood in th~ sense of another vow." The Holy See and authors have also defined the special vow of stability, taken in imitation of the Benedictine vow, as being con-tained in the obligation of perpetual profession,aa The vow of s~a-bility of Benedictine Sisters is defined: "By the vow of stability the Sisters attach themselves to the hbuse of their profession and ufiite themselves with the religious family there existing, and promise never to 'wrest their necks from under the yoke of the Rule.' " It is not impossible to find different and approved definitions of these special vows in theconstitutions of pon.tifical institutes, for example, that of stability. IX. TELEPHONE AND RADIO In a recent approval of the constitutions of a congregation of sis-ters, the H01y See inserted the.article: "The use of the telephone and alBattandier, n. 186¯ 32Normae'of 1901, n. 102¯ 33Bastien, n. 481. 2: Battandier, n. 187. 265 ,JOSEPH F. (3ALLEN ,Review [or Religious radio is to be regulated by the superior." In its reply to the quin-quennial report of the same type of congregation, the Holy See stated: "Listening to the radio in private does not appear becoming; therefore it would be better to forbid it." X. WORKS OF THE INSTITUTE § 1 Teaching Sisters and School~ 1. duniorates. This section on the works of the institute contains the most practical matter of this article. Unless otherwise noted, the articles quoted in this section have been inserted by the Holy See in constitutions approved during the past two or three years. The articles on the juniorate are: "After their profes,sion the Mother General shall assemble the junior professed in houses of formation, where, under the direction of a competent, l~Iistress, they shall attend Catholic schools, if. such exist. They shall be supplied with all m~ans necessary' for the pur-pose and shall apply themselves diligently to the attainment of diplo-mas that will be recognized also civilly." ¯ "During this time of formation it will be profitable to supple-ment the classes with lectures and instructions by learned Catholics, who shall emphasize the relation of teaching with Catholic faith and morals." The question of juniorates was discussed at the meeting o~ the superioresses general in Rome. The value and necessity of juniorates were clearly seen, but their immediate initiation, program, extension, and duration were left. to the individual institutes. The necessity of appointing a special Mistress of Junior Professed, distinct from the local superior, . was stated more categorically. It is to be noted that the article quoted above is far more absolute than the unofficial ,re-ports of the Roman meeting. I doubt that any experienced higher superior of congregatio,ns of brothers or sisters denies the necessity of juniorates for the proper spiritual formation and education of subjects. I personally believe that the necessity of juniorates has passed the point of discussion and opinion; it is now a matter of conviction and urgency. Congrega-tions of brothers and sisters should immediately institute a juniorate. This means that the junior professed will not be applied to the ex-ternal works of the institute until they. have completed their under-graduate studies. Extyerience proves that there is only one way of attaining this supremely important object: the superior general must 266 September, PRACTICE OF THE HOLY rise to his or her strongest moment and command it. Let no one swell the low notes of those who chant mournfully that it cannot be done: whaf has been done can be done. If the argument is proposed that the junior professed should be tested in the external works and life of the institute before perpetual profession, the answer is easy. The institute can study the expediency of increasing, with proper permission, the prescribed period of temporary vows to five or six years. The juniorate for those destined to be nurses will require study and investigation for the attainment of a suitable program. 2. Preparation for perpetual profession. This number and the pre-. ceding apply equally to brotbe~s and sisters destined for works other than teaching. At the Roman meeting of superioresses general the withdrawal of the junior professed from the ordinary life of the in-stitute for one or several months of renovation of spirit and of deeper and more mature spiritual formation before perpetual profession ap-pears to have been authoritatively favored. However, this can scarcely be held as necessary if the institute has an-adequate junior-ate. It will also be very close to the noviceship, since most institutes have only three years of temporary vows. While I do not deny the merit of this suggestion, it seems to me to be far more necessary for institutes of brothers and sisters to study the initiation of such a program several years after perpetual profession, when the religious has spent more years in the ordinary life and works of the institute and is in the age group of thirty to thirty-five. This is the critical age for religious. The vision and heart of spiritual youth have often suffered a slow death from worldliness, selfishness, the gradual e'xclu-sion of mortification, the abandonment of real prayer, and the de-structive, disillusioning, and even embittering example of others. It is. the age that needs spiritual revivification and rejuvenation. If this is not had, the soul can readily grow old with the body and crawl into eternity as enfeebled by mediocrity as the body is by age. A longer period is desirable, but it would be sufficient to devote one full summer to such a renovation. This plan does not exclude the advisability of the renovation before perpetual profession, but the necessity, value, intensity, and duration of such a renovation would depend on the length of the noviceship, the existence of a juniorate, the number of years spent in the active life, and the adop-tion of the later renovation here recommended. 3. Continuation of studies after the junforate. "After they have received their diplomas, it is the duty of the 267 JOSEPH F.'GAIzLEN Rebiew For Religious Sisters t6 advance their k~towledge by unremitting study anal reading of the books that are constantly being published." Th~ sense of this article admits no doubt, but its present observ-ance is more than doubtful; It is safe to assert that the daily average time granted to sisters for preparation for class and advancement is about an hour. If this is sufficient for preparation for class and ad-vancement, it seems equally safe to hold that only a genius may am-bition the life of a sister. ¯ The article is merely a dictate of common sense for instittites de-voted, to teaching. It will never be properly observed unless careful thought is given to such headings¯ as the following: learning is not incompatible with true piety: a solid and inspiring education in the juni0rate; the elimination of interminable vocal prayers in common: the realization tbat some spiritual duties may be made privately; the quick and painless death of the restlesshorarium that finds peace only in the clangor of. the bell; peaceful acquiescence in the fact that study in'one's room or cell is not forbidden by the natural'or canon law:~ sufficient sleep, holidays, and vacations; .a notable lessening of the time given to domestic work; the employment of more lay teachers and more secular help for domestic work; finally and especially; the elimination of the present totally unreasonable overwork. We can aptly add the admonition given by the Holy See in its reply to the quinquennial report of one institute. There are very few institutes of brothers and sisters that cannot profit by. this ~idmoniti6n: "If possible, something should be done to correct the situation whereby the' sisters, exhausted by excessive labor, are apparently exposed to many difficulties and dangers and consequently fail in carrying out, the religious life." An unofficial summary of the Roman meeting ~f superioresses general contains some very pertinent thoughts on this heading. Let us hope that the superiors subscribed .to these thoughts as actualities to be attained and not as 'the dreams of a waning summer. These thoughts are: "Maternai care must be taken of the health of the religious; the work of each must be orderly and moderate; each religious must have time for her exercises of piety." "The schedules must always be reasonable and adapted to the various regions and apostolic ministries today confided to religious." "In their individual houses, the Superiors General will provide for all the Religious the possibility and facility; 'of a Christian life 268 September, 1953 PRACTICE OF: THE HOLY SEE (with the Sacraments, the Word of God, Spiritual Direction, etc.) and of Religious life with the posiibility of carrying out the duties imposed on them by their consecration to God (day~ of Retreat, Spir-itual Exercises, and spiritual practices common to the individual In-stitute) ." "It must be remembered that the a~ostolate is also a science and an art and that the Holy See insists on the elevation of the literary. technical and professional culture of the Religious, on the absolute necessity of degrees required for the exercise of the various profes-sions: on the necessity of aspirin~ to a greater degree of proficiency, never thinking that one's culture is adequate f9r the present need." 4. Progress and annual meeting. "The Congregation is to adopt, the prhisewortby custom of an annual meeting of all the Sister teachers, under the presidency of the Mother General. for a discussion of methods of teaching and of the traditional pedagogy of the Congregation, in order that the schools of the Congregation may not only equal but surpass secular schools." 5. Subjects at~o to be studied. The following article will encourage those who are promoting courses of theology for brothers or sisters. Such a course should be partially completed in the juniorate. "They ar~ to study also dogmatic and moral theology, ecclesiasti-cal history, sociology, liturgy, Gregorian chant, and similar matters. For all of these studies the Sisters are to be" supplied with books for their individual and constant use." 6. Library. The community library, especially in small religious houses, can readily be neglected. If we had the pen and unction of Kempis, we would lament that the food of the modern monk is more abundant than his books. The library should be augmented con-stantly with books appert~aining to the subjects taught in the school and also with newly published spiritual and cultural books. The article of the Holy See On the library is: "Each house shall have a library containing Catholic books on the entire field of pedagogy." 7. Teaching of Christian doctrine. "The Sisters shall not forget that they must be approved by the local Ordinary for the teaching of Christian doctrine." "In explaining Christian doctrine, the Sisters .shall proceed gradually and, as far as possible, they shall aim to instill into the minds ,of their, pupils a thorough knowl~edge of the tt, u_ths of o~faith rather than to have them commit to memory a series of formulas." 269 JOSI~PH F. GALLEN Review For Religious The following articles were inserted' by the Holy See in the con-stitutions of a congregation especially dedicated to the teaching of Christian doctrin~ and approved finally by the Holy See in 1949. "Since the sacred sciences are especially helpful to an' understand-ing of Christian doctrine, the Sisters shall place great emphasis on the .study bf dogmatic, moral, and pastoral theology, eccl~siastical history, and similar subjects. A collection of books on Christian doctrine, especially ~f recent worthwhile publications, is to be ac-cessible to the Sisters and others who devote themselves to the teaching of Christian doctrine." ""It will be very advantageous for the Sisters, with the proper authorization', to publish and distribut~ printed works on Christian doctrine." 8. Some norms of teachin~l. , "The Sisters. shall take care that order and cleanliness are ob-served in the classroom." "They should stu.dy the character and disposition of mind of all their pupils and are to unite a certain gentleness of treatment with strictness, when/he latter is necessary." "The 'inordinate inclinations oi the children are to be corrected gradually, and they are to be aided in the acquisition of good habits by the stimulus of admdnition, opportune advice, and by bringing to light the law Of conscience, which,'as is well known, appears from the earliest years." "Offensive speech~ blows, and intemperate anger are to be avoided in punishments. A moral sense of responsibility for theii actions rather than servile fear is to be inculcated in the minds of the chil-dren." "The Sisters are to refrain absolutely from partiality and prefer-ence in their relations with the children. The deportment and coun-tenance of the.Sisters should manifest an evenness of disposition and kind.heSS united with something of reverence." "" "Experience proves that the fostering of the interior life, which is developed by good actions, faith in God, and self-sacrifice, appears even in young children as the right and safe path along which life is to be guided." "A love of modesty is to be developed in girls with regard to dress, deportment and their conduct with others." 270 " September, 1953 .PRACTICE OF THE HOLY SEE § 2 Sister Nurses arid Hospitals 9. Training and.continued pr6gress. "['he problem of overwork is particularly acute in the case of brothers and sisters applied to hos-pitals. In some religious hospitals a weekly holiday is apparently unknown. The continuation of this practice is unthinkable. Every brother and sister nurse should have at least one day a week that is completely free from hqspital duties, and it would contribute' much to 'their health, quiet of mind, and spirituality to spend as often as possiblea notable part of this weekly holiday awa.y from the hos-pital environment. Overwork will not facilitate the continued study and progress demanded by th~ following article that is inserted in constitutions by .the Holy See: "The Sister nurse must strive to increase her knowledge after she has secured a diploma valid also according to civil law." I0. Medical ethics. "A Sister is to refrain from administering medicines or assisting at Operations that are forbidden by the Church. In cases of doubt she is to consult the Superior." "Especially in extraordinary and important cases where there are at stake .the preservation of a human life, reverence for the human person, and care for the conscience of the patient, even if it is a case of extreme pain and gi.ves rise to such questions as euthanasia and others of similar nature,, the Sister shall be careful to give no help to an ac-tion that is contrary to Catholic principles." 11. Mod~stg¢. The Holy See has been inserting the following article in constitutions for several years past: "In certain cases where the care to be given is Of a particularly delicate nature, the Sisters shall dvail themselves, if possible, of the services of .the secular personnel or of the members of the sick per-son's family; for extraordinary cases the Superior should designate Sisters of proven piety and mature age who are williog to perform such works of chhrity. It is the duty of the General Chapter or Council to enact measures in this regard, to which the Sisters must con form." 12. Education as doctors. The following article, proposed to the Holy See in the genera] revision of the constitutions of two. congrega-tions, was approved by the S. C. of Religibus: "The Sisters assigned to the hospitals must be thoroughly pre-pared for the efficient discharge oftheir duties. There should be some Sisters educated as doctors and qualified for th6 various .departments 271 , C. A. HERBST Review for Religious ¯ of the hospital." Canon law does not forbid clerics or religious to study medicine or surgery. Canons 139, § 2, and 592 forl~id clerics and religious of both sexes to devote themselves avowedly, habitually, and for profit to the practice of medicine or surgery. Religious institutes devoted to nursing have by their approbation as such permission to practice the medicine and slight surgery demanded of nurses. Local Ordinaries in missionary countries may permit their missionaries, priests and re-ligious men or women, to practice medicine and surgery provided they are skilled in these arts, demand no payment, and observe rood-esty intreating the opposite sex. In other countries clerics, brothers, and sisters Who wish to i~ractice medicine or surgery must secure an indult from the Holy See. The article quoted above and approved by the Holy See implicitly grants to the two congregations a dispen-sation from th~ canonical prohibition of the practice of medicine and surgery for those qualified as doctors. Care is always to be taken to secure prbper civil authorization for the practice of these arts. [EDITORS' NOTE: Father Gallen's article will be concluded in November.] Discipline C. A. Herbst, S.J. It"I"HE very first step towards wisdom is the desire for discipline, .,| .and how should a man care for discipline without loving ~t, or love it without heeding its laws, or heed its laws with-out winning immortality, or .win immortality without drawing nearer to God" (Wis. 6:18, 19) ? Who could explain more clear!y or_show more beautifully than the Holy Spirit Himself does the place of discipline in the life of one who really wants to love God? "Order is heaven's first law" the proverb says. ¯ This conformity to law comes from discipline. Discipline in the passive sense is con-trol gained by enforcing obedience or order. There is order even in heaven, where God is supreme and the angels are ministering spirits. Where there is disorder chaos soon appears and it is impossible to at-tain the end of any organized society, which is the common good. The modern "autonomous man" is a law unto himself, a tyrant, an outlaw. Were the order established by discipline removed, "the bounded waters would lift higher than the shores," as Shakespeare says~ ?and make,a sop bf, all this.solid globe.';o ~ Then might, is right, "and the rude son should strike his father dead." Unleashed from 272 September, 1953 DISCIPLINE discipline, power obtained by our modern Hitlers and Stalins whets the appetite for more power. "And appetite, an universal wolf, must make perforce an universal prey, and last eat up himself." (Troilus and Cressida, I, iii.) Discipline corrects. This is its first function: a negative one, surely, but basic and important ever since the beginning when man short-circuited his powers through original sin and "to err is human" became a proverb. It is only too clear that in younger religious fre-quent correction is necessary. It helps to make away with the "old man," and who can put on the "new man" before putting off the old? The ways of the world (and they are gaining mightily with each decade) are not God's ways. In men of good will. which we presume aspirants to the religious life to be, correction should lead to prompt reform, or at least to a prompt attempt at reform. In those. who have already spent some time in religion it should lead not only to prompt but to thorougl~ and lasting reform. ReForm. That is a distasteful word to the worldling but opens up a vast field white for the harvest for the ease-loving religious. And we need not look across the table and plan reform for him. As Father said: "If ever you want to start a reform, start on yourself." "Charity begins at home" is true even in this negative aspect. Reform is the correlative and result of correction, and d'iscipline's first work is to correct. Discipline molds. It forms a religious after thi~ likeness of Christ. It shapes him. A character, a soul, is like clay in the hands of the p.otter. As defects are removed by correction the new man takes form under the interior influence of grace and the external influence of dis-cipline. It is exhilarating to see the young religious grow. That an earnest and fervent religious does grow even those who live with him can see. Those, however, who had known him i'n the world and after a few years see him as a religious are the ones who are really amazed at the change. The religious life is a school of perfection. One ex-pects a school to teach and mold and form and change and enlighten. ¯ .Discipline educates a soul, "leads out" its powers, the mind and the will, and induces them to make the most of the wonderful gifts God has given to each one of His children. Discipline strengthens. It gives one moral and spiritual power to act, live, and carry on enduringly and vigorously. This is conspicu-ous in the athletic world. Those who achieve fame in the field of sports do so because they have acquired physical strength, speed, and" accuracy of sense and muscle through long and severe disciplinary 273 C. A. HEI~BST Review for Religious train!ng. This extended and careful practice, their abstinence from food and luxuries and entertainment, is more rigorous than most re-ligious have to submit to. ."And they for a corruptibl( crown, but we for an incorruptible one." ~ Through discipline we store up resources of moral and spiritual strength whict~ we may draw upon in times of trial and temptation. A well-trained sc~ldier will come through many a difficult'and dang(r- ~ ous battle where an undisciplined one will succumb, as we found out in World War II. Through'discipline one acquires a great power of resistance. Discipline causes a soul to become effective and efficient in the direction~ of spiritual achievement, and to be foiceful in its life and work. A strong soul is ardent and zealous, too, and enthusiastic for, the things of God. Neither is a well-disciplined soul easily injured, subdued, or taken in. He is like a fortress, strong and firm. It is vigorous, healthy~ and tough, like an oak. Discipline makes a soul sturdy and unyielding. In the religious life we consider religious discipline in connection v~ith obedience. From an analysis of the word itself, discipline means teaching, training. "Considered in the authority which governs, re-ligious discipline is the sum total' of the rules with their ~anction. By the rules superiors teach the way which is to be followed; by pen- "ances in ~ase of infraction they bring back those who have strayed and repair the scandal given. Considered in inferiors, discipline is also c~lled regular observance, and is the ,faithful observance of the rules, in which observance all the members of the community unite in holy harmony. So important is religious discipline that it must be con-sidered as morally necessary for the conservation of the order as a whole, for that of.the religious life in a community, and for that of the spiritual life in each individual. According to what has been said, it is easy to see that superiors are under grave obligation to maintain religious discipline in the community; and in this regard, "connivance. on their part can easily become a consideiable sin" (Cotel, Catechism of the Vows, 137- 140.), In this connection we might note Canon 593: "Each and every religious, superiors as well as. subjects, must not only keep faithfully and completely'the vows they have taken, but also lead a life in conformity with the rules and constitutions of their own in-stitute and thus strive ~fter the perfection of their state." The rule of each religi0us.institute urges regular observance on ¯ all Each institute must first and foremost, of course, observe the law 274 ' September, 1953 D~SCIPLINE of the Church for religious. In Canons 594-612 we have mentioned especially the careful observance by all of th~ common llfe with re-gard to food, dress, and furniture; the careful performance of gpir-itual exercises; the wearing of the religious habit;
Interview with Fred Mastrangelo. Topics include: The history of the Mastrangelo name. How his father immigrated to the United States from Italy and became a tailor in Fitchburg, MA. What Fitchburg was like when Fred was growing up with a diverse population. His father and uncle's carpentry business. Fred's education. The Angel Hotel in Hyannis, MA. The different businesses Fred has started. How kitchens in America are different from those in Europe and how European kitchens have changed over time. Fred's children and their occupations. The traditions Fred carried on with his family. Memories from his childhood. The house his father built. What his parents were like. ; 1 LINDA ROSE: Okay. This is Linda Rose and we're on at the Center for Italian Culture. FRED MASTRANGELO: That's right. LINDA ROSE: Right? FRED MASTRANGELO: Mm-hmm. LINDA ROSE: And [unintelligible - 00:00:10]. FRED MASTRANGELO: It's Mastrangelo. It's just the way it sounds, M-A-S-T-R-A-N-G-E-L-O. LINDA ROSE: So can you give me a little bit of a history. FRED MASTRANGELO: Obviously when my dad emigrated here to the United States and attempted to get assimilated into society, he felt that in business purposes that a shorter name would be much better because he was competing with the Browns and the Whites and the Smith, and so he just took the last part of the name and called it Angel and used it as his business name. We in turn carried it on. We've never changed it legally to Angels, you know, but it's an alias that makes it easy, because Angel or Angel with tailor, which is what he started his business, so it's a lot easier to say and anybody to know. That's the reason for the Angel name. LINDA ROSE: Okay. Now can you give me… FRED MASTRANGELO: Interesting story. He emigrated over here in the late 1890s, young man, 21 years old. He had $21 in his pocket when he landed in New York and obviously moved in with friends from the old country. And like all immigrants, he had to learn the trade. His trade was a tailor and so he worked as a tailor in the Bronx in New York for a number of years, but becoming independent – now you got to know that my dad had no education, you know, relatively speaking. He's a very smart man, and I'm not saying that 2 lightly because he had to cope with all of the language difficulties in a whole bit. After a few years in the Bronx, he went… he started to feel his oats, as all young men did and wanted to become independent, and then he realized how life in the country was. He analyzed it as he tell us and says, "Look if I – look, for example, I settled in Florida and they had a [unintelligible - 00:01:55], no one would buy my suits. If I went to Pennsylvania and joined the Lewis [coal] mine strike, the miners wouldn't buy my suits." So somebody told him in New York that there was a little town known as Fitchburg, Mass that was diversified, even at that time was very diversified. They had paper mills. They had industrial complexes. They had their [unintelligible - 00:02:14]. They had a fantastic ethnic background made up of Italians, Jews, Irish, French, all in their own colonies, and it was a such diversification that my dad said, "Gee, if, you know, everyone else go down, at least [unintelligible - 00:02:30] the guys will buy my suits, so independent [unintelligible - 00:02:34] group will buy. So that up to business per se, in the community, if one segment or area dropped, at least I have an opportunity to market my product." So he moved to Fitchburg and started Angel Tailor in Main Street. That tailor shop right now is presently occupied by Mario the Tailor, whose family also came from the same part of Italy that my dad did. So, that was the start of Angel. As my mother says, your father wasn't a very good tailor but he was a hell of a businessman – and that's true; he was. He was extremely marketing-oriented and he employed at the time, at the height of his career, somewhere in the 19… part of the World War I, at least six or seven tailors, so he was doing a 3 very lucrative business. That was the start of the tailor shop. LINDA ROSE: Okay, just getting back, when did he come to Fitchburg? FRED MASTRANGELO: I'm going to say probably in the early 1900s and he spent about two, three or four years in New York and then became independent. I hadn't documented to trace it down, but I'm sure I could. You know, I just hadn't done it. LINDA ROSE: And did he travel to the United States by himself? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yes, mm-hmm. LINDA ROSE: How old was he? FRED MASTRANGELO: 21. LINDA ROSE: So 21in the market? FRED MASTRANGELO: Mm-hmm. LINDA ROSE: So young to see a man… FRED MASTRANGELO: No, it's just that through the contacts, as all immigrants have, there was a good established Italian culture community, as it were, as I indicated to you before, very strong ethnic groups in Fitchburg, which makes up the strength of Fitchburg. And he made contacts with some of the people from the [unintelligible - 00:04:20] which is the old country and the [unintelligible - 00:04:22] for example and some other people in Water Street, which was where the Italians lived, and decided to do it and that's what he did. As the business got successful, he bought a place on Granich Street, right above the so-called Water Street Complex and that's where we grew up as kids, so it's a fun time. LINDA ROSE: That was your Fitchburg [unintelligible - 00:04:48].4 FRED MASTRANGELO: Mm-hmm. It's great, great time and, you know, the community was close-knit. It was friendly, more kids that you can stick at and so we had an enjoyable childhood. LINDA ROSE: Do you remember any particular? FRED MASTRANGELO: In reference to? LINDA ROSE: Any special time? FRED MASTRANGELO: No, it's just that in retrospect, as I look back on it—and this isn't particularly just with our family—but the old-time immigrants had a flare. They had a strong cultural belief and tradition, and as they became involved in the American way of life, they adapted easily. They still maintained their all, you know, language and culture and religious backgrounds, but all of them, regardless of their occupation, believed in family number one and continuation of the traditions that they've learned which makes [unintelligible - 00:05:40] and integrity and working hard to success. I think those were the qualifications, particularly in my dad's generation. We're just so strong and it stuck in my mind. Now as I reach the autumn of my years, remembering my childhood, you know, we respected them and the authority that they [brought up]. Obviously it was interesting because as kids, we were brought into the parochial school system. I'm sure [unintelligible - 00:06:12] about that a bit, but that was quite an experience because we had it. In my particular class maybe three or four Italians in a strong Irish St. Bernard's grade school complex, and every day was a tremendous experience for us, particularly maintaining our culture. And you know how kids can be, so we had an awful lot of fun defending our name. LINDA ROSE: Because they give it fun back then?5 FRED MASTRANGELO: It was a learning experience, but nothing earth-shattering, and of course the sisters got left on the farm during their early years, as you know the rules of going to parochial school. They were hard taskmasters. LINDA ROSE: Mm-hmm. FRED MASTRANGELO: Delightful growing up in that community and to mingle with the various groups and… not really, it's just that we knew they were Irish and we were Italians, and that's the way it worked – but no, nothing like in today's current situation where bias is so strong and dominant, you know, no. We defended our positions and they defended theirs, but we got along [eventually]. LINDA ROSE: But the [unintelligible - 00:07:33]? FRED MASTRANGELO: Indirectly but nothing strong. We had large classes too, I mean, 90 in a class; it was, you know, a bit large. LINDA ROSE: That's a really – 90? FRED MASTRANGELO: In many classes. I think my first grade class is something like 76, 77; it's unbelievable. Oh, yeah, all in a row and all maintain the discipline and all maintained that pecking order. The smart kids sit up front, the dummies sit in the back. LINDA ROSE: Really? So it wasn't alphabetized? FRED MASTRANGELO: [No]. LINDA ROSE: So where were you? FRED MASTRANGELO: God knows, from grade to grade, probably raising hell in everyone of them. LINDA ROSE: You remember that? FRED MASTRANGELO: It sounds like my sister. LINDA ROSE: So it's great. I got [unintelligible - 00:08:16] movie but you don't remember. FRED MASTRANGELO: Mm-hmm.6 LINDA ROSE: Is that your experience? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yes ma'am, mm-hmm. [Unintelligible - 00:08:23] very friendly and as I said, it was just a little bit of…we didn't realize it at the time, but later on, it's a little bit of, you know, and likely so, the pride of their ethnic background, the pride of our ethnic background. We would have little conflict, I think no [unintelligible - 00:08:42]. Yes, yes, but the Water Street Complex was Italian. I mean all those markets and stalls were Italian, but obviously the parish, St. Bernard's Parish, is made up of the Irish people that lived—that wasn't the dominant; the dominant group up there were Italians up from Water Street. The Irish lived in the so-called Tahoe District, which is where the present St. Bernard's High School is. That was there area. If we crossed the bridge, we were in their territory, and they cross it the other way, they were in our territory. And I don't mean to constantly harp on this. It's just a little bit of a background – that's all. LINDA ROSE: That's important. FRED MASTRANGELO: Now they're changing… they're changing that area but there were still the great community [unintelligible - 00:09:39] you know, the [unintelligible - 00:09:43] element, the strong Finnish colony, the French [unintelligible - 00:09:48] area, I mean you know they've been infiltrated by other cultures, but at the time we were growing up, those were strong enclaves. If I were a politician and wanted to feel my oaths, I would have come to Fitchburg, because if I could cope with all of these groups, I would know I have a great stand. And they're strong dominant groups, no question about it, but… go ahead, go ahead.7 LINDA ROSE: Were there any rites of passage? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah, that was part of it, but I can't think of anything too dominant; you know, it's kids' things. The guys used to come down with me and we'd swim at the lake and we had fun together, but if they took the issue with a certain fact, then we'd stand up – because that part of the culture. If it was Mastrangelo, it was Mastrangelo, don't insult my name, don't insult my family and vice versa. Don't mess with the [O'Malley's] and the [Riley's] and, you know – we were just not… but we are harping on something that we shouldn't harp on so… LINDA ROSE: I was thinking more about right… FRED MASTRANGELO: All through the grade schools, from first grade to eight. LINDA ROSE: I had heard that… FRED MASTRANGELO: I suppose. LINDA ROSE: Maybe you were a little too young. FRED MASTRANGELO: Right, I think the important fact there is the strong mark that my dad and his people like him, marked in the community. That's the important part of our discussion. LINDA ROSE: Now… FRED MASTRANGELO: Yes. And the interesting approach was, as I indicated before, all of the immigrants had a trade. My father's brother, Alfonse, was a carpenter by trade. My dad when he was successful in the tailor business brought him over and Al lived with my dad. And to keep him out of trouble, they started a little woodworking shop, known as the Angel Novelty Company, and that was the start of the Angel Company per se. My dad had become successful and he bought a building off of Route 2A in Lunenburg Street, which is the halfway bakery at the time and that's where they started manufacturing wooden novelties. So, that 8 finally led to interior millwork, so the Angel Company became very dominant in interior millwork and by that, I mean doors and windows and corner cabinets. Now the important thing was that was also a successful business. I mean prohibition hit and that lasted a relatively short period of time; the brothers decided that it has nothing to do since the prohibition is going to be repealed as they get the restaurant seating, so they manufactured a line of wooden bar seating equipment that even today, I can recognize if I go to on an old-time bar and sit down, because it's the most comfortable goddamn thing you ever sat in your life. It was very successful and that was the flipside that they used throughout their business ability when… it was successful during that time period, manufacturing the restaurant seating, as I indicated, doors and windows—and you may not remember this because you're too young for it—but at one time, many of the houses had the so-called milkman access. There was a spot on your front door, as you buy a front door that the milkman will bring the milk in, you would open it from the inside and to take your milk in. And they were very successful on that approach and they did – as I said, it was novelty items, but then they changed the name to Strong Millwork at the Angel Company and that started… I'm going to say the real strong starting point was right after the end of World War II and then the so-called climb back in economic climate, and then the recession hit. And my father often—my mother often tells the story about my dad—but he told me himself; he said in recession he had another guy who's jumping out of the window. He said to himself, "This country is so strong; this country, there's so 9 much going for it that it can't go bad." So while everybody else was panicking, he took everything he owned, put mortgages on it, all his lifesavings, and invested in mills. This was the full run of the side of the Angel Company on Broad Street, which is a huge 100,000 square foot complex, and he bought mills on River Street. He bought property in downtown Fitchburg, and that was the success of his operations as a businessman. He brought his brother along with him. They were successful in that operation. So, on Broad Street, in this 100,000-square foot plant, they employed about 110 people and they changed their marketing approach, from restaurant seating to interior mill work—stone doors, windows, corner cabinets, kitchen cabinets—very large well-equipped plant, very successful through the years. LINDA ROSE: Now before you go on… FRED MASTRANGELO: By that time, he had sold his tailor shop to a shop, by the name of Sccino, which you may have interviewed. It's Sccino, S-C-C-I-N-O. It's another well-known name in Italian culture here in the Fitchburg area, and he spent all of his time devoted to the Angel Company. LINDA ROSE: Okay. FRED MASTRANGELO: And now that was roughly, as I indicated, from '38 to well, all the way through until the day he died, which was, you know, in the '60s…'50s and '60s. Now it was a full-grown conclusion that the boys, myself and my cousin who's the same age, Alfonse' son, would take all of the business. So after we graduated in college, I went to the service for two years. When I came back out, we got involved with the business, and at that time, the two brothers, Frank and Al, passed away within two to three years of each other. So we 10 took over and changed it from the millwork company into a kitchen cabinet company, and we were very, very successful. The interesting thing, reverting back to the Italian culture, is the fact that at the Angel Company, I bet you, 70 percent of the employees, even though we employed 100 and some on, were of Italian background. And I can see them doing that because they still spoke the language and they still have that strong cultural feeling, and they did everything in their power to work with the community. Yeah, tables and benches, very similar to breakfast nooks – remember the yellow old-fashioned breakfast, that type of concept. Yeah. LINDA ROSE: Mm-hmm. FRED MASTRANGELO: We're very, very successful on that because through a business, we feel everybody got involved with the problems and, you know, that's fine. LINDA ROSE: [Unintelligible - 00:16:52] FRED MASTRANGELO: That's a good sign. LINDA ROSE: Okay. So who was…? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah, that's when I stay put, that's exactly how it worked. My dad was in marketing, sales unit, and Alfonse, because of his woodworking background, handled the production, and they got along very well on that – because I tell you that it started with his brother and they were so close and his brother was a woodworker and a carpenter, and so it led to doing something with Alfonse, which in turn led to the growth of the business. LINDA ROSE: Right. [Unintelligible - 00:17:30] your father, Frank… FRED MASTRANGELO: That's a minor incident. LINDA ROSE: [Unintelligible - 00:17:32]?11 FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah, right. In becoming a tailor, he just had designed a ruler to help measure pants; that was insignificant. It had no bearing on this over all, because it's just a minor type of… just like I had pants on my own right now that are worthless, but they don't mean a damn thing, right. What's important, if you look at the headlines of that paper, you'll see that the impetus is on sales and marketing, and that's the knowledge that he brought in. That's the ability to be ahead of his time, which is why he bought mills and why he turned his business ability into more than just making suits. If he were only to be a tailor, he would just still fight to go on a tailoring business in the community such as Fitchburg, but if you were a manufacturer, you had 52 states from which to draw, the world from which to draw, and my father saw that and his brother went along with it and they became – we changed it to Angel Novelty; it's when, Ed, my cousin and I came up, we decided it had to make sense so we changed the name to the Angel Company. You got to remember, the work there is youngsters, both my cousin and I all our lives, because it was the rule of stepping in, in time, and so it became very strong in millwork, and by millwork, I mean things that had to be milled: doors, windows, pine products, kitchen cabinets, corner cabinets, balustrades, stairwells. And we had a very strong – the marketing approach was to sell through distributors, someone termed '[south] lumberyards', so people like Webber Lumber Company that was in Fitchburg were our outlets. There is no such thing as a Home Depot in those days. They were all lumberyards, all small individual minor power operations. They did it together. They did together, you know in their 12 own way, uneducated men but very smart, in their own way test marketed, analyzed it, brought in a strong group of sales managers, production managers, accounting experts, because it was a multimillion dollar business. [Unintelligible - 00:19:56] LINDA ROSE: [Unintelligible - 00:19:59] market for that? FRED MASTRANGELO: [Unintelligible - 00:20:01] took over. This is in time when Dr. [Giolidante] was expected to start his father's shoe shop. He got smart; he became a doctor. That's what made him a smart man, because he did it at the time when he was independently a pioneer and, like many of those cohorts, had to do it. But like all that was so-called immigrants, number one on their list is to make their life better for their kids and they recognized that education was important for you to make it. If you had the wherewithal, you went beyond high school, into college. We were very lucky that he felt that way. I went to… after I got out of St. Bernard's, I graduated from Philips Andover Academy in '46, and then I went to Boston University, graduated in the class of '50. Actually I worked my tail off. I went to four years of college in three years by going to summer school and I had [unintelligible - 00:21:04]. LINDA ROSE: So why did you want to do that? FRED MASTRANGELO: I want to get the hell out of it and to work right away. I was working, because in the group of college people that I roomed with, they were all ex-veterans from World War II so they straightened me out, yes. And then I went… as soon as I graduated, for all my work, I went to Miami for three years, so I was in the service during the Korean War. Now I spent all my life in the military going to school. I went from private one to a second lieutenant in three years,13 so that was all due to schooling. I spent my lifetime in Miami Boarding School, which is fun. LINDA ROSE: So it was a… FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh God, yes. Even today in retrospect, I look back and say, you know, school's into this. Thank God it was fantastic because instead of climbing up from the bottom of the ladder, they put me in the middle of the ladder so, you know, that was a very fortunate approach. But would I have wanted to do this? I don't know. I always have misgiving. I should have done something else, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, which is why I got involved with many other businesses, such as aviation, which is my first love, and my cousin with a motel in Hyannis, which was fun to do. I ran a Japanese restaurant. I built condominiums and [unintelligible - 00:22:19]. I had a ball going beyond the Angel Company but that's me personally. LINDA ROSE: Yeah, so coming up forward with building, you have [unintelligible - 00:22:31]. FRED MASTRANGELO: Well, once again, as the business started to develop, we turned it into a very successful prefinished cabinet company. The Angel cabinet line was well known in the northeast, and when I got out of the service, the industry was changing. I recognized the fact that instead of just millwork, we had to get into something else that was currently… we're losing our doors and our windows to the aluminum people. We were losing some of our product line, because they were building ranch houses rather than two-storey homes, and so we lost some of the product line, and so I was instrumental in turning the company to a prefinished cabinet company. I remember the first—we had always made kitchen cabinets; we had never done 14 prefinished cabinetry—and I remember the first cabinet we did; we thought it was absolutely gorgeous, but it was an abomination because we knew nothing about finishing so we had to just do it, to develop it, and that turned out to be very, very successful. With that success, obviously, a nice start to gain more independence because of our financial approach and we thought in terms of other investments. I had thought at the time that prefabrication was coming into this in the housing market, and I said, "Gee, I've been leading a big factory here. We got a fantastic approach. We know how to work with wood. Why am I thinking in terms of prefabrication?" But we decided that instead of prefabricating homes because they're all different, we would get involve with something that would be standardized, and motels seemed to be – all the rooms are the same. We put up 20 units and, you know, 20 walls the size, and so we spent a year looking for a site to build and we thought in terms of Hyannis because the Cape at that time was in its [growth] period. This goes back to 1955, '56, I mean, that time period. We found a delightful site on Route 132 that is now completely overgrown, but we were fortunate. We designed a motel, called it the Angel Motel, built it and – we knew nothing about the motel business. We knew very little about prefabrication, but the two seemed to work. We built it in the factory, shipped it down by truck, put it up in 30 days, opened up, and the first season was a huge success. Then we realized that the motel business was a fun thing to do. We paid for it, we did it off in something like five years, because here was a business that had no accounts receivable, that had no [late effect] because we hired high 15 school girls to clean; it had no merchandising inventory, and every night, you pick up, you know, X amount of dollars in cash, so it was a fun thing to do. And we sold it about three years ago, and I did. I mean, during that time, I got involved with the flight instruction and selling of aircraft at the Fitchburg Airport with another chap, a partner of mine, and we started the Silver Wings Company. We trained students how to fly and we sold type of aircrafts. Now it was fun because you could jump in a plane at Fitchburg, land at Hyannis and walk to the site, so both Dad and I used to fly down periodically, you know, in a matter of 20-30 minutes and walk way to the motel, so that was a beautiful approach to it. As I indicated, that was also successful. LINDA ROSE: What is the hotel called now? FRED MASTRANGELO: They've torn it down. They've put instead a mall now. Right after that, what was – it's interesting some of the stuff I've done and it sounds like I'm blowing my own horn, and I don't mean to. LINDA ROSE: No, it's important. FRED MASTRANGELO: Cleaning up and laundry were just coming in, okay. I've been involved with a group of investors and we started this, [Taco Outfit]. We're the first cleanup and laundry in Fitchburg. We had the second one on Duck Mill Road. It sounded like a great idea because the concept was outstanding. In other words, you put in machines, 24 hours a day, people would come in with quarters and you go get them the next morning, and it sounded like you make an awful lot of money because you know it was unattended. Well, we learned the hard way then. The first week, every called "liberty man," every oil man, every mechanic 16 brought in their overalls and they destroyed the machine. So that was a fun thing to do, but a terrible business decision. Now, of course, it's changed, as you know, because there are usually attendants in there. Then at the same time, right after that, I got involved with a group of people and we… well, I shouldn't say right after that. After Ed and I decided we had enough with the Angel Company, which is back in the '70s, I got involved establishing my own business because I was strong in marketing and I started Angel and Associates, which is a small advertising company. I said, "Gee, you know, the Fitchburg—as my dad said, you know, said in the past—Fitchburg area lends itself with someone who can carry some marketing, like the big boys do into a small-time operation," so I started an individual advertising. That was my background in college, marketing and advertising, and I had a number of the towns in Fitchburg that I would do their advertising for, both the newspaper, establish on TV, mostly paperwork ads and so on. One of my accounts was a friend of a friend who had a Japanese restaurant in Amherst, Mass and I did his advertising and it was very successful. And we got involved in saying, "Gee, you know, what should be done is something like McDonald's, except in Japanese style, and we would have…" He said he thought it was a hell of an idea. We would have a place on the Cape, because that's where all the activity was, but instead of 15 Japanese chefs chopping and doing things, we would have one in the window and you'd drive up and get your Chinese takeout. He thought it was like… yeah, so we spent a year looking at that. And at that time, right across the street from the Angel Motel was a Chinese 17 restaurant that had gone under. We made a bid for it and changed that concept and opened up the second Japanese restaurant, full-time scale with the chefs at the table. We had 12 tables and 12 Japanese chefs and that was an interesting experience. That's a whole another story, but it was fun to do. And so what happened in my business life and the reason for this spouting and rambling is that you asked if I have ever done something else besides. Well, yes, in later years, I did explore, but they still directly involved marketing and sales. That was my forte and I just had a ball in some of the things that I had done. Some were successful; some utter failures but an awful lot of interests. LINDA ROSE: You mentioned that you and your cousin were [unintelligible - 00:29:27]. FRED MASTRANGELO: We sold it. LINDA ROSE: Okay. FRED MASTRANGELO: Yup. LINDA ROSE: And that was a mistake? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yes. And the other thing too is, of course, having brought up the company into the 20th century with prefinished cabinetry, when we sold the company and I thought it would be summary… a retirement, I lasted maybe about five weeks and my sister said, "Get on and go do something, you're driving me crazy." At the time, one of my good competitors had an opening, who would open a retail store in Shrewsbury, Mass, selling kitchen cabinetry, which does a full run of the so-called design centers, which you now see. I went down there and I started to work with him, and after the second year, I had done enough selling so that the business just about tripled and he said, "Why 18 don't you take it over?" So I turned around and took over and turned that in what they call [Margelo] Kitchens, and we had a retail store on Route 9 in Shrewsbury. It was very, very successful for about five or six or seven years. We had a staff of four designers, five installers and we sold a design and custom work for kitchen cabinetry, which is a fascinating business, lost our lease and – at the time, I had some, I had my daughter working for me, and I said, "Christina, you have to go find another spot." And then one day, we woke up and said, "This is crazy. Why don't we, you know, we pay out our bills and let's shut it down?" She was up to here with it and she had had enough and I had had enough. It demanded a lot of our attention, being once again a small manpower operation, and so I said that enough is enough and we liquidated the business. About three weeks later, I got a call from one of my competitors and explained our present situation, I still work in the kitchen industry from one of my competitors on a part-time basis and I fully enjoy it. It's gone from cupboards to furniture. You got to bear in mind that cupboards… the word "cupboards" means cup boards. They were boards that were put up that you put your cups on. In the old days, you had you big stove then you had shelving in which you put cups and your dishes, and then sooner or later, somebody put doors on them and turned them into cabinets. Then, instead of going from the so-called pantry kitchen concept, the Americans and others in their own home, decided that they needed cabinetry in their kitchen and they didn't have maids and pantries and butlers anymore, and so we… it developed into where I'm putting furniture on four walls. The kitchen history has turned into putting custom 19 furniture, as you have in your house, as I have in my house, and with it came the changes in appliances, came the changes in countertops, came the changes in living, came the changes in microwave cooking – the whole thing has progressed. It's the most important room in the home. That's where the fun has come, and staying abreast with it has been, you know, it's remarkable what has happened in the industry, from just cupboards, you know, to literally thousands and thousands of dollars spent in furniture in the home. It's not unusual to see a $70,000-80,000 kitchen. LINDA ROSE: So… FRED MASTRANGELO: The Europeans, as we said, have developed this so-called kitchen concept. The Europeans designed kitchen cabinetry [unintelligible - 00:32:59] they were the forerunners of some of the present and modern day, and so well designed for one reason. One is most Europeans do daily shopping. They go out to the market— in particular, the Italians—they go down to the market and buy that fresh, you know, fruits and vegetables and take them home and cook and go down again, so they didn't really have the need for the tremendous amounts spent on appliances or refrigeration, that type of thing. Of course, it's changed a lot now but that's the background. That's number one. Number two, when you sell a house in Europe, you take the cabinets with you, and Americans attached it to the wall, they're going to stay here. The European concept develops so that you just undo them and take them with you, because they didn't have many, many cabinets because of the concept of shopping everyday at the marketplace. But they were instrumental in developing the so-called sleek sophisticated post-1938 modern approach and just recently,20 the past decade, this high streamline effect that they've done some beautiful work, and the Americans have copied them. It's been a fun business. LINDA ROSE: What do you see at the future for those? FRED MASTRANGELO: We have yet… we haven't touched the potential in kitchen cabinetry because every home you see, sooner or later, works in the premise that you get to keep up with the Joneses, which is step number one. You got to stay advance with style. The appliance factory has changed tremendously. No one used this microwave cooking until recently; that's changing. Refrigeration has changed in concept; dishwashing – you know, I see a more sophisticated sleek utilization of the kitchen. It's still kind of [unintelligible - 00:34:44] of the family gathering, but making it a lot more efficient, so you go out and do what you're supposed to do because we're just running to keep up living today, so the American public, in particular, want to spend less time in the kitchen and more time up playing tennis, golf and bridge. LINDA ROSE: Can you see that in [unintelligible - 00:35:01] culture? FRED MASTRANGELO: I think they will. I think as they start to advance in electronic technology, you find the same concept going on where you can press the button, you know, and electronically you get food processed into whatever cooking, stirs it in, and 30 seconds later, you have your seven-course meal. You'll always have that so-called throwback in the old days when the kitchen was a warm friendly approach, but I think that in time, the changes that will come will be electronically. The appliances will change dramatically, and with them, the lesser need for storage and lesser food preparation.21 LINDA ROSE: I thought [unintelligible - 00:35:42] electronic cabinet. FRED MASTRANGELO: Yes ma'am – yeah, yeah, no question about it, yeah. LINDA ROSE: That would be amazing [unintelligible - 00:35:046] what do you think your father would [say]? FRED MASTRANGELO: He would have been the first one to say, "Yeah, let's go for it." LINDA ROSE: Yeah. FRED MASTRANGELO: And the ability to take a shot into… foresee the future, , you know be ahead of this time and… they just didn't sit back and say, well, damn, you know, make little no work to it. They were ahead of their time. LINDA ROSE: Do you ever [unintelligible - 00:36:15]? FRED MASTRANGELO: I think it was inborn obviously, but it was [thrusted] and promulgated by the opportunity that existed in America, which is why they…people of that ilk jumped ahead and invested in property and tried things, because the country is just – and even today, it's such a dramatic country. We haven't capped its natural resources and saw its potential, even with the stuff that we got going on, which, you know, worldwide fiasco. But every day – and the proof of the pudding is that modest invention that just broke… I mean just like what's happening. And in my lifetime, especially my love for aviation, you know the Wright Brothers started in 1907, that's 100 years, and we've gone to the moon, so it's fascinating. LINDA ROSE: But it's just in a side but [unintelligible - 00:37:04]? FRED MASTRANGELO: No, really. LINDA ROSE: I guess the power, if you lost power [unintelligible - 00:37:08] so I was a little surprised to see a plane coming in.22 FRED MASTRANGELO: My heart goes out to him, because, well, about three years ago, he started building my own aircraft and I had an engine failure and put in the Blackstone River Valley. That was quite an experience. It was a fun time. LINDA ROSE: It was fun? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah. LINDA ROSE: Were you alone? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yup. LINDA ROSE: So what [unintelligible - 00:37:05]? FRED MASTRANGELO: The light didn't flash in a failure. What you do is you pull your fate that it doesn't happen so fast and when it's down, my reaction was, "Damn it, I just lost a $25,000 airplane, which took me three years to build." Not that I was hurt or anything else, that's what went through my mind. What a shame! But if you deal with transportation, I don't think if they're rollerblading, driving a cab, on a school bus, in an airplane, sooner or later, something's going to happen. If it's a human being moved, something's going to happen to him. LINDA ROSE: Just thinking of transportation, what is…? FRED MASTRANGELO: It's marvelous and I think it's going to… its advancement is going to come in… people who are on their feet all the time, such as the couriers in New York and such as the postal service people. And then in time, as the market warrants it and they bring the prices down, we'll all have them. I can be going to school on the damn things, no question about it. LINDA ROSE: And that brings up a whole other issue sort of [unintelligible - 00:38:23]. FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah, but we've got them now. We've got so-called sidelines and we got running tracks and we've got mediums 23 in the middle of highways that they can easily convert to, whole bunches of people and these two-wheel [drivers]. LINDA ROSE: I never thought of that. Is there a talk of doing something [unintelligible - 00:38:39]? FRED MASTRANGELO: It's just something that makes good sense to me. LINDA ROSE: Right. Sounds like a new business. FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah, right, that was all 20 years yonder. LINDA ROSE: Oh yeah. FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh god yes, I guess that's what I want to do. LINDA ROSE: You mentioned your daughter; do you have any other kids? FRED MASTRANGELO: I have three girls and a guy. LINDA ROSE: And [unintelligible - 00:38:54]? FRED MASTRANGELO: My oldest daughter works in the kitchen industry. The other children are involved with their own life and had no inkling to it – and I didn't force the issue. I didn't. You know, from my experience, I said to my son, "I'm not going to make him a kitchen designer." Let him do what the hell he wants. LINDA ROSE: What are they doing? FRED MASTRANGELO: My son is involved… he is a Fitchburg state teacher, graduate in communications. He spent his first two years in one of the TV channels and he said, "Dad, I don't want to be [confined] to a desk. I want to be outdoors," and he got involved with outdoor landscaping and diving. He became an assistant [mini-skipper] for a country club in Duxbury and now he works for a private millionaire in Duxbury as the head of the landscape crew. He loves it. My oldest daughter works for kitchen design center in Maine. My second daughter married a young naval aviator and she lives up in Kittery and is involved with one of the merchandisers of home style jellies and that type of thing –24 and does very well. And my baby daughter married a young budding artist here in Lunenburg, of the Demers family. Donald Demers became well-known as a maritime artist and did some outstanding work in the maritime painting field. And that's the crew! We still carry the traditions that my dad and mom instilled and we have our family get-together. We're very close. You take on one, you take them all on, so… a very close family. LINDA ROSE: Good, so tell me… FRED MASTRANGELO: Over and above, the integrity traditions of honor, loyalty, family, you know, the so-called [side] expressions are still strong. Yeah, it involves the holidays, the get-togethers, getting together on family events… pull them together in case of need. That's a very strong trait of our family. If someone needs a hand, everybody else jumps in. And then, of course, the story-swapping and the fun that we had growing up altogether and I just truly love my babies because I had so much fun raising them; they're just a delight, night after night. So those are the things. It's not a strong religious tradition because we're all forced into our religious background. We didn't choose it, but we brought them all up to respect it and they all understand that. But it's more, yeah, the Christmas dinners and the daily flickers because of the fish dinner, and the Easter – how [sad] we were that we didn't learn how to do Nana's Easter bread and that type of thing. LINDA ROSE: Did you bring up your child? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yes, it's about 40 years, yeah. LINDA ROSE: So right across from the home that you grew up?25 FRED MASTRANGELO: Yes, the reason I built this house with the A-frame was when we did the motel. I had designed the office as an [A-frame], because it seemed to make sense to me, a very simple structure, where the rough became finished, and I fell in love with the concept and built this one which was way ahead of its time – an awful lot of room in this house and very economical to build – well, absolute well. You know when school was up, I put on a pair of shorts and I spent the entire summer with my friends. I'll buy myself, exploring every nook and cranny on that lake, doing the fishing and the swimming. And across the park was in full [throttle]; that would mean riding over my bike and getting to know everybody and riding on the rides and hopping in out on the roller coaster, pedaling my bike down at the airport to watch some planes so I can learn to fly—and I soloed at an, early, early age—and it's just so much fun. Then come wintertime, the ice would freeze over, it was skating parties and hockey and, you know, it was idyllic growing up – idyllic because we explored. We didn't have TV. We didn't care about it. You know, we didn't worry about the radio; maybe often Nana got some of the other shows that were on, so it meant looking up – your own fun, like playing pirates or, you know, whatever we did on the summer's day was so much fun, and on the wintertime, going to the woods, you know. It was just play time. I had a happy childhood. LINDA ROSE: That's must have been enjoyable for you to think. FRED MASTRANGELO: Same thing, exactly the same. They had… when I built this house and I had the driveway put in, I built them up at the black top at the back which is a basketball court, hopscotch area and then they weren't any trees there, so they used to 26 slide down the hill into the little pond—because we still swim at the point that you saw from my sister's house up there, but that belongs to my son now—and they had a ball here, too. LINDA ROSE: Tell me about the revolutionary. FRED MASTRANGELO: I think I've explained that it was a [far see] thing, seeing man, you know, that he looked to the future. He and my mom went to the Chicago World's Fair in 1938. LINDA ROSE: So it was the Chicago [unintelligible - 00:44:26]. FRED MASTRANGELO: No, Chicago in '38. Chicago World's Fair in '38 was the forerunner of the avant-garde thinking of modern period; the so-called New Age of modernism started at the Chicago World's Fair, but prior to that time, it was all the old antiquity that was exciting the world, but this was the new concept. My dad fell in love with the modern concept. He came back and said he was going to build a house, and then, you know, just like poppy seeds that just kept growing and growing and growing, but he wanted clean cut lines and thought some unusual approaches towards the modern concept. So he designed this house, which is the first of its kind in the area, sleek sophisticated lines with the pine, had custom furniture done in the modern period, had custom—you know, you should see the house—and sometimes, the light [unintelligible - 00:45:21]. LINDA ROSE: It's for sale now. FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah, right – and, once again, way ahead of his time. It's the first time anybody had put in horizontal windows, small touch but nonetheless. The first time anybody had used the [sleek] approach to dramatize the area. Modeling the interior wasn't done as the old-fashioned traditional Italian model of sleek, sophisticated black turn of 1938 thinking 27 statues that he found from the states that carried that theme. So it's a huge house, very modern, very well-advanced for its time, and we had a ball living in that one, too. LINDA ROSE: Did it take him very long building it? FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. One time, we had a tally of how many [pounds of] bricks were in there and how many glass. He used glass spot extensively. Now it's a [unintelligible - 00:46:16] but at the time [unintelligible - 00:046:17] so yeah, so it's amazing. LINDA ROSE: So you were living on Granich Street while it was being built? FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh we had… my sister's house is the so-called summer camp, and we used to go down the area from Granich Street to that and we stayed there when the house was being built and during the summer that we moved back in Granich Street. That house of my sister's—I don't know if she told you—was the camp house and the ice run for when we used to cut ice in [unintelligible - 00:46:44] and that was turned into a… there are still… in some of the [cove], there are still states that have the ice run, where they used to cut the ice and then bring it up into the shed. LINDA ROSE: Is that the way [unintelligible - 00:46:58]? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah, that was the bunk house and the shed for the ice storage. LINDA ROSE: [Unintelligible - 00:47:03] so what was the… FRED MASTRANGELO: That wasn't, it was, once again, ahead of its time, sleek cabinetry, not high glass but, you know, very plain, simple, modern look – and the first time anyone had used stainless steel cabinets in the area, and this goes way, that's a long time ago. All [prefost] sinks and the stainless steel countertop, tile, back splashes, it wasn't…we still had a 28 separate range and a separate refrigerator, the so-called built-in concept that we have now, still ahead of its time. LINDA ROSE: Did your mother ever [unintelligible - 00:47:38]? FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh yes, my mother was very strong in supporting my father, knowing that, but when my father took one of the [mostly] bought and opened up [unintelligible - 00:47:47] to a gift shop, very large four-storey milk gift shop, known as the MDS Gift Shop in Fitchburg. She ran that one; my mother was ahead of her time, too. LINDA ROSE: She was quite a bit younger. FRED MASTRANGELO: Yes, mm-hmm. Her family had a market on Water Street. LINDA ROSE: Okay. FRED MASTRANGELO: That's the Montourri family. The Montourri family is [unintelligible - 00:48:08] Montourri Distribution, Montourri Trucking, a whole bunch of others. So that between Al and his kids, my mother's six …you know Christmas was a ball and it's like 50 people in that house at Christmastime. My mother lived in a house where we had the very first Angel cabinets put in; it was called a Cinderella line with a sloped phase, and she loved it, because she adapted, you know she's a modern girl. LINDA ROSE: [Unintelligible - 00:48:36]? FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh no. I know. I fell in love with them. LINDA ROSE: Yeah [unintelligible - 00:48:43]. FRED MASTRANGELO: As I indicated, very, very fortunate, very fortunate, but I think I know it's up in the air. You know, all my Italian buddies were – I didn't know any better. I didn't know I was a little bit more… better off than they were per se, so we just had a ball. LINDA ROSE: What kind of remarks?29 FRED MASTRANGELO: They call it the castle because it's such a big huge edifice. And it's so funny because I heard some comments when I was building this house. This house was a revolution for its time also. And they said, "Oh, yeah, just like his father, his father built a castle, he built a church," and they talked about it. Its design was going to be a simple story ranch, all one floor, make it easy for Marcia and I to you, know, spend our life before you go to the Happy Valley Restaurant. LINDA ROSE: [Unintelligible - 00:49:33] FRED MASTRANGELO: Broken, yeah, but pretty well, oh yeah. LINDA ROSE: Do you know how he learned? FRED MASTRANGELO: He was an avid reader and he started with the classics and followed every single newspaper, listened to the radio and paid attention, and then when he was in business, he had to because he had to negotiate deals. My father was genuine character, delightful genuine character, strong-willed, lovely man, twinkle in his eye all the time. He's the type of the guy that if you get involved with an argument, you know how you and I would say oftentimes – what I should have said was… well, he'd jump on his cab the next day and go back and start it out [unintelligible - 00:50:08]. He's just a fun guy to be with. LINDA ROSE: It seems that [unintelligible - 00:50:14] I felt my errands experience in Worcester, because I never give myself permission to work on. FRED MASTRANGELO: Okay. One of the [unintelligible - 00:50:029] C-U-C-C-A-R-O [unintelligible - 00:50:35] cabinetry is the most dominant line established in the [unintelligible - 00:50:53] and then mother [unintelligible - 00:50:56] everybody and 30 everything involving [unintelligible - 00:51:08] you go in there. LINDA ROSE: Okay, we may have to… I'm not really sure what's happening with this machine because as it keeps up printing's talking and it should never do that. Oh boy, now it isn't, now it is, I don't know. It's not [unintelligible - 00:51:33]. FRED MASTRANGELO: Okay. LINDA ROSE: Anyway working now, so let's get on. Would you… FRED MASTRANGELO: Just some of the… obviously the high school years [unintelligible - 00:51:44] and we had because of our… it's interesting now to be able to think back on both [unintelligible - 00:51:51]. LINDA ROSE: So [unintelligible - 00:51:52] something to share what makes it interesting? FRED MASTRANGELO: That I think Anthony's [unintelligible - 00:52:00] grade school, they were [unintelligible - 00:52:06] my father and Joe's father at that time [unintelligible - 00:52:12] but you could tell. There's a lot more than everything, Sunday morning after church [unintelligible - 00:52:22] my father [unintelligible - 00:52:23]. It's fascinating stories of their culture the whole day [unintelligible - 00:52:26] Sunday morning and spend some time up there and then they will give you coffee. And that was just delightful because they get hysterical over the most simple story that took place in their parish that took place on Water Street, that took place on Main Street – I mean the simple enjoyable cultural humor; that, to me, stuck in my mind and I'm sure [unintelligible - 00:52:55] touched on that story. The life of everyday story which I had the opportunity to have known my father's family, so that was fun too. What they 31 did in a short of period of time, you know, that's the thing. All of them, you know, I don't care if they're shoemaker or a night grinder or, you know, you own the market or you build cabinets, whatever it was, you know, hardworking. It's the same basic understanding of life [unintelligible - 00:53:28] and fighting because they had a stigma attached to them. They were the [unintelligible - 00:53:37]. They were the Italians that came over, just as the Irish had their tough times too, and they overcame all these obstacles, and they made it – all of them. LINDA ROSE: Did they treat the boy? FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh god, yeah, and they… oh yeah. The fact that they didn't love the girls but just figured they were girls; they too have to know about worldly affairs [unintelligible - 00:54:13] but they still had to [protect] the same rules as guys did, but they weren't involved in the [unintelligible - 00:54:28] not secretive but—what am I thinking of?—banding, the banding of the men. LINDA ROSE: Even with your sister. FRED MASTRANGELO: Well, as I was saying, most of the family, they had a will [unintelligible - 00:54:48] they would strongly force [unintelligible - 00:54:52] all of the children [unintelligible - 00:54:56] so it meant, you know, selling bread and [pick] even those nickels and try to [unintelligible - 00:55:13]. I think it's strictly as they indicated that they have [unintelligible - 00:55:25] because believe it or not, [unintelligible - 00:55:30] followed by whatever, you know, fantastic dinner [unintelligible - 00:55:37] and that was [unintelligible - 00:56:02] things to do and [unintelligible - 00:56:12] people would come over and just drop in for a Sunday dinner because 32 [unintelligible - 00:56:22] that I usually heard of that Sunday. [Unintelligible - 00:56:34] LINDA ROSE: Why is [unintelligible - 00:56:40] how could they keep things? FRED MASTRANGELO: And it was a simple life. I mean you didn't get the instant news or the instant ramification of [unintelligible - 00:56:48]. It was an event driving to Boston [unintelligible - 00:56:50]. You know [unintelligible - 00:56:55] what they are but it wasn't fast-moving, slow pace. Everything was slow pace. [Unintelligible - 00:57:03] It wouldn't take [unintelligible - 00:57:51] but at the time it was happening [unintelligible - 00:57:56]. He bid off something and then what happened, he had to and we just thought it as a natural progression, yeah, he wouldn't get far to it so that's the way all fathers were. Only in later years did you recognize the ability of your parents, you, Marcia and I, and then our kids hopefully in time, if only later on. But while it's going on, you don't think about it. [Unintelligible - 00:58:52] great guy or whatever and then you're growing up – I wouldn't have it any other way. [Unintelligible - 00:59:04] very, very [fortunate] [unintelligible - 00:59:09] bad Italians but by and large, it's just a nice, you know [unintelligible - 00:59:29] English. He probably got some various idea [unintelligible - 00:59:37] you may not want to hear. Oh I'm sure. LINDA ROSE: So I'd like to ask you one thing. FRED MASTRANGELO: Go on. LINDA ROSE: What is your hardest experience then? FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh God, Linda – about what? Life is so complex. I mean emotional, financial or what? Hardest experience? My 33 father's experience… that's a puzzlement. I'd have to really think about that one. Nothing jumps in my head – my hardest experience. LINDA ROSE: How did you [unintelligible - 01:00:23]? FRED MASTRANGELO: Yeah, hardest emotional experience was the loss of my parents. I mean, that happens to everybody, that's an exception. My hardest experience, like I say, I could probably ramble… you've heard an awful lot of it today, but it just sounds too "I, I, I" all the time and I don't mean it to be. LINDA ROSE: I don't think so but… FRED MASTRANGELO: Once again after 50, 60, 70 years, you know, there are little anecdotes and stories that demand going back to the reason why, which would take another two hours to explain why we came to this particular conclusion, if I started the story about the company, so I was giving you highlights rather than individual approach – like I'll tell you one little anecdote about my father to show you what guy he was. He was still in the tailor business—and my mother told us the stories—he was still in the tailor business and one of the Christmas shopping joints downtown Fitchburg would occur at night, you know, the stores stayed open relatively late in the last week. My mother said it was a terrible smelly awful, awful night, and she went down with my dad, and standing on the corner was a so-called urchin trying to sell the daily Fitchburg news, freezing his tail off, you know, as my mother indicated. My father said to him, "How long do you have to be out here?" And he said, "Until I sell all my papers," and my father bought them all from him and sent him home. That's the kind of a guy he was, you know, and it's just a delightful anecdote of his. 34 And he's also philanthropic. He would go down and he would help – but that's true of most of the boys on Water Street, and so that cultural importance came in. They would take care of each other and help. LINDA ROSE: You would help. FRED MASTRANGELO: Which is why the vast majority of the employees of the Angel—and I don't want to knock the rest of them that are there, because there's a whole bunch of them, big portion of Italian descent. LINDA ROSE: [Unintelligible - 01:02:31] FRED MASTRANGELO: Oh God, yes, oh yes – the fathers who worked there, uncles and brothers. LINDA ROSE: Was there any particular [unintelligible - 01:02:40]. FRED MASTRANGELO: Not to my knowledge. LINDA ROSE: Mm-hmm. FRED MASTRANGELO: Well, okay. LINDA ROSE: That's good. That's the end of the interview./AT/jf/el/ee
The integration and inclusion of persons under international protection (i.e. persons granted asylum and refugees) into society proceeds through their contacts and interactions with institutions and residents in local communities where their reception and accommodation have been organised. In this process, the achievement of social, economic, cultural and all other dimensions of integration in local communities is facilitated by the activities of different national and local stakeholders in the integration system. Creating the conditions for Croatian citizens to familiarize themselves with refugees requires joint efforts by all system stakeholders and engagement to inform citizens and raise their awareness about the presence, rights and obligations of persons under protection, with a view to preventing and mitigating any negative manifestations of discrimination, exclusion and marginalisation, and to ensuring that persons under international protection become accepted and integrated members of local communities and society as a whole. With this in mind, this research has analysed capacities and challenges, and assessed the resources and needs of local and regional self-government units given their past or future experience with the reception and integration of persons under protection. Furthermore, this research has also identified the attitudes of Croatian citizens towards persons under protection and their readiness for the reception and integration of persons granted asylum in their local communities.The general purpose of the project is to support units of local (cities, towns and municipalities) and regional (counties) self-government in identifying the needs and challenges of integrating third-country nationals in need of international protection. To achieve the purpose of this research, both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies have been used. As a result, it was conducted as mixed-method research, that is, as two correlated studies. The quantitative segment of the research pertains to its first goal, which was to identify the attitudes of Croatian citizens and their readiness for the acceptance and integration of third-country nationals granted international protection in the Republic of Croatia, while its qualitative segment refers to the second research goal, to identify the needs of local and regional self-government units in the process of integrating third-country nationals granted international protection in the Republic of Croatia as well as the challenges they encounter or will encounter when it comes to the integration of persons granted asylum into Croatian society. The third research goal, to prepare checklists for assessment of needs and challenges of integration for local and regional self-government units and for persons granted international protection, has been achieved by synthesising the findings reached under the previous two goals and by preparing two checklists. One is intended for heads and staff of LSGUs and RGSUs so that they can assess the existing needs, resources and capacities of their communities in terms of planning and implementation of integration activities. The other is designed for persons granted asylum and serves for the self-assessment of their needs and the extent to which they are met. Accordingly, the starting point for tool selection and elaboration is the multidimensional concept of integration of aliens into the host society, which is focused on the processes and dimensions of integration of persons under international protection (either with full asylum or subsidiary protection status) into Croatian society as a whole, but also into individual local communities in Croatian regions covered by this research.Due to the specific character of the quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, the report describes methodological aspects and results separately, first for the quantitative study conducted by a survey of citizen's attitudes towards the integration of persons under national protection, and then for the qualitative study of needs and challenges faced by local communities in the integration process. The target group of survey participants covered by the research was defined so as to include citizens living in selected counties (regional self-government units) and towns and municipalities (local self-government units). In order to form a sample of participants for the purposes of this research, Croatia was broken down into four regions: Eastern, Central and North-Western, Littoral and Istrian, and Dalmatian regions. In each region, the sample came to include between two and five counties (a total of 12) and between three and five towns (a total of 15). The Eastern Region encompassed the counties of Osijek-Baranja, Vukovar-Srijem and Požega-Slavonski Brod. The Central and North-Western Region included the City of Zagreb as well as the countries of Zagreb, Sisak-Moslavina, Bjelovar-Bilogora and Varaždin. The Littoral and Istrian Region covered Primorje-Gorski Kotar and Istria counties. The Region of Dalmatia consisted of Zadar and Split-Dalmatia counties.In the selected towns, the size of the sample was proportionate to the size of the town within its region, with the participants in each town selected by probability sampling. The sample of citizens aged 18 to 65 included 318 persons in each region, and probability sampling – together with the use of two levels of purposively selected clusters (region and town) – ensured that the sample structure, in terms of its socio-demographic profile, reflects the characteristics of the region's population, according to publicly available statistics. The sample formed in this manner and its size (N = 1,272) allowed inter-regional comparisons with regard to the relevant characteristics of the participants and measured constructs. Data were gathered using the CAPI (Computer Aided Personal Interviewing) method, in the period from 14 May to 10 June 2018. The response rate was 57%, which is quite high given the type of research in question.The survey questionnaire contained 67 items forming the following constructs and scales: (1) Attitude towards persons granted asylum; (2) Perception of realistic threat; (3) Perception of symbolic threat; (4) Support for the rights of persons granted asylum; (5) Perception of negative changes in the community; (6) Readiness to assist persons granted asylum; (7) Frequency of contacts with persons granted asylum; (8) Quality of contacts with persons granted asylum; (9) Sources of information about persons granted asylum; (10) Media portrayal of persons granted asylum; (11) Social proximity to persons granted asylum; (12) Attitude towards forms of acculturation; (13) Estimated number of persons granted asylum; (14) Change in the number of persons granted asylum; (15) Socio-demographic profile of participants. The scales used in this questionnaire show very good metric characteristics: a Cronbach's alpha internal reliability coefficient ranging from 0.77 to 0.93 and a clear construct validity and single-factor structure.The collected data were subject to a series of statistical analyses, including descriptive calculation of statistics (range, frequency, median measures, variability measures) at the levels of the aggregate sample and each region as well as inter-regional comparisons of the results derived from the measured constructs (variance analyses, t-tests, chi-squared tests). Also, by using regression analysis, a model was set to predict two forms of behavioural intentions among host populations: (1) readiness for social relations with asylum beneficiaries at different levels of proximity; and (2) readiness to help persons granted asylum in their integration. These two forms of behavioural intentions served as criterion variables, which were predicted on the basis of a set of predictors that included the participants' individual attributes (socio-demographic variables and regional affiliation), their religious and political orientation, their opinion about the number of asylum beneficiaries to be received by the country in future and about their social adjustment strategies (i.e. about acculturation strategies), their frequency of contacts with persons granted asylum and their perception of threats and expected changes in the community caused by the arrival of persons granted asylum (i.e. perceptions of realistic and symbolic threats, and expectations of negative changes in the community).The average results obtained on the aggregate sample show that, when it comes to attitudes towards persons granted asylum, the respondents express attitudes that are, on average, neutral. However, when assessing their perception of threat, they seem to feel a slight realistic threat, and a somewhat stronger symbolic threat. The participants also express what is, on average, a neutral attitude regarding the expected negative changes in the community. As for their readiness to help asylum beneficiaries personally, the participants are also neutral, stating they are not sure of their readiness in this regard, but showing a slight support for the rights of asylum beneficiaries. Concerning the frequency of contacts with persons granted asylum, slightly more than half of the participants (52.1%) reported that they had such contacts, describing them, on average, neutrally – as neither positive nor negative. Among those who reported such contacts, the majority stated that they were rare.The data collected clearly show that the mass media (print and online news outlets, television and radio) are the most common source of information for Croatian citizens – more than 90% of citizens receive information about persons granted asylum in this way. These are followed by social media, which are used as a source of information about asylum beneficiaries by nearly half of the participants (45.8%). It has been established that citizens deem the media portrayal of asylum beneficiaries slightly negative.As for social proximity, the participants are, on average, ready to accept persons granted asylum as their fellow workers or neighbours, where it is obvious that the citizens are, for the time being, not ready for the closest relations with asylum beneficiaries, although nearly 61% would be ready for friendly relations.The participants were also asked about acceptable acculturation strategies, that is, about how persons granted asylum should approach the Croatian culture and maintenance of their own culture. The majority of participants (70.7%) chose integration as the preferred acculturation strategy (both maintaining their own culture and accepting the culture of the host country). About one fifth of the participants champion assimilation as the preferred acculturation strategy; i.e. they expect persons granted asylum to relinquish their specific culture and accept only that of their host country. Separation, that it, the opinion that persons granted asylum should maintain only their own culture without accepting Croatian culture, is upheld by 3.7% of the participants. Looking at acculturation strategies as a continuum (from assimilation, through integration, to separation, or vice versa), the participants on average tend to support cultural integration of persons granted asylum.When it comes to estimating the number of persons granted asylum at the time of survey, only one fifth of the participants made a more or less accurate estimate. Somewhat more than a fourth of participants underestimated the actual number of asylum beneficiaries, whereas almost half of them overestimated the number of cases of granted asylum. These results are consistent with the replies regarding preferred projections of the number of asylum beneficiaries in the future. Specifically, the majority of participants (45.8%) feel that their number should remain the same, only slightly fewer are those who would reduce it (45.6%), while less than a tenth holds that the future number of asylum beneficiaries in Croatia should go up.The analysis of regional differences demonstrates that the least positive attitudes towards persons granted asylum, the highest perception of both realistic and symbolic threats, the lowest support for the rights of asylum beneficiaries, the highest expectations of negative changes, and the lowest readiness to assist are present among participants in the Dalmatian Region. It is followed by the Eastern Region, and then the Littoral and Central Regions, where these attitudes are more positive. The frequency of contacts with persons granted asylum is low in all the regions, with the lowest levels reported in the Eastern and Dalmatian regions. However, there are no regional differences in the quality of contacts, as it is everywhere seen as neutral. Readiness for close contacts is the lowest in Dalmatia, followed by the Eastern Region, with its highest levels reported in the Littoral and Central regions. The citizens of all regions choose integration as their preferred acculturation strategy, while participants in Dalmatia divided their preferences between assimilation and integration. The number of asylum beneficiaries is mistakenly estimated in all regions. Indeed, it is overestimated everywhere except the Eastern Region, where the figure is underestimated. Furthermore, while the citizens of the Central and Littoral regions would prefer to keep the future number of asylum beneficiaries at the same level, those in the Eastern and Dalmatian regions are keener to reduce it. When predicting the readiness for social proximity with asylum beneficiaries, the key predictors include the attitude towards the number of asylum beneficiaries in the future and acculturation strategies. The readiness for a higher level of proximity is demonstrated by those citizens who feel that the future number of asylum beneficiaries should be increased, as well as those who champion integration. The predictors of marginal importance include practising religion, where the participants who do not declare themselves as practicing believers tend to be ready for a higher level of proximity with persons granted asylum, as well as the perception of symbolic threat and the fear of negative changes in the community, where those who perceive a higher symbolic threat from asylum beneficiaries and expect more negative changes in the community due to the arrival of persons granted asylum tend to be ready for a lower level of proximity with them. These results generally apply to all of the four regions.When it comes to predicting the readiness to assist asylum beneficiaries personally, it can also be said that – allowing for minor regional particularities – the key factors include the participants' opinion that the number of asylum beneficiaries should increase in the future and, again, the perception of a higher symbolic and realistic threat. Those participants who feel that the future number of asylum beneficiaries should increase are readier to help, whereas those whose perception of threat from asylum beneficiaries is higher are also less prepared to assist them personally. Another highly significant predictor is the frequency of contacts with persons granted asylum. Those participants who reported more frequent contacts with asylum beneficiaries are also more prepared to assist them. Finally, the variables of marginal significance include gender and political orientation, where women and those on the left side of the political spectrum would be readier to help asylum beneficiaries.The conducted regression analyses show that the most frequent predictors for both criteria (social proximity and readiness for personal assistance) include the perception of symbolic and realistic threat, expectation of negative changes in the community due to the arrival of asylum beneficiaries, opinion that the future number of asylum beneficiaries in Croatia should be increased and the choice of integration as the preferred acculturation strategy. It follows that a more favourable attitude of Croatian citizens can be expected if they feel less threatened by persons granted asylum, that is, if they understand that their arrival does not pose a threat to the existing identity and culture nor jeopardise the resources of local communities, if they expect less negative changes in their communities due to the arrival of asylum beneficiaries, if they think that the number of asylum beneficiaries in Croatia needs to be increased in the future, and if they believe that integration is the acculturation strategy appropriate for Croatia.The second part of this research deals with the assessment of needs and challenges which are or will be encountered by LSGUs and RSGUs, and also of the capacities and resources required for integration with regard to the current or anticipated accommodation and stay of asylum beneficiaries in their local communities.This part of the research was conducted through a series of interviews and focus groups with different stakeholders in the integration system, which are in one way or another involved in or will in future be responsible for the processes of reception and integration of persons granted asylum. Stakeholders from LSGU and RSGU include representatives from county-level and town-level public authorities and various professional institutions, while the CSO stakeholders include representatives from the non-governmental sector, religious organisations and civic initiatives. The perspectives of integration processes were, whenever possible, complemented with those of asylum beneficiaries in the local communities in which they live. For sampling purposes, a list of 30 units (9 counties and 21 towns) was drawn up, taking into account the criteria of regional representation, town size, experience with the integration of asylum beneficiaries and available state-owned housing units. Along with the four regions, the City of Zagreb was taken separately as it considerably differs from other regions in terms of the number of integration stakeholders and capacities, as well as the number of asylum beneficiaries it hosts. The persons included in the sample had the attributes of schoolants based on their role and office they held, their experience and knowledge of the needs and challenges relating to the integration of asylum beneficiaries in local communities. In keeping with the principle of maximising the variability of key informants, a total of 168 interviews and four focus groups were conducted with 227 participants, including 26 interviews with persons granted asylum. Once all of the methodological requirements were met in the process of qualitative-data gathering, 158 transcripts obtained from 216 interviewees were subjected to analysis. The other transcripts did not contain any useful information because some interviewees were totally uninformed about the topic of the research. Of the total number of analysed transcripts, 143 contain data obtained from 191 representatives of municipalities, towns and counties, state-administration offices at the county-level, professional institutions and the civil sector, while 15 transcripts of interviews and focus groups contained information obtained from 26 asylum beneficiaries. The analysis made it possible to identify some specific features of statements made by representatives of the selected local communities about their needs, challenges, opportunities and expectations. A comparison has been made among the four regions and the City of Zagreb, and similarities and differences have been analysed among statements made by stakeholders from different sectors.The results for all regions (except the City of Zagreb) equally suggest that most of the integration-system stakeholders from LSGUs and RSGUs (towns, municipalities and counties) generally had no direct experience of contacts and work with persons granted asylum or, if they had, then they encountered asylum beneficiaries in rare, individual cases. On the other hand, interlocutors from Zagreb recounted and described experiences of direct and immediate encounters with persons granted asylum, mostly through participation in projects with SCOs and the OHRRNM, while CSOs in all the regions have very little direct experience with asylum beneficiaries. A large portion of LSGUs and RSGUs in each region state that they are not aware of the Action Plan for Integration, or are aware of it only partly, or since a short time ago. Stakeholders in various sectors and regions have not developed their own action plans and protocols for integration, independent of the Action Plan. Professional institutions do not have their own plans either, but many of them perform tasks relating to the integration of persons granted asylum as part of their daily work and remit, and some have their own internal prodecural protocols, most often based on their previous experience with marginalised groups or guidelines from relevant ministries. All stakeholders in all regions agree that the lack of funding poses a serious structural constraint and that allocations for integration activities should be increased. They stress that the entire budget is centralised and that they lack special resources earmarked for integration, noting, however, that budget allocations could be repurposed or activated if and when the need arises.When it comes to understanding the importance and indicators of successful integration, there are no major differences between either sectors or regions. As far as the key dimension of integration is concerned, all stakeholders across all regions highlight communication, that is, learning the Croatian language, as a crucial prerequisite for all other aspects of integration, especially for the inclusion of children in the education system, participation of adults in the labour market, addressing housing issues and, generally, enabling asylum beneficiaries to get along in local communities. In the Central Region, professional institutions claim that integration could also be facilitated by the community's experience with refugees during the Croatian War, and the history of coexistence with national minorities. In the Central Region, they feel that integration would be more successful if asylum beneficiaries were accommodated within the community rather than isolated, and if they were provided with appropriate care and inclusion in community life. All stakeholders across all regions voice some sort of concern because, when it comes to the accommodation of persons granted asylum, they expect negative reactions from the host population due to cultural and religious differences, especially in smaller communities, with the general opinion being that larger towns would be readier to accept asylum beneficiaries. Interlocutors in Zagreb are the most critical of the local community as a favourable environment for integration, with professional institutions stating that negative sentiments are the greatest problem, stemming primarily from fear of the unknown among the local population. Nonetheless, almost all of the interviewed asylum beneficiaries highlight the positive experiences they had with their acceptance in local communities, noting, however, that it took a while for them to feel accepted by their neighbours. Only three out of 26 interlocutors report having negative experiences upon their arrival in the community, consisting mainly of unpleasant verbal comments. Persons granted asylum generally do not see any major cultural barriers to their life in Croatia, but in their view the integration system is not well-organised and includes some contradictions.At the intraregional level alone, and particularly at the interregional level, the integration stakeholders from different local communities show considerable differences when estimating the integration capacity of their communities. The majority of LSGUs believe that organising language courses falls under the responsibility of the Ministry of Science and Education, expressing concerns about the duration of courses (too few lessons) and uncertainties about their funding, while RSGUs also stress their lack of human and logistic capacities to organise courses. Professional institutions shift the responsibility for organizing courses to administrative bodies – from the local, through the regional, to the national levels. Only representatives of Zagreb-based SCOs report more direct involvement in the organisation of courses – some of them offer them in a formalised manner, and others through voluntary engagement. As to the inclusion in the education system, most stakeholders stress the problem of slow-moving administration and emphasize the heavy teaching workload, suggesting that there is a need for additional teachers as well as the necessity to work additionally with asylee children. Further difficulties mentioned are related to the lack of personal documents and the issue of recognising diplomas and previously acquired qualifications. In the Littoral and Central regions, they also highlight a lack of interpreters and teaching assistants, over which they have no control, but depend on the relevant ministry.Most of stakeholders from LSGUs and RSGUs are actually unaware of the existing accommodation capacity because they do not own any housing units or have already allocated all they had to beneficiaries from certain social categories. They see a possible solution in the conversion of the existing vacant buildings or renting of private flats, where they report problems with landlords, i.e. the unwillingness of landlords to let out their flats to accommodate persons granted asylum and the high rents they impose. Persons granted asylum are mostly concerned about their initial accommodation in reception centres, with which they were partially (dis)satisfied and, in addition to prejudice by landlords, the interlocutors also stressed high prices. In their local communities, asylum beneficiaries have been recognised as a desirable workforce in sectors with labour shortfalls. The LSGU representatives stress the need for a skilled workforce in the construction and public works sectors and, in the Eastern Region, agriculture. In addition to feeling that employers should be informed of opportunities to hire asylum beneficiaries, LSGUs are somewhat keener to consider potential retraining and additional training schemes as well as efforts to overcome the language barrier, referring to professional services which should take over that task. Many see the opportunities to employ asylum beneficiaries primarily in low-skill and ancillary jobs, such as kitchen or warehouse assistants and so forth. While the asylum beneficiaries themselves are highly motivated to take part in the labour market, since they see employment as a key prerequisite to gaining independence, they are aware of the economic situation in Croatia and do not want to become a public charge, but rather an active and productive segment of the society.Almost all interlocutors attach great importance to public information and awareness-raising campaigns, and most of them also recognise the role of the media in this process and believe that it is extremely important to get the local population acquainted with good practices and examples of successful efforts to integrate asylum beneficiaries, and to inform them about their culture and customs. This would prevent the development of prejudice and discrimination, where the LSGU representatives often see their role in such efforts unlike RSGUs, among which only a few recognise it. Professional institutions also leave the role of awareness raising to the media and, for the time being, carry out awareness-raising activities in the form of workshops and cultural events mainly with support from CSOs in Zagreb. The training of staff members and professionals has also been stressed as extremely important, yet largely non-existent in most institutions, offices and organisations.Nearly all interviewees from all regions agree that asylum beneficiaries have been provided with adequate social welfare, just like all of its other beneficiaries. Some of the representatives of LSGUs and professional institutions from the Dalmatian and Eastern Regions noted that asylum beneficiaries were not supposed to be singled out, that is, afforded greater rights and priorities than domestic social-welfare beneficiaries. All local communities feel that asylum beneficiaries have been provided with adequate health-care, but the interviewees highlight a lack of physicians and the overload of the health system, as well as communications. When it comes to providing adequate social welfare and health care, a common problem stressed in all regions is the insufficient capacity of institutions, while other aggravating circumstances include slow systems, uninformed staff members, shortcomings in the monitoring of asylum beneficiaries, uncertainties about the financing of health-care services and lack of coordination between different stakeholders. The same issues are also reported by the asylum beneficiaries themselves.Professional institutions have, for the most part, already established cooperation with almost all stakeholders involved in the integration process. In this context, they most often point out line ministries, as well as significant cooperation with CSOs. Only the Central Region (including Zagreb) highlights the existing cooperation with LSGUs and the OHRRNM, or with international organisations. The LSGU and RSGU representatives are somewhat more likely to expect more significant engagement by and cooperation with CSOs, which they consider more capable of writing projects and mobilising funds for work with asylum beneficiaries or count on their human resources. Some professional institutions are also focused on inter-city and inter-county cooperation, for example, with other social-welfare centres, in order to compare their experiences and share good practices. The SCO stakeholders state national and local authorities make insufficient use of the capacity and experience of local SCOs.All stakeholders criticize administration primarily because of the lack of timely and transparent exchanges of information, given that they are perceived as responsible for the entire system. Stakeholders in local communities feel that they operate without specific guidelines and decisions, everything being left to improvisation. Professional institutions hold that the measures defined in the Action Plan are not applicable to the realities in the field, stressing that the system is not prepared to respond to current challenges and needs such as, for instance, securing accommodation and interpreters. There is also concern about the duplication of work by different institutions and organisations, and shifting responsibilities to CSOs. It has been stressed that a protocol in needed which would contain descriptions and guidelines for the implementation of steps in the integration of persons granted asylum, which should define the sequence of implementing integration measures, those in charge of their implementation, including their responsibilities, as well as the forms of their cooperation. Such a protocol and guidelines would enable LSGUs and RSGUs to rely on these documents in their work and to act in compliance therewith. All stakeholders emphasize the need to receive timely and reliable information about the number, structure and time of arrival of persons granted asylum in their areas because this information is crucial for them to be able to prepare themselves for different aspects of their integration. A distribution plan is a document cited by all self-government units as essential to launch preparations for the asylum beneficiaries, in accordance with the aforementioned protocol.All stakeholders highlight interpreters and cultural mediators as a very pressing need in all regions. It has been stressed that interpreters should be professionally trained, rather than semi-skilled individuals or family members, let alone children. All stakeholders realize that securing housing is a key prerequisite for the reception and integration of persons granted asylum, and that it falls within the remit of the central government, rather than the local community. The Eastern and Dalmatian Regions place special emphasis on the need to provide adequate accommodation for unaccompanied children under international protection. Also, all integration stakeholders feel that efforts are needed to speed up administrative procedures because there is a gap between what has been set forth in legislation and what can really be implemented due to technical barriers, including children's registration in school e-registers, medical records, access to Croatian language learning, and verification of previously acquired qualifications and job competencies which is a requirement for education or employment. To achieve all this, sound intersectorial cooperation is required.The integration stakeholders in all regions show a clear need to prepare, raise the awareness of and train the staff directly involved in the integration process for contacts with and providing services to persons granted asylum. Since professional institutions are places of direct and on-going contacts with asylum beneficiaries, there is a need for continuous training of their professional staff. The training of all integration stakeholders should include learning about the culture and customs of asylum beneficiaries and it should be based on the principles of intercultural communication. In some professional institutions whose staff are engaged in direct and intense work with families of asylum beneficiaries, such as counselling and psychosocial support, there is an increased need for continuous mental-health care and stress prevention among staff members through supervision and professional support.Given that they believe that the responsibility for integrating persons granted asylum rests primarily with the state, a number of LGSUs, professional institutions and some CSOs expect the state to bear the related costs. The LSGUs in the Central Region see the opportunity to secure funding by applying for EU projects and drawing money from EU funds. In the Dalmatian Region, the LSGUs expect the state to issue fewer instructions, and to focus more on direct care for asylum beneficiaries. At the LSGU level, help in meeting community needs in the integration process and their own efforts is expected from the Government of the RoC, primarily the OHRRNM as the central coordinating body. Some RSGUs believe that they will successfully carry out all tasks imposed by law and those received from the competent state authorities, and that they will tackle problems only once asylum beneficiaries arrive in their territory. LSGUs and RSGUs see their role in coordinating different integration process stakeholders, such as professional institutions and CSOs, at the town and county levels. Some LSGUs also see their role in supporting other stakeholders when they lack capacity in the integration process, and in networking with other institutions within the community. In this context, they stress their role in providing information to asylum beneficiaries and improving intersectorial cooperation because they "have a good overview of the activities of different services." Some LSGUs feel that a person should be assigned to each integration stakeholder as its key informant about how asylum beneficiaries can exercise their rights.The LSGUs see their key contribution to integration in their efforts to raise the awareness of and inform the public about the arrival of persons granted asylum and the process of their integration, being aware there resistance to their arrival in some communities. In the Eastern Region, they warn that greater resistance to the arrival of asylum beneficiaries may be expected in communities that are traditionally more closed and host a larger number of immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who were forced to leave their homes due to armed conflicts with the Muslims. In the Central and Littoral regions and the City of Zagreb, they believe that the experience they have with proven integration mechanisms for socially vulnerable groups, referring to members of the Roma national minority, will help them in the process of integrating asylum beneficiaries. The LSGUs feel they can also directly support integration efforts by providing initial financial assistance to asylum beneficiaries, helping in the process of their reception and accommodation, offering aid such as food and toiletries, facilitating children's inclusion in educational institutions, covering their kindergarten costs (Eastern and Littoral regions, Zagreb), as well as helping asylum beneficiaries to find employment. Professional institutions will address integration as part of their daily activities, by providing services for persons granted asylum as well as any other beneficiaries. The LSGUs, RSGUs and professional institutions see the important role of CSOs in complementing services provided to asylum beneficiaries by professional institutions. Most of the CSOs plan to expand their present activities to meet the specific needs of asylums beneficiaries, and represent a major integration potential for local communities, highlighting their networks of volunteers as a key asset in work with persons granted asylum. The CSOs feel that a coordination mechanism should be put in place at the LSGU level so as to bring together all the stakeholders, including the civil sector, and ensure transparent financing of services for asylum beneficiaries.Croatia has few communities with any reception and integration experience and most of the local communities covered by this research have not considered or prepared themselves for this challenge. Yet, the integration stakeholders in all units included in this research stress that they crucially need timely and reliable information about the plans for the arrival and distribution of persons granted asylum, and that information from the relevant ministries, particularly from the OHRRNM, will enable them to launch preparations for integration activities and possible reception of asylum beneficiaries. Finally, the recommendations derived from this research will facilitate improvements in policies and practices for the integration of persons under international protection, making it easier and less painful to achieve the objectives stemming from Croatia's commitments as an EU member state, as well as its legislation and action plans of the Government of the RoC.
Most post-modern societies are being challenged by a widening gap that divides their populations by the classic cleavages of age, class, region and religion. Exacerbated by the forces of globalization and the immediacy of technology, they result in constant clashes that cause an exponential increase in social tensions and insecurity. Even if the Norwegian killer was insane and can not be used as example, he was still a member of the dominant culture failing to accommodate to post-modern circumstances. In the United States this gap is vividly evident in the current debt ceiling debate, which is only a symptom of much serious divisions that threaten the country's social unity and political future.A brief look at recent headlines in the United States can give outsiders and idea of the country's social and political environment.On Sunday July 24th, a new law approving gay marriage came into effect in New York, making it the sixth and largest state in the nation (plus the District of Columbia) to have legalized same-sex marriage. In Manhattan, people celebrated on Fifth Avenue, singing and dancing to the music and well-suited lyrics of New York, New York ("If we can make it here, we'll make it anywhere…"). On July 0th, Republican candidates Michelle Bachman and Rick Santoro a "Marriage Vow" swearing fidelity to their spouses, promising they would "vigorously oppose any redefinition of marriage" and would take steps to amend welfare legislation that did not reinforce conventional marriage. This is only a sample of the extreme polarization the country is facing both economically and socially. It is a critical moment in United States history, one that may require a deep reflection on the basic principles the nation was founded upon and a renewal of the social compact.Prodded by the Tea Party leaders, who presently wield an amount of power disproportionate to their numbers, Republican candidates have been signing pledges on an array of different topics in order to prove their conservative credentials. Both Michelle Bachman and Mitt Romney also signed a no-new-taxes pledge, together with a "cut, cap and balance pledge" to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget and congressional super majorities to raise taxes. These two pledges, albeit non-enforceable and thus largely symbolic, are now the single most important obstacle to reach a deal in Congress about balancing the budget and avoiding default on the national debt. Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips has threatened to recruit candidates to mount primary challenges against any GOP member that votes for a compromise on the debt ceiling that involves any type of revenue increases to balance the budget. The GOP Congressional leadership has been hijacked by intransigent ideologues, represented in the House by 87 freshmen with disproportionate power over the more established professional politicians who understand that democratic governance requires give and take, and that politics in a pluralistic society is the art of the achievable.This country was founded on the premise of compromise, negotiation and cooperation, as it is evident from the history of the Constitution and the layers of governmental power devised mainly to counterbalance one another: states versus federal, legislative versus executive, Senate v. House, and an independent judiciary. It was clear even then, that solutions in what promised to be a huge, diverse society with deep regional and religious cleavages would require compromise. But today, in the "worst Congress ever" as Norman Ornstein calls it in his recent article in Foreign Policy, compromise is a bad word. The House is controlled by a GOP freshmen class that owes its seats to Tea Party ideologues and is refusing to raise the debt ceiling even as President Obama has agreed to cuts in spending that include cuts in entitlements, in exchange for ending subsidies on ethanol and other corporate subsidies (he has even given up on the expiration of the Bush era tax cuts he had included in his first proposal). This package that would represent over 3 trillion dollars in cuts from the federal budget, including reductions in Medicare and other social programs, would have allowed the debt ceiling to be raised so that the US could avoid defaulting on its debt by August 2nd. It was on the table last week and close to being signed on by House Speaker John Boehner but he refused it at the last minute because of pressure from his own caucus. The Tea Party is pushing professional legislators toward the abyss, and with them, the whole country. The Tea Party is a social movement that was born out of frustration and disappointment with government spending over the last twelve years. President George W. Bush inherited a budget surplus from the Clinton-Gingrich years. But that surplus quickly vanished as Bush proposed and got passed serious tax cuts on the wealthy and then embarked on two wars that are still going on today. In response, a large coalition of Independents, Republicans and a few former Democrats formed a protest movement that defines itself for what it is against: big government, big media, big banks, unsustainable deficits and intrusive federal regulation. In spite of some evident intrinsic contradictions in their philosophy (for example some the new regulations they so vehemently oppose such as the Dodd-Frank legislation are meant to constrain the actions of "big banks" they so strongly abhor), the Tea Party has been very successful in focusing the public's attention on the federal budget deficit and on the federal debt that has ballooned in the last two decades. Those are its core concerns, together with a deep-seated contempt for and rejection of, everything the well-educated elites are for the most in favor of: environmental sustainability, a foreign policy based on multilateralism, gay rights and immigration reform legislation that recognizes the realities of the estimated twelve million undocumented workers in the country. After two months of wrangling, neither side has managed to get what it wanted, the US credit rating is about to be downgraded (with the subsequent increase in interest rates and damaging effects on an already slow economy) and the vitriolic Washington environment is alienating people on the Right and on the Left. Pressured by the Tea Partiers and their anti-tax obsession, Republicans have refused to compromise to avoid a default, and in so doing they are sabotaging their own chances for 2012. Most Americans are appalled at the GOP's refusal to endorse Obama's proposal that would cut the deficit by $3.7 trillion through a mix of spending cuts, entitlement reform and ending some corporate subsidies and tax deductions. In so doing, the GOP is alienating independent voters that want to avoid default and are ready for a deal. A new political center of gravity is forming. The number of registered voters that identify themselves as Independent is growing (40% in latest poll), while the numbers of Republicans and Democrats are sinking and there is a new online movement from the grassroots to form a third party.Paradoxically, out of all this Byzantine intrigue in the hallways of Congress, and given the outcome of no deal announced on Monday night, President Obama may come out as the winner. To the dismay of his most progressive base, Obama, intent on finding some common ground with the opposition has shifted to the center-right of the political spectrum on his proposals, daring to sacrifice some cuts on entitlements in exchange for revenue increases, only to see them rejected by the Republicans. He is close to winning a stand-alone debt ceiling increase while having proven to be the only reasonable adult in this struggle. This would gain him the support of many independents and help him avoid a confrontation within his own party. It would also allow him to focus on unemployment, the real immediate crisis that most directly impacts people's lives. However, Democrats in the House and Senate are afraid that concessions on reducing some Medicare benefits, for example, or postponing the eligibility age, would ruin the clarity of their message to seniors during the election. Conversely, Tea Partiers see a compromise involving any sort of revenue increases by the government, even non-tax measures such as ending corporate subsidies, as a betrayal of their principles. The Tea Partiers have brought into focus the spending crisis that has been growing unchecked for a long time, and one the country cannot obviously tax its way out of. Some facts cannot be denied: debt is the result of spending not backed by revenue. Total government spending at all levels has risen to 37% of the GDP today from 27% in 1960. It could reach 50% by 2038. The debt-to-GDP ratio has reached 100% today, from 42% in 1980. The big moral struggle is still ahead. There is no question that the government is spending too much, but the real debate is about priorities and the philosophies that underlie those priorities. The President has recognized that the budget deficit is important to voters, most of which have come to the conclusion that since the stimulus spending did not solve the problem of unemployment, deficit reduction appears to be a better way to improve the economy than investing in education, infrastructure and new energy technologies. Obama must acknowledge this, and make it part of his discourse.But the President must also continue to make a case for the common good ("there are things we can still do together", he said in his last speech), the social safety net and America's future. He can do this by personalizing the budget battles the way Clinton did. Are budget battles about choices or necessities? Why give more tax cuts to the wealthy if their wealth has grown through the recession while the rest saw their wealth diminish? Why subsidize corporate agriculture and ethanol production? Social programs like Medicare serve all Americans, why focus on cutting it while giving a pass to the upper income- and- wealth echelon? General elections are won from the center. Strong strident advocates make for weak candidates. Undoubtedly, the 2012 election will be about money, about fiscal discipline, but it will also be about a more equal distribution, and it will require strong leadership from the two respective philosophical corners to come to a consensus. That is why the Republican establishment is so worried about the lack of gravitas in their field of candidates. That is why some yearn for budget whiz Paul Ryan, or Governor Chris Christie or Rick Perry….or anybody really, that looks and sounds as if he can take on Obama in the intricacies of the budget, the debt ceiling, and social programs reform. That may also be why Jeb Bush was asked on Fox News about his intentions to run for President again two days ago. This time his response was more nuanced: he said that while he doesn't anticipate it, he hasn't ruled it out ("but, he added, "I haven't ruled out being in Dancing with the Stars, either").In the meantime, the Wall Street Journal today announced that, based on the Pew Research Center tabulations of SIPP and Census date, the wealth gap between America's whites and its two largest minorities, Blacks and Hispanics, has widened to unprecedented levels due to the housing crisis and the Great Recession. Alan Greenspan, former President of the Federal Reserve has said repeatedly that the wealth gap that has grown consistently for the last decade is a threat not only to our country but to capitalism itself. Poverty and unemployment are a combustive mix: if fiscal responsibility ends up being based on the back of the poor, social conflict will erupt. It is unconscionable, for example, to think that hedge fund managers pay significantly less taxes than their secretaries.Some Republicans want to abolish every piece of social legislation and re-litigate every progressive judicial decision since the New Deal. As part of pledge game, Michelle Bachman and four other candidates also signed the "Susan B. Anthony pledge "promising to appoint abortion opponents to their cabinets and to deny all funding for Planned Parenthood when they become presidents. The bizarre "Marriage Vow "pledge signed by Bachmann and Santoro not only opposes same-sex marriage and includes a personal promise to be faithful to their spouses, but (most peculiarly yet redundantly) it also rejects Sharia Law (which, by the way, like Bachman, also opposes gay marriage and female adultery, which it punishes by death!)The only candidate that has refused to sign any pledge is Jon Huntsman, who understands the perils of siding too closely with the rebellious Tea Party. Even if some of its main points have successfully brought into focus the deficit issue, the Tea Party is still supported by a minority and resented by most Republicans. Its anti-technocratic, anti-Washington message has resonance, but it may have pushed the GOP too far into a corner. Its message is also becoming blurred when it steps into the social arena: its racist and homophobic overtones do not reflect the spirit of the times and are offensive to the "millenials", the youngest generation of voters born in the 80s and 90s, which Republicans still hope to attract in 2012. Social movements are major vehicles of participation and can re-energize a worn out party. They reflect the spirit of the times, often in an extremist way that is what gives them prominence: their passion for the cause, their original approach, are all important, but their message has to resonate with the public if they are to succeed. They emerge, coalesce, grow and achieve some successes. However, once their main point is made, three things can happen: they can become a party, their main ideas can be incorporated into mainstream politics, or they dissipate and be quickly forgotten. The Tea Party brought into focus the issue of fiscal responsibility, it infused conservatism with new energy and found a natural home in the Republican Party, which had become profligate, and will have to prove from now on that it is sincere about austerity. Its impact is undeniable: it has also attracted Independents and in so doing, has per force moved the Democratic Party to the center-right. Mimicking the "big tent" approach of Republicans, the Tea Party has lately been focusing strategically on fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets and its main groups have avoided divisive social issues when speaking to the general public. But their demands of ideological purity from their candidates, their emphasis on returning to the strict meaning of the Constitution and the values of the Founding Father, their defense of states rights and gun rights, belie their claims of inclusiveness for all Americans; in its coded language, its contempt for immigrants and its not-so- veiled racism, one senses a strongly reactionary sentiment bordering on uncontainable fanaticism which is completely out of step with most Americans and which will make it very difficult to widen its appeal beyond what it has already achieved.To paraphrase deceased Republican leader Barry Goldwater, the Tea Party's aim isnot to streamline government or make it more efficient, but to get rid of every piece of social legislation and economic regulation passed since the New Deal. Their purpose is not to share the burden of the weakest members of society, nor to educate their children so they can have equality of opportunity, but to defend the individual freedoms of those who can stand on their own. In sum, they are extremists for whom tolerance and moderation are vices, not virtues, and therefore they have no place in a democracy.Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Geography Director, ODU Model United Nations Program Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia
Part one of an interview with Salvatore "Sal" Pisciotta. Topics include: How Sal became a barber and eventually quit because he didn't like the work. How his parents immigrated to the United States from Italy. His parents lived in Ashburnham, MA and then moved to Fitchburg, where Sal was born. His parents were uneducated and the disadvantages they faced because of that. Stories Sal's parents told about Italy. How his family felt when World War II broke out. Sal's feelings about the events of September 11th and terrorism in general. His father's work as a laborer. The differences in how girls and boys were treated in his family. Education. What his mother was like and what a typical day was like for her. The garden his parents kept. Memories from his childhood. The food his mother used to prepare. His mother's experience working at a mill. What it was like to buy groceries and have ice delivered. Making wine and sausages. What Fitchburg was like when Sal was growing up. The boarders his parents housed. ; 1 LINDA: This is Linda [Rosenwan] on Friday, November 9. It's 9:50 a.m. We're with Sal Pisciotta, 208 Woodland Street in Fitchburg. And hello, Sal. SAL: Hi. Hi, Linda. LINDA: Okay. Here we go. So why don't you tell me -- you were just telling me a little bit -- I hate to ask you again, but tell me what happened after you graduated from Fitchburg High School in 1948. SAL: Oh. I went to barber school in Boston; that was for six months. Six months course, and then brother Joe and I, we opened up a barber shop down the street here, you know, in Fitchburg. And I always disliked being a barber, but I was forced into it. I always wanted to be civil engineer, but I mean, in those days if your father or brother was a barber you had to be a barber or a tailor or a cobbler or what the heck ever they were. LINDA: So he was an older brother. SAL: Oh, yeah. He was 17 years. I never grew up with him. I mean, I never grew up he and I being brothers. I mean, he was 17 years. He was… I was 3 years old when he got married, so we never grew up being close as brothers. And then the Korean War came along, I got drafted, and I went to Korea. I was there for, well, 15 months in the 24th Division. When I came back I wanted to go to school but then I got married, and one thing led into another. I went back into barbering, but then that was it. I couldn't take it anymore. I just had to get the heck out of there. LINDA: Did your brother know that you hated it? SAL: Oh, yeah. He knew it. He didn't want to see me leave, but hey, I quit. I told him I was leaving, then I had problems with my wife and I couldn't find a job. The country was in a recession back in '63, '62. So finally I landed this job in Leominster for the Doyle Estate, which was a wonderful thing, working for this lady. She's been very gracious and great to me and my three children. And that's it. I'm supposed to be retired here. LINDA: Okay, so we're going to stop the interview. Again. SAL: Okay. What we said is all gone, right? LINDA: All gone. We were just starting. See, it's at two minutes again.2 SAL: Okay. LINDA: Because we were just talking about -- so we won't talk about her personally. SAL: No, please, no. Don't say it. Nothing about her personally. LINDA: Okay. So then let me thing back what we should talk about. SAL: [Unintelligible – 00:02:55]? LINDA: Yes, we could start there. So your parents, Antonio… SAL: Antonio and Antoinette. LINDA: Now, did they come from Italy together? SAL: Yes. He came -- Dad was born in 1883. He went into the Italian Army. I think he was in the Italian Army a couple of years. Then he came to America, I think it was in 1906, or '07, whatever it is. And he worked in the Sumner Tunnel in Boston, I'd say. And then I guess he got laid off. He got laid off, and then he was going to go back to Italy. You know, the Italian government was calling these people, these immigrants, these Italian people that came over here. There was no work, and for $5 you could get on ship and go back to Italy. And my father had bought a ticket; he was going back to Italy. He was down on Hanover Street or one of the streets in the North End, and he met another Italian man, and they asked my father where he was going, where he was working. And my father says, I have no job here. I'm going back to Italy. So he said, tomorrow you meet at a certain place here in Boston, and we're going to go to Wellesley. In Wellesley there was a very, very wealthy man that has horses and stables and greenhouses, exactly what these Italians could do. So that's how my father went to work there, and he worked there for a few months. Then he did go back to Italy, and he was going to go marry this woman that he had left that he was in love with.3 Come to find out, she didn't wait for him. She had already gotten married to somebody else. So he struck up a relationship, which I think actually was a fixed marriage, with my mother. And anyway, he met somebody on the street, another -- I think Papa says once he was the mailman or something and says, Tony, get married and go back to America. Italy is about ready to go to war with Tripoli. LINDA: Oh, so wait a minute. So he did go back to Italy? SAL: Yes. Yeah. He went back to Italy to get married, but the woman that he was in love with, that he liked, she already got married. A letter carrier said to him, go back to America; that Italy is ready to go to war with Tripoli and that's when the 1912, I think it was, Dad came back with -- and she was 19 years old and my dad was 27, I guess. In 1912 they came and they landed in Boston. LINDA: So at this time he had been -- it was a married arranged for him, to a 19-year-old Antoinette. SAL: Yes. It was just, in those days, it was all arranged marriages. LINDA: Yeah. So they both came back here? SAL: Yeah. And I think they settled in South Ashburnham, a little jerk town up the street here, in South Ashburnham. And then he raised his family there. LINDA: Now, why do you think he ended up there? SAL: In those days, Linda, if Joe came, or Frank came to America, he would call him brother and his brother, he comes to America and didn't even know how to speak English, so where do you go? You go with your brother, or you go with somebody that you knew that called you. Then when you get here, you call your father-in-law or your sister-in-law, whatever it is, and you all get together. Because in those days, they all came here to Fitchburg. There was quite a population there was here, they call it the patch down on Water Street, and there was a lot of Italian people.4 But had there been work here in Fitchburg, today the Italian population would have been greater than it is in the North End of Boston, because what had happened was the work stopped. There was no more work, they weren't building any more factories, and then they started building the State House in New York, and all the Italians -- not all the Italians, but a lot of Italians, picked up their roots here from Fitchburg and Leominster, and they went to Albany, New York to live. LINDA: So who did you father follow then to Ashburnham? Do you know who was living there? SAL: Oh, yeah. His brother. LINDA: His brother. SAL: Yeah. LINDA: Now, what kind of work was he doing there? SAL: Laborers. That's all they ever do. Laborers. In those days they were building the paper mills, and that's it. A pick and shovel. There was no call up the cement truck and the cement truck come over with some cement. Everything was made by hand. It was laborers. And they were getting maybe $5 or $6 a week, and that was it. A week. Not a day or an hour, a week. LINDA: Now, where were they living, do you know? Were they living in a boarding house? SAL: No. It was a regular house. In fact, my daughter, Cynthia, lives up the street but the house is demolished now. The house isn't there anymore. Then from there they moved from South Ashburnham, they came down here on Orchard Street here in Fitchburg. They lived there for a few years, then they moved to [Edlee] Street and that's where I was born 72 years ago. LINDA: So what made them come to Fitchburg? SAL: Because one of his brothers was here, and there was work. LINDA: So he had a brother in Ashburnham and then Fitchburg?5 SAL: Then they came to Fitchburg because there was work here. They were building the paper mills, there was work. That's what they would do. They would just follow wherever work was, and then these Italians, the woman, would take in their brothers as boarders, so maybe about 65, or 70, a dollar a week they would cook for these guys, they would wash their clothes, iron, for a dollar a week. Cook their meals, make their lunch. That was America. They were the ones that built this country, those immigrants. Not only the Italians, I'm talking about the Swedes, the French and all that. Of course, and then the Italians. And then you get the Englishmen that came to this country and those -- is this being…? LINDA: Go ahead. That's fine. That's what history's about. SAL: So we got all these people that came over from Ireland, those guys ended up with the good jobs because they knew how to speak English. You get the Italians, the French, the Polocks, what do they know? They don't even know English. And that's how all the Kennedys and the rest of those rich families survived. Or got started. LINDA: That's what was so interesting about my interview yesterday. I think I told you, the Italian Citizens Club, with the [unintelligible - 00:10:20], was that they formed so that the Italians, they could teach them English and get them to become citizens and then show them the way to get better jobs. So they had to do that because there was a language barrier. SAL: Yeah. A language barrier. Like my father. My father and mother never went to school a day in their life. LINDA: Did they ever learn English? SAL: Yeah, they learned English. Very, very broken English, but they never went to school. I mean, we spoke in the house; it was all Italian as we grew up. I mean, with my mother and father usually would speak Italian, but amongst us kids it was English. But amongst Mom and Dad it was always Italian. LINDA: So they never became citizens?6 SAL: Oh, they did. Yeah. LINDA: Oh, they did? SAL: Yeah, during the Second World War, and then I can still remember before the Second World War my father became an American citizen. He was the happiest guy in the world. Then my mother, she became a citizen because she had a son that was in the Navy and he was in the war, and automatically she became an American citizen. LINDA: Wait, how did that work? SAL: What's that? LINDA: She automatically became a citizen? SAL: Her son was in the service, and I guess contributed to his country, and she just went to city hall one day and they had the ceremony and she became a citizen. But she never went to school. She never even knew how to sign her name. LINDA: I have my grandmother's passport where she has just an "x" where it says, sign your name. SAL: Dad could sign his name but it was… anyway. LINDA: It's amazing, though, isn't it? That they could come here and… SAL: They're the ones that built this county, right? LINDA: So you said your dad was the happiest man in the world. SAL: Oh, yeah. He was so proud. He became an American citizen, and he never had any desire to go back to Italy. He says, America's my home now. I want to stay in America. I don't want to go to Italy anymore. LINDA: Isn't that amazing? I mean, can you imagine yourself going to another country and…? SAL: And not even speaking a word of English? LINDA: And not becoming a citizen? SAL: And then becoming a citizen. Yeah. LINDA: So where were they from in Italy? SAL: Salemi. LINDA: Is this in Sicily?7 SAL: Yes, it's in Salemi. S-A-L-E-M-I. Salemi. Province of Trepani. T-R-E-P-A-N-I, Sicily. LINDA: Spell the Salemi again? SAL: S-A-L-E-M-I. LINDA: All right. So both your parents were from there? SAL: Yes. LINDA: Okay. So do you ever remember them talking about the old country? SAL: Oh, yeah. My father told me -- he would tell me that when he was courting my mother—because where they came from was all hills and mountains and there was no flashlights in those days and they used to have like a lamp and the lantern and my mother lived in the hills—and at nighttime he would slip, he would fall 200 or 300 feet down the cliff running. She came from the hills, poor thing. Nineteen years old she came to this country. Never went back, never saw her mother or father anymore, but anyway. LINDA: Did she used to have anyone write letters? Well, they probably couldn't read them. SAL: No, they could. My sister could speak Italian, and they would call [unintelligible - 00:14:11], but then naturally when the Second World War broke out, they were, you know, we were against the war on Italy, against Italy, so there was no communication then. LINDA: How did your parents feel about that when the United States was at war with Italy? Do you remember anything? SAL: That was terrible because they figured they were Americans, and they thought it was stupid that he got -- Mussolini in those days, got involved with Hitler. They thought it was a disgrace. The Italians, you know, if you look at history, they were the ones that turned against Hitler and the Italian army gave up. Every time they would see the American army coming they would always wave their hands and give up. They didn't want to fight. LINDA: So did your father have any brothers or sisters that stayed in Italy?8 SAL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. There were two of them, I think, that stayed in Italy. Sisters, no he didn't have. He had brothers. One of them was here in American, and two of them, I think, stayed in Italy. But he never saw the ones in Italy anymore. LINDA: He didn't try to get them over here? SAL: No. LINDA: No? What about your mother's family? SAL: She tried to get her brother over here. I can still remember going to city hall, and she tried to get her brother, whose name was Salvatore also, and the girl at the city hall says there was a quota in those days of foreigners coming into this country, and we asked how long it would take before her brother came to America, and they told me seven years. In those days. Today, what the hell happened to this quota? Right? So I guess he got disgusted or discouraged and he moved to Venezuela. And he did come here. He was here to visit my mother. He was here for about four or five weeks and then went back to Venezuela. But what happened to the quota in this country where you had to wait to come in here? Now the doors are open and every [screwball] can come in and out as they please. Right, Linda? LINDA: Do you think we'll go back to a quota system? SAL: No. LINDA: No? SAL: Of course not. Hey, you've got Bush, who just says what? Mexicans, a couple of months ago he says there's three million of them and we're going to go make them all American citizens. LINDA: How did people of your generation -- I mean, do you talk to your friends about what happened on September 11th? SAL: No, it's a tragedy it happened. And like everybody else we haven't seen nothing here. What the hell? Everybody that's -- not everybody, but that's the consensus… anybody doesn't have to be a brain surgeon to 9 figure that out. That war's going to be worse. [Unintelligible - 00:17:32] watching the bridges, they're watching the water supplies, airports. It's too bad. LINDA: I just always wonder how veterans of the war feel, because at least you knew who the enemy was, and you knew the country to attack. SAL: Right. And we would attack the enemy. These people, September 11, they attack these poor civilians, which was terrible. I mean, if they want to attack an army base or a Navy base or a ship, okay, that's war, like Pearl Harbor was war. But these people… again, it's their faith in Allah and the Mohammed and the wacky people that they are. But they're never going to erase terrorism. You're not going to wipe it out in this world. Never. [Unintelligible – 00:18:37] Mohammed and [unintelligible - 00:18:38] what the hell. You know it. There's another hundred guys right behind him that are worse than him. Am I right, Linda? LINDA: I'm afraid you might be. I know. That's a bad situation. SAL: Yes is it. It's terrible. LINDA: You think back to how your parents were. Their concern was putting a roof over their children's heads and putting food on the table, and now… SAL: Now we -- right. That's terrible. Like you say, you've got to worry about your grandchildren and your children, and that's… we've seen the better days of America. Let's put it that way, Linda. LINDA: I think of how heartbroken my grandparents would be to see something like this. SAL: Oh, God. They wouldn't believe it. When you see two big buildings like that just crumbling down, it's unbelievable. LINDA: Well, so getting back to… SAL: Do you want a cup of coffee? LINDA: No, do you? SAL: No. LINDA: I'm all set. SAL: You're all set?10 LINDA: Thanks. Every time I talk about it I get a little… SAL: Well, naturally, of course. It's a terrible thing that's happening in this country, and in the whole world. Even Italians, in Italy they're having their problems, too. [Unintelligible - 00:20:10] a few more, they had explosives in their car, they don't know where they were going. Anyway. LINDA: Back in your father's day, or even when you were younger, people just loved America. They even liked to be here. Now there's such an anti-American sentiment. Just, you know, in a relatively few short years things have really changed. SAL: Well, you know, America is the greatest country in the world, there's no question about it, okay. But the trouble with this country, I mean, is we try to force democracy down the throats of a lot of these small countries. Hey, let them live the way they want to live. If they want to live in communism, let them live in communism. Why do we have to spread democracy all the time? Am I right? It's a good forum, it's like a lecture. They want the communist rule, I mean, there's no more communism out there, I guess, and there's more crime. But anyway. LINDA: So your father must have been somewhat old when you were born, not old but what, like 40 years old? SAL: Oh yeah, he was. I think he was 42 or 43. LINDA: So he was still working as a laborer. SAL: Yeah. No, he worked in Simon's, it was a steel -- it was near Fitchburg, it was where they fabricated saws and paper knives and stuff like that, [unintelligible - 00:21:53] Steel. He worked there for 32 years, then he retired when he was 65. LINDA: So what did he do for them? SAL: Labor. Just hard work, just a hard laborer. LINDA: But it must have seemed like kind of a cushy job after working outside with a shovel. SAL: Oh yeah, I'm sure it must have been. But I mean, the way he was talking I guess they had this kind of a stones of a brace of [unintelligible -11 00:22:23] and they'd grind them down. I'm sure it must have been hard work for the poor guy. Then he used to walk back and forth to work to save a nickel or a cop there in those days. LINDA: How far is that? SAL: It used to be on North Street, right on Main Street. Right here at [unintelligible - 00:22:40] College, North Street. LINDA: Okay. He would walk from here? SAL: He would walk, yeah just to save a nickel on the bus. LINDA: He probably didn't have a very -- he didn't have [unintelligible - 00:22:55] back then, right? SAL: Oh God, no. Just a hardworking man, that's all he was. Poor guy, I feel so sorry. What a life he lived. But anyway. LINDA: Why do you say that? Because he worked so hard? SAL: Oh, he worked so hard and didn't have all the conveniences that we have today. We didn't have a telephone in the house. I think we had to go to the fire station to use the telephone. There was no telephones back when I was growing up. I think I was about five years old before I ever sat in an automobile. LINDA: So tell me about making a phone call. You'd walk down to the fire station? SAL: Yeah, there was a fire station. So you'd make a telephone call to somebody. We didn't have a phone. LINDA: Did they charge you? SAL: I don't remember, that I don't remember. But the first one we got was a four-party telephone. The phone used to ring three or four, that's not ours, that's not ours. LINDA: I vaguely remember my grandmother having that, yeah. SAL: We had a four-party telephone. LINDA: So tell me what your mother was like. SAL: Very strict. She was a strict woman, yeah. She brought up five daughters, and not one of them ever crossed the line. Real proud girls.12 LINDA: Were girls and boys treated differently? SAL: Oh yeah. To an Italian woman the sons were always the favorite. Yeah, I was the favorite. Especially the oldest one, he was always the favorite one. LINDA: Now, was that Joe? SAL: Joe, yeah. LINDA: So he decided to be a barber. That was a good decision that you would have to follow? SAL: Well. LINDA: A good decision for him. SAL: Good for him I guess. And in those days we didn't have the opportunity to go to high school anyway. At 16 years old everybody had to quit and go to work. LINDA: Did you quit high school? SAL: No, I graduated in '48. Out of seven, my sister Millie and I were the only ones that graduated. LINDA: You were the youngest? SAL: I was the youngest, yeah. LINDA: And she must have been a young… SAL: Millie right now I think is 78, I think, 79. LINDA: So did your parents think that education was important? SAL: Yes, they did, but food on the table was more important, yeah. LINDA: So were the children expected to go out and get jobs and contribute? SAL: Yeah, we all had to pay board in those days. Yeah, whatever the pay was that you brought into the house, a certain percentage had to go to the household, to my mother. She was a strict woman, very strict. But she was a good lady. Poor thing, she spent eight years of her life, eight years was in a nursing home after Alzheimer's I guess, after the sclerosis. Poor thing, didn't know who the hell she was, she didn't know who we were either. LINDA: Did she die after your father?13 SAL: Yeah. LINDA: So what was her day like every day? SAL: Well, when she was younger [unintelligible - 00:26:50] with her kids. She even worked in one of the yarn mills here in Fitchburg; she even had a job. I mean, she was a hardworking woman. And I used to remember her doing the canning; she'd can tomatoes and beans and dad had a little garden a couple miles away from here, a little piece of land. And he used to make his own grape, his own wine, rather. And it was great. All the Italians around here were living the -- I mean a lot of [unintelligible - 00:27:22] and the trucks used to go by this time of the year loaded with grape from California, and we would go down south, he would buy the grape, and we'd go down in the cellar and we would make two or three barrels of wine. All the Italians used to make barrels of wine. It was interesting, it was very interesting. But it's all gone now. I've got fond memories of that. LINDA: So it seems like maybe it didn't seem like work. But it was the way of life. SAL: No, it wasn't. The way of life, right. LINDA: So was it typical for a family to buy a little piece of land to garden? SAL: Oh yeah. They all had to have their grape arbor, had their grape arbor and land. They all had to have their piece of land. They had to grow their squash and their tomatoes. Well, most of them anyway. LINDA: So who would take care of the garden? SAL: My dad and I would. Come home from school, my father, he would come home, and there was no cars in those days, we used to have a big wagon. We'd pull the wagon, the garden was maybe a quarter of a mile away, half a mile away from here, and we would go up there. After school there was no going to play football with the kids or going swimming; it was work, work, work. That's how it was. And I would help my father. He would plant this and plant that. The poor guy didn't know how to read how to 14 plant this and what you should do, and I used to read and explain everything to him. LINDA: So who owned the land? I mean, did one person own the land and they kind of subdivided it? SAL: No, he bought the piece of land from the seller, the man who owned a lot of pieces of land. Of course, they're all houses now, but in those days it was all woods and stones, and he would, one of my uncles with a horse, they cleared all the land, chopped down all the trees, piled up all the stones. They cleared the land themselves. There was no bulldozers in those days; everything was done by hand. LINDA: Where was that? Do you know the street? SAL: Yeah, it was off between Herd and Exeter Street. LINDA: Now, did he continue doing that all the way? SAL: Until he passed away, yeah. LINDA: And what happened to it? SAL: The land? His dream was always having a house on this land, but my mother, in those days, again, five daughters, she figured if he built a house there was no men or boys that was still bringing in the pay. In other words a girl gets married, she's out of the house, there's no more money coming in. So my father went to one of the lumberyards in those days, I think it was $4,000. It would have cleared the land, built them a six-room house, and turned over the keys for $4,000. And my mother says no. She says we've got five daughters, there will be no money coming in. So that broke my father's heart. He never seen a house on that piece of land that he had. So he passed away, and the funeral parlor up the street here -- next to the funeral parlor there was a house, and it belonged to, I guess, his aunt or something, and he bought the land from him, my brother Joe, and they moved the house to the land over there, and somebody else is on our place now. The land is gone. LINDA: So why is it that your generation didn't keep the garden still?15 SAL: Number one it was a lot of work. And then my sisters all got married, and they would have a little garden behind their house. But I mean, as far as that big piece of land that my father had, nobody was interested in it anymore. Then I went into the service, the land just got lost. My brother Joe sold it to this undertaker over here and he moved the house. The house is on the land now. LINDA: So do you think your father had that garden to feed his family mostly? SAL: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, definitely that's what it was for. And they used to have a little -- everybody had a shack, my father had a shack, [oceandino] they'd call it, a shack on there. And he had a little stove in there. I can still see my mother with the tomatoes cooking her tomatoes on the wood burning stove. And there was a little bed in the corner where my father would get tired during the day working, he'd lay on the bed and take a nap. That's one thing about him, every afternoon he used to take a nap. Even if it was for 20 minutes, Dad would always take a nap. LINDA: It's the Italian way, right? They still do that now. SAL: Yeah, he used to take his nap. And Mom used to do all the canning. We used to go up there, we were kids, we used to go up there and had a big table underneath the grapevine and there was a well. We used to pump water out of the well. It was fun. I mean, you don't see that anymore. LINDA: They used to have a shack right on the land? SAL: Oh yeah, there was a shack. LINDA: And what was it called? SAL: Well, in Italian oceandino. But yeah, there was a wood burning stove in there, a nice wood burning stove. And there was a bed. And Msom had a table in there and chairs, and when it would rain we would eat inside. If not we would go outside to eat under the -- it had a grape arbor with a well, the well, and then there was a grape arbor all around. LINDA: Was this on weekends mostly? SAL: Weekends, or even after school. Get out of school at 2:00 and we used to walk up there, and Mom was there doing the canning. There was no cars 16 in those days. We used to have a big wagon, put everything in the wagon, and come down through the streets with the wagon. LINDA: So can you still smell that sauce cooking? SAL: Sure can. Boy, she could make it wonderful. And pizza, she used to make that pizza, not that stuff you buy in the stores today, that little thin stuff. She used to make the regular Sicilian pizza with about a good inch thick, yeah. LINDA: What other kinds of things did she make? SAL: She wasn't a fancy cook. Like I said, she left Italy when she was 18, 19 years old. But no, not to knock my mother, but she used to make a tremendous sauce. She used to do a lot of cooking with ricotta, you know that cottage cheese, ricotta. And a lot of fried stuff in those days, like fried peppers and fried squash. But real fancy dishes, no, poor thing, she didn't know anything about that. LINDA: Did she make her own cheese? SAL: No, no. LINDA: Did she use a lot of fish? Did she… SAL: Not too much. Mom didn't go for fish so much. And the fact that she didn't… she really didn't cook with garlic. LINDA: No? SAL: You know why? The poor thing, she was in the mill down at [unintelligible - 00:35:25] yard, and all the Italian women, the bosses and those ladies, they used to call them hey, you garlic eaters, you garlic eaters. My mother got offended because they would call her a garlic eater, and she never would cook with garlic. That's something, huh? LINDA: So do you think she was afraid that she'd smell like it? SAL: Yeah, she'd smell the aroma. LINDA: So when did she work at the mill? SAL: Oh geez, it was when I was born. After I was born, actually. It could have been in the early '30s, had to be. LINDA: So who was taking care of you?17 SAL: My sisters. LINDA: What else can you tell me about her experiences at the mill? SAL: Well, other than they were known as garlic-eating Italians, women were known as garlic-eaters; that's about all I can remember. I know there were long hours. She used to leave here about half past five in the morning and start to work at six. She used to work from six to twelve I think it was, or six to one. Then come home, wash clothes. And really, there was no fancy washing machine like they have today. I still remember her with an old scrub board. LINDA: Did she ever get the washing machine with the rollers? SAL: Yeah, yeah. Old Maytag, I remember that with the rollers in the back and you feed the -- she got that… and had a wood-burning stove. And that thing used to shine, God you could see your reflection on that black [unintelligible - 00:37:20]. And that thing used to shine, and gosh it was clean. She was immaculate, my mom. She used to have a big couch, not a couch but a piece of furniture over there. The telephone would ring and she would be there. While she was on the phone she would have the rag and she was wiping it, and my father would say [unintelligible - 00:37:47] when you're dead in your box you're still going to have that rag, you're still going to be wiping and wiping. She was crazy clean. Oh God, clean. God, was she clean! LINDA: Did she expect all her kids to be clean? SAL: Yeah. LINDA: Were all the [unintelligible - 00:38:11] immaculate too? SAL: No, it's not. LINDA: Looks like it. SAL: No, never, far from it. Messy. Messy, messy, I've got to get that damn counter cleaned. LINDA: So what was life like for your sisters when they got home from school?18 SAL: They helped Mama do the cooking, wash the clothes, do the shopping. But like I said one of my sisters was the only one that had the opportunity to graduate high school. But the rest of them at 16, they all had to quit and they had to go to work. And they all did their share when they came home as far as working and housework. There was no fancy supermarkets like they are today. LINDA: So tell me, what was it like to buy groceries? SAL: There used to be a little First National store down here, First National store, okay. And then the bottom of the hill there used to be another [Gigopies] market. And you just used to buy groceries for the day, whatever you needed. The bread, they used to make their own bread. I can remember coming home and my mother having that big wooden shovel making the bread and making the dough rise. There used to be a big pan and she used to put that on there, that dough would rise up, and then the dough that was left over, she used to make pizza with it. Yeah, they used to make their own bread. LINDA: So would they make the bread for the week? In one day? SAL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. LINDA: So whose job was it to knead all the bread? SAL: She would do all that. LINDA: She would? SAL: And my sisters, too, would help her. But mostly she would do it with her flour. She used to buy flour by 50-pound sacks. LINDA: Now, did someone used to come around on a truck and sell the flour? SAL: Yeah. Then there used to be trucks that used to come around, and they used to -- I can still remember, they used to come around, they used to sell -- maybe even was -- oh, geez. There used to be -- next street over there used to be a guy that used to go around with a horse and the meat in the back, he had a covered thing and he used to sell meat. Imagine that? Unrefrigerated. With a horse. A horse-drawn cart and go around, and then maybe about once a week or twice a week there used to be trucks that 19 used to come in from Boston, and they had all kinds of Italian cheese and Italian food in these trucks, and the mother or the people would go down and go around the truck, and they'd have all these goodies that they would be selling. Cookies, Italian cookies, cheeses, olive oil. LINDA: So did they go up and down all the streets? SAL: Yeah, they would go down the street, but they would go mostly to where Italian families were. They knew where the Italian families were. There used to be a lot of Italian families here in Fitchburg at one time. Even in this area here. A lot of them. But now they've all passed away now and they're married and they're gone. LINDA: Did they used to ring a bell? How did you know they were coming? SAL: Sometimes, if they had selling dishes they used to [hit] the dishes together and you'd know they were coming, or they would lay out in the street and yell out [foreign language – 00:41:56], which meant, "chickens, chickens, chickens." They would sell chickens, too. And in those days, too, they used to sell the chickens. They weren't like going to the [unintelligible - 00:42:05] market or buy them all packaged. You had to buy them, and I remember my father on the shed, he used to take the chicken by the neck and pull it, and the poor bird would bop-bop-bop, and he'd have the hot water going, stick it in hot water right away. You had to pull all feathers off before the water got cold. That's the way they used to do it. LINDA: Did you ever learn how to do that? SAL: No, but I didn't want to learn how to do that. Put the place together while he went, and then I clean all the innards. Thank God for [unintelligible – 00:42:45]. LINDA: Did your family eat meat much? SAL: No. No. What we ate was mostly chicken, but she would cook a lot of Italian dishes. Peasant dishes. Like lentils. LINDA: Thank you. Thanks for understanding. So we were talking about cooking. What do you think about what we were talking about?20 SAL: She would make the peasant dishes. Ricotta with cheese, [unintelligible – 00:43:26] escargot, ricotta with [unintelligible - 00:43:29]. LINDA: What's that with the [unintelligible - 00:43:32]? SAL: The lentils. LINDA: Oh, lentils. SAL: Come on, Linda. Don't you understand? LINDA: I guess not. Now who made the decision to buy groceries? Who decided how much money to spend? SAL: Oh, no. Mama would do that. Mom would do that, yeah. On Friday night in Fitchburg there used to be -- on Main Street there used to be an old A&P store years ago. And Millie, who is the only one that knew how to drive then, we had a 1938 Dodge that Papa had bought then. Of course, he couldn't drive. Naturally he didn't drive, and she was the driver and she was the chauffer. And Friday nights I could still remember them, Mama and Millie, would go down to A&P and do the grocery shopping. Let's see. What else can I tell you? LINDA: Well, what about the -- I like the stories about the trucks coming in from the North End. What about ice? Do you remember ice being delivered? SAL: Yeah. Ice. There used to be an ice truck that used to come around, and then what you would do, the ice truck would stop, and we used to have iceboxes in those days, naturally. And there used to be a card that you put at the window and it was either 25, 50, 10 cents, or a nickel. In other words, if you wanted the 25-cent piece you would put that standing up, 25. Do you follow me? If you wanted a 10-cent piece then you turn the card over. And the iceman would chop a piece, put it on his back, and bring it up and put it in the icebox. And he put that -- most of it, the iceboxes were in the sheds. They used to have sheds. Do you know what a shed is? Outside of the house there used to be up on the porch, there used to be like another little, a little but no heat in there, and we put the [unintelligible - 00:45:33] stuff like that and 21 put the icebox -- we used to call it the icebox, was in there, and then there was a pail underneath for the water to drip. And sometimes if you forget to empty the pail, you would hear downstairs, they were knocking on the ceiling that the water was running down through the house. You had to empty this pail. Yeah. LINDA: So they keep it out there even in the summer? SAL: Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was the refrigeration was this icebox. LINDA: It probably wasn't very big? The icebox? SAL: Where we were living, I guess… is that too strong or what? LINDA: No, it's good. SAL: Okay. Because I make coffee too strong. LINDA: No, I like it. SAL: In the park, this man used to cut the ice. They used to cut the ice on Wayland Park, and then they used to bring it over and store it in the barn, and they used to put sawdust on it in the wintertime. That used to preserve it. In the summertime they would take the sawdust off the ice and ice was still there. It wouldn't melt. Did you know that? LINDA: No. I've heard it before. But where did they used to store it? SAL: They had a big, big shed, a big barn, and they used to store the ice in big, big cakes of ice. LINDA: Now, did the ragman come around? SAL: Yeah, the junk man would come around. The ragman. Yeah. Or the horse-drawn wagon. And if you had any rags they would sell it, pick it by weight and they used a scale, used to weigh it, and they used to give you maybe 10 or 15 cents for a bag of rags or whatever kind of junk you had. LINDA: What would they do with those rags? SAL: I have no idea. I don't know. And you would have the trucks that would come around at this time of year, all full of grape, and they would go to different places, the Italians, and the men would… I actually remember my father used to either 40-, 42-pound box of grape; maybe he'll sell it for 22 about a dollar, dollar 15 cents. Now, today, it would cost about 20, 21 dollars for the same sized box of grape. LINDA: So was that a family affair making wine? Or was it the boys? SAL: Mostly the boys. Dad and I would -- of course my brother had been… then I took over. We used to grind the grape by hand. And always my father, watch the fingers, watch the fingers, as you're grinding the grapes, all those spokes. You had the fingers stuck in there; your fingers would have been caught. But it was all done by hand. Now they have machines, a bunch of machines, dump a box in there, push the button, it's all done. LINDA: Did you keep that tradition? SAL: Yeah, I was making it up about three or four years ago, and then I had bad luck on a whole barrel of wine. I had to throw it down the sink. It went bad on me, and so I said, from now on if you want wine, go up to Kathy's Package Store. But I did. I was making my own wine, but anyway. I still make my own sausages. LINDA: Oh, you do? SAL: Yeah. LINDA: Is that a seasonal? SAL: Mostly, it's pork, but you eat in the wintertime. I don't like to eat pork in the summertime. But sausages, it's more seasonal. Like Thanksgiving and Christmas. LINDA: Have you made it yet? SAL: No but I just bought a new machine. I don't know, one of those KitchenAid machines, I just bought one of those a couple of weeks ago. LINDA: So explain to me how you make it. SAL: What, sausage? Well, you buy either the pork butt or the shoulder. Okay. You debone it, and then you take all the meat out and cut it into small pieces, and you put it through the grinder. Once you put it through the grinder, then you lay it out on the table, then you put your seasoning on it. Your fennel, salt, pepper, whatever you want for seasoning, okay? Then you put it through the grinder again, okay? Then you mix this all up, and 23 you can put wine in it if you want, then you got your casings. You know what casings are? All right. Then there's an attachment, you put the casing on there, you put the meat and you grind it up and go through the casings, and you make the sausage. LINDA: So do you freeze a lot? SAL: No. By the time you give some to this daughter, that to this guy, then some to my nephew, 20, 25 pounds disappears fast. LINDA: Now, did your mother used to make that? SAL: Oh, yeah. LINDA: So how are things different now? I'm sure she didn't have a grinder. SAL: They had a hand grinder, and I can always remember every time Mom and Dad got together to make sausage, boy, there was a war. You could hear them. LINDA: Why? About the seasoning? SAL: Oh, you're doing this wrong. You're going too fast. Watch your fingers. You don't do it this way, you do it that way. It was hell. Yeah. LINDA: So what about filling the casings though? That may have been a little harder back then? SAL: Well, it's… you've got to coincide with the one that's holding the casing and the one that's grinding it by hand. Now it's all done by electricity. It's powered. But that's the only tricky thing. As the machine is feeding the meat in the casing, you've got to make sure that you don't put too much all at once in the casing or it'll crack or break. LINDA: So probably every family has their own recipe. Sort of like meatballs. SAL: Well, I don't think anybody makes it. Very few people make their own sausages now. I know my sister Marilyn still makes it. I make it. That's about it. LINDA: What other things do you make that your mother used to make? SAL: Oh, green olives. Yeah. She used to -- this time of year, with green olives used to smash those and cure them. And pizza, naturally. Everybody 24 makes pizza. But some of her peasant dishes, once in a great while, but I was never too fond of them anyway. LINDA: No. So what about Christmas Eve, do you know? SAL: Christmas Eve, not like the ones years ago. Christmas Eve years ago was my uncle and my mother and father and all the Italians used to all get together, and they used to cook on the stove some kind of a fancy dish of fried dough, dumplings like. No more. We don't get that closeness of families anymore. LINDA: Why not? SAL: I don't know why. I think number one, there're cars. Everybody goes here, everybody goes there. I would say cars. Anyway, we used to get together years ago on holidays and Christmas. We still get together, but it's not the way it was on Christmas Eve. It's different. I'm sure it must be the same with your family, right? LINDA: Yeah. When my grandmother was growing up and even after she got married, all of her sisters lived close by. But then when they started having children, everyone moved on. SAL: That's right. That's the way it goes. From generation to generation is always different, which is good, in a way. But it's good to keep up traditions though, I think. LINDA: So have any of your daughters learned how to make the sausage? SAL: No. They wait for Daddy to call them up and say, okay, come and get your sausage. LINDA: Now, did your parents have chickens? SAL: Oh, God no. LINDA: No? Why do you say it like that? SAL: Because we lived in the neighborhood, and no, we didn't. But when we had that piece of land up there, my father used to raise pigs. I remember we had pigs, a couple of pigs, and he used to slaughter those. I remember that when I was a kid.25 LINDA: Now, what was that like? Was there a particular name of that day when people would slaughter their pigs? Would they call it anything? SAL: No. It was just at the end of the season, like at this time, winter was coming and people -- I can still remember that shed that he had with the water boiling and the poor pigs, shooting and killing the poor pigs. Thank God I don't have to go through all that anymore. LINDA: Did they use every piece of the pig? SAL: Oh, yeah. Even the squeal. Only the squeal is the only thing that you don't use on the pigs. LINDA: Oh yeah, I know. So was there a smokehouse in the area? Did anyone have one? SAL: No. Not that I remember. LINDA: What about buying groceries? Was that on credit? SAL: No, that was cash. Everything was cash. My folks, everything was cash. There was no plastic in those days. Even if there was, if they didn't have the money, the Italians, they didn't buy it. Everything was cash. LINDA: So what is this area of Fitchburg called? SAL: This section here? This is called Cleghorn. LINDA: This is? So this is really the French? SAL: It was the French district at one time, but now it's Puerto Rican and everything else. Fitchburg was in different sections. Like you had Cleghorn was the French. The patch was at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Street. Okay. That was the Italians. Then you had Greektown. Naturally, that was the Greeks. They all stuck together. Then West Fitchburg was the English, then you have Southside, that was the Irish. LINDA: So when the Italians started moving in here, were your parents part of that group that started moving into Cleghorn? SAL: I don't know. When they left South Ashburnham, I don't know when it was, but then they moved on to Orchard Street. They lived here -- I guess a few of my sisters were born out here on Orchard Street. But I know I was the only one of the family that was born over here on Edward Street. 26 And then it was in '48, yeah, 1948 I guess it was that one of my sisters went back home. Of course, in those days the girls had boyfriends, and they wanted their boyfriends to pick them up at a nice house. So, one of my sisters saw this place over here that was for sale. And anyway, Dad would come over, and they finally looked at it and they bought it. The price that they paid for it, I just had the roof, and the roof cost me the same price. And they bought the whole house. LINDA: What was that about? Three thousand or something? SAL: They paid $11,000 for the house, and I just spent $11,000 for a new roof. LINDA: So they paid $11,000 for this, but your mother didn't want to pay $4,000 for the other house? SAL: Yeah. Because she had the money but she wasn't going to spend it. And she wouldn't spend $4,000 to have a brand new house up there. But a few years later she spent $11,000 and bought this house. LINDA: Oh, so this was bought after. SAL: Oh, yeah. After. LINDA: I see. So about the different sections in Fitchburg, was there any competition or rivalries or differences? SAL: No. No. Maybe this will be interesting. My father was here down on the bottom of the hill one day, and in those days, like the mafia, there was the Black Hand. And it was a society that was shaking down these immigrants, and they approached my father, and this guy from the Black Hand wanted $5 from my father, and my father told him, I got two kids at home, I haven't got no $5. The $5 I've got is a week's pay. I've got to feed my family. And he says, you have that money here tomorrow at a certain time, otherwise there's going to be harm that's going to come to you and your family. So in those days, my mother had boarders, and one of them was this fellow from Albany, New York. He was boardering in my father's and my mother's house, and so Papa came home and he told him. And he was 27 [unintelligible – 00:59:56]. So he told him what had happened, so this man said to my father, he says, yeah, you let me know where this guy is and what time you're supposed to meet him. And he says, I'll go to meet him. Anyway, he approached this guy and he never bothered my father anymore. LINDA: So who were these people? SAL: Black Hand. It's like a society that's like the mafia or something like that, but they were gangsters shaking down these fellow Italians. So this guy must've taken a knife and shoved it up to his throat and said you won't bother this man anymore. LINDA: Do you think it was a group living in Fitchburg? SAL: I think so. LINDA: You think so? SAL: Yeah. LINDA: Your parents would take in boarders? SAL: Yeah, she took in boarders for a while. Like men that she knew, like my father's -- like a cousin or something like that, they came to this county and they had no place to go, and where do you go? You go see your paisano, you go see your relative or brother until they get located or until they get situated, and they used to take care of these men. Cook for them, make their lunch. Mostly all the Italians would take in boarders. LINDA: So were there many paisanos living around? SAL: Oh, yeah. There was quite a few. Like I said, the work came to an end, and then a lot of them left. They went to Albany, New York. But yeah, my mother had one of her brothers living the next block over, and Dad had another brother that was a few blocks up the street [unintelligible - 01:01:50], and they grouped together. They stayed together. LINDA: Because even though there were a lot of Italians living here, some in different regions, they speak a different dialect. SAL: Oh, yeah. I was in Italy here about three years ago, I think there's about 150, 200 dialects in Italy. When I was growing up there used to be like 28 Beech Street over here that's a bunch of Italians not from Northern Italy, but once they start talking, I don't understand them. I really don't. /AT/pa/my/cy/es
Part five of an interview with Robert and Joanne Frigoletto. Topics include: His father's dental practice. How dentistry changed between Robert and his father's time. Dentistry and insurance. How Robert got into pediatric dentistry. What it means to Robert and Joanne to be Italian. What it was like when Robert and Joanne moved to Leominster, MA. Finding a church to join. Italian cooking. Discrimination and derogatory ethnic terms. ; 1 ROBERT: How is it different? I guess, I don't know. LINDA: Oh, I guess I'll just give a hint. I remember last time… SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I'm just gonna -- not saying anything different. LINDA: I guess remember last time you had mentioned… ROBERT: Two generations? LINDA: Well, more, more that they established more of a relationship you had thought, your father and his, his customer. Or the patients or whatever. ROBERT: The patients, yeah. LINDA: And by the time you came along it was more a business relationship. SPEAKER 1: Yes, that's what I was gonna say. ROBERT: Yeah, I think the culture changed then, the insurance changed then. SPEAKER 1: Exactly. ROBERT: You know, they weren't paying the bill all the time anymore, I guess. But then I get… SPEAKER 1: It was on a professional level more than… ROBERT: Yeah, it was more of a professional level. LINDA: But can you give me some examples of your father… again, last time you had mentioned that some, some of these people just couldn't afford the bill. ROBERT: Sometimes they bring in the eggs and the, from the chickens, and they'll bring in the chickens. SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] ROBERT: Then they couldn't bring in the eggs. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] ROBERT: Really, my life, we had eggs for the rest of our lives here, really. SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] ROBERT: But right. My, my dad used to do a lot of work for these -- 50 cents and some dollars. And I remember coming from dental school in '63, when I got out, and I thought I had a hard time 2 learning the fees, they were the same as we were charging in the clinic in Chicago, and that was like three and four dollars a filling. My father had the same fees then. SPEAKER 1: He had clinic fees instead of Boston [buttons]. ROBERT: Instead of Boston places. Yeah, certainly now Boston places and places around here about the same. SPEAKER 1: They're the same because it's all covered by insurance. ROBERT: Yeah, well, different class. So I guess he had a lot of people who are paying him on time, and those people really appreciated the doctor and patient relationship. And a lot of them are friends, and my father used to use a lot of his patients to do work, and… SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I think that was more prevalent then… ROBERT: It was more prevalent in those days where people used to use… SPEAKER 1: And you kind of… ROBERT: … their own group back and forth. But my father used to say -- there's a great quote, "If you keep spending money in town it'll eventually get back to you." That was probably a good -- he always used to tell me that. Keep using the local people in town, and it'll eventually get back to you. LINDA: That sounds good. ROBERT: Yeah, I think that's -- that's a quote that's gonna make the CD. SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] LINDA: Well, if you don't pay extra, I don't know. ROBERT: … out of all the quotes. LINDA: I don't even know about… SPEAKER 1: Yeah, right. We… LINDA: You know, we don't know. ROBERT: Right. We don't know what that means. LINDA: We don't know. ROBERT: Hidden information or whatever, that's the one or two phrase out of all of this.3 LINDA: Oh, but don't be discouraged because, again, I think… ROBERT: Oh, I'm not discouraged. LINDA: … there are more… ROBERT: I'm just talking about it, you know. SPEAKER 1: I think it's just wonderful that it's written down, and especially, and I think I mentioned this last time, in the book that we've done called City in the River, that was one of Fitchburg, the section on the Italian, the Italian section in the book, left out his father. They mentioned the other brothers, the other brother and sisters, but his father was left out. So it's nice that he's gonna be in some archives. ROBERT: I think that was a political… SPEAKER 1: Yeah, there was a … ROBERT: … it was -- for my father being involved in politics a little bit, there was some stuff. But what was… SPEAKER 1: But the Jewish section they mentioned him. There's two doctors… ROBERT: Well, that's because of my mother… SPEAKER 1: … that's Dr. Van and Dr. Phil, they mentioned Dr. Frigoletto in the Jewish part of the book. ROBERT: My mother was such a social being. SPEAKER 1: Well, they mentioned that, that's why she came here. Now… ROBERT: Everybody loved her. She was just huggy. SPEAKER 1: No, but they mentioned her because of your father's instrument on the incumbency, so it was mentioned in that part of the book. ROBERT: [Brilliant] thing. SPEAKER 1: But it's nice to have this in history. Like I say, who knows, great, great, great grandchildren, someday, may wanna find out. ROBERT: Yeah. LINDA: Oh, but it's not -- certainly that, but it's the people that wanna learn about, let's say, the history of Italians or the history of Leominster and Fitchburg. It's really for our reviewing.4 SPEAKER 1: Absolutely. And that's important, I mean, I think the more of us ought to be a little more connected with history somehow. This generation sometimes is not too interested; they're only interested in here and now. ROBERT: And the only -- the other thing that may be interesting was he had a brother and sister that came here from Grandpa, lived here for a while, Lee Marie. SPEAKER 1: Louise… Louise Frigoletto. Grandpa Frigoletto came here from Italy. ROBERT: Grandpa Frigoletto had a brother and sister from Italy who came to Fitchburg for a year or two. SPEAKER 1: A year. Didn't… ROBERT: … and that both of them ended up in California. The last time I was still there, we got to meet them about 15 years ago for the first time. They came out to my daughter's wedding, and we still talk and write letters, and [unintelligible - 00:05:11] see each other probably 'til we die. We found them too late. Wonderful Italian family. SPEAKER 1: Yes. They -- now, his parents have gone off to visit them. I never… ROBERT: The never talked much about it. I knew they went, but, you know, they came home with some pictures and by the end of the week that was it, and I never remember them calling or doing -- and yet we, you know, we went up there and struck up a nice relationship, and to this day we're constantly in touch. But somehow they didn't like they didn't like the area, and what's interestingly, culturally, I think, is that the brother, so I understand, didn't like it here and saw an ad in the Boston Paper from California saying come out and work in our produce farm, and if you spend a year with us and you work hard, we'll give you an acre of land. For five years or three years or some time, and that's what this brother 5 did, and kept getting acres of land, and now -- out in [Los Baños] you'd look like this, as far as you can see, hundreds of acres of produce that he produces… SPEAKER 1: Yeah. LINDA: Mm-hmm. SPEAKER 1: Well, now, do they have Frigoletto, or are they… ROBERT: No, they're Frigolettis… SPEAKER 1: They kept the old… ROBERT: They're the Frigolettis. SPEAKER 1: Frigoletti, right. ROBERT: Hmm. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. LINDA: Oh, yeah, but they would be, right…? SPEAKER 1: Right. LINDA: …. because… ROBERT: Because they left a year or two after Grandpa. My father might've been, you know, five years old or born recently or something like that when they left. And the… SPEAKER 1: But there's a family resemblance. LINDA: Is that…? ROBERT: Oh, I wish. I walked… SPEAKER 1: Watch. He walked like him. ROBERT: I walked into the room in California, and one of the daughters turned around and said, "You look just like Uncle…" SPEAKER 1: Tony. ROBERT: Uncle Tony, who used to be her -- Uncle Tony had died recently just before we got there, right? Showed me pictures of Tony… SPEAKER 1: They're your father's first cousin. ROBERT: My father's first cousin. I looked at the pictures and go, "Wow!" SPEAKER 1: Yeah.6 ROBERT: And I guess one of us, one of the daughters, one of the daughters' daughters who came to the wedding, yeah, and met me for the first time. This Tony used to send her money when she was going to college, was her favorite uncle, you know, always slipping the -- never met me. When she met me she took a breath because she thought Tony came back to her. And she told me that after, just for a second, because you turn around they introduced you, she says, "I took a deep breath because that was my favorite uncle. And he -- and for a second there he was again." So we knew we were the right relatives. SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] LINDA: [Laughter] ROBERT: So that's -- I don't know if that's be of interest to anybody at all. But I think the produce going and being -- and now, doing very well. He says most of the lettuce you get back East comes from us. SPEAKER 1: They made… ROBERT: … big bucks. SPEAKER 1: Big money. LINDA: Wow. SPEAKER 1: They really value the land. ROBERT: Yeah, they'd really lorded it then. LINDA: So getting back to dentistry, how did insurance change the practice? ROBERT: He didn't have that 50 cents and a dollar a week, come and get in do free work as much because all of these poor—and there are poor people who are now on welfare, which is some kind of insurance, right? And insurance paid now some of the things that were deductibles and back pays, but it separated the trust factor, and now we weren't doing so many things for free or discounts or 15 kinds of people, because we don't have to, we would get it from the insurance. But you'd always get less with the insurance with 7 all these complaints about the things you would choose to do and put doubt in people's minds. So now the relationship with the doctor who could do no wrong, which sometimes I guess he did, and insurance company always looking for their stockholders, and they have different goals, so you've got -- poor consumer was in the middle, and the relationships are more business than personal, aren't they now? So that's what happened to medicine. When I heard that medicine sometimes -- a lot of times the insurance companies would figure out the price of an appendectomy, say, and they get this from the auto insurance business. I heard this, and I think it's true that most doctors can do an appendix in 33 minutes, and it'll cost the hospital X amount of dollars, and they figure it out. And that's what you do when you got a big car fix. They say it takes 34 minutes to do this and this is the price you get for it. It doesn't matter if it's complicated or not. Because a car is not a person and doesn't have the history of diabetes or cardiac or whatnot, you know, you replace a windshield in a car, it usually goes pretty much the same way every time, not true with people. So this insurance really got kind of crazy. Now they've come up -- well, this is not even cultural -- well, this is cultural. They've come up with a new thing now, evidence-based medicine that will be coming through -- it's starting to trickle in. If you don't perform, if you don't -- say you come to me with a certain disease, certain problem, and I don't solve it in one of the three or maybe one of the only ways that most people would solve that, the insurance won't pay for it because it's not evidence-based. It has to be proven that that particular way of solving the problem is the way that most people solve it. So that's gonna take all of the 8 entrepreneur out of this. And just what they've done with the drug companies, they stifle some of the research because the people, the drug companies can't get back their dollars. So all the medicines that didn't work out and all the lawsuits they got, so they'd stopped doing a lot of extra research and the progression, and the speed of new things coming out is slower. And the same thing is gonna happen in medicine, I would guess, with evidence-based medicine there's gonna be a stifling. On the other hand the protection of crazy medicine, so you get both sides, don't you? LINDA: You hear much of that…? ROBERT: You get a protection… LINDA: Crazy medicine? ROBERT: I don't know. LINDA: Let's keep it at dentistry. ROBERT: Yeah, at dentistry? Yeah, this is people of all levels, but less and less now. Most dentists are pretty proficient. Yeah, I think in my father's day there was some bad ones around, less skilled ones around. But I don't know of any now, everybody's pretty good. LINDA: So did your father determine procedures as much in the same way you did, or was it, was insurance even determining that for you? ROBERT: Ah, no. I would not let insurance determine that. I would tell the patient the best thing, give them their choices, tell them what the insurance would pay, and if they didn't pick the worst one I'd kinda go along and do it. If they picked the worst procedure I'd tell them go someplace else. I think in my father's day, my father would pick the procedure that he thought the person could afford. That's what you're looking for, remember we said that. LINDA: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: And then give them that procedure rather than letting the patient make up their mind, because I have found that some of the poor 9 people want the best medicine, and some of the richer people don't always want the best medicine. LINDA: How did the instruments change between your father's day…? ROBERT: Surprisingly a lot of the same stuff, but two things that changed the most were the high-speed drill. Let's see, just about in the early '60s when I was getting out of school, they had this air rotor, you know, air-driven turbine rather than the old mechanical thing you saw the string going around turning the pulley. Krrrr-krrrr. SPEAKER 1: Grinding away. [Laughter] ROBERT: Right, and now it's like painting, little brush. I mean, it's really air… air-quick-caning. As you can remember now, going to the dentist, you don't feel the pressure anymore. You just hear the sound. If you forget the sound that'll be all set. The other thing is the plastics, all of the adhesives and the kinds of plastics and fiberglass materials. That was always a boring subject, dental materials, is now the hot subject, because every six months they're improving all of these white fillings, so to speak, which they haven't got yet perfected but they're getting closer every year. LINDA: Oh, wow. SPEAKER 1: And the other thing besides the material, I mean, the procedures they do, the procedures that you do that your father didn't do with children? ROBERT: Ah, yeah, the specialties of -- but that's true in medicine in general, the specialties have become more important and accepted, except you can't get this under the specialist now if you're in an HMO. [Laughter] LINDA: True. True. ROBERT: You might be going back to the generalist because it's less costly. But now we -- my brother and I would say the same thing, we 10 would get referrals from general doctors for problem cases that, to us, were not really problems because we dealt with them every day. And he used to say the same thing, he used to get problem cases that were routine. But we had extra training, and that's what specialists are for. I mean some percentage sometime of his work. LINDA: Did your father deal mostly with problems or maintenance? ROBERT: Father dealt mostly with problems, because a lot of people would come only when they had a problem. Although he was -- he would deal with a lot of six-monthers that were on maintenance. SPEAKER 1: I think it was pretty evenly divided. ROBERT: Yeah. But certainly, for a time in my dental career, maintenance and prevention became really most of my practice. As a pediatric dentist that was -- prevention was really strong, stronger than most practices. And then, now the insurance companies are in now trying to dilute a lot of the preventive things that we're doing in medicine. And the -- what do you call it? SPEAKER 1: Pendulum. ROBERT: The pendulum will swung back because they're gonna get caught ten years down the line with more expensive diseases because they didn't wanna pay for the prevention. SPEAKER 1: I think there wasn't much education when your father was practicing, so people wouldn't… ROBERT: People -- yeah, less television, less news, less -- now you can't do anything because it's out in the news, they tell you every week something new. SPEAKER 1: So a lot of his patients were problems. ROBERT: Yeah, now the drug companies are advertising directly to the consumer. The hospitals are advertising directly to the consumer – never had that 25 years ago. Looked like the doctor make the choice, which hospital to go to, which medicine to use. Now, 11 people go into doctor and say, "I wanna go to hospital A, and I want you to use pill B." SPEAKER 1: I just thought of something that might be important. Your father, Scott, is the… first of all… ROBERT: The dental staff at the Burbank Hospital. SPEAKER 1: Burbank Hospital. That's what you… ROBERT: That's right, yeah. He and Dr. Beckman were… SPEAKER 1: There were no oral surgeon in town… ROBERT: Well, no. SPEAKER 1: … they used to do the oral surgery. ROBERT: My father was -- yeah. My father was [unintelligible - 00:18:01] surgery. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. I think in his other life he would come back as an… ROBERT: Back as an oral surgeon. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. ROBERT: Yeah, I learned a lot of oral surgery from my dad. SPEAKER 1: Uh-huh. ROBERT: And I think he learned by the gut of his -- how do you say that? SPEAKER 1: Pleat of his pants. ROBERT: Pleat of his pants. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: Right. You read about it and then you practice it, huh? LINDA: Then you can just… SPEAKER 1: Confident. ROBERT: Yeah, they were no -- oh, very good. Very good at tooth extractions, and a lot of people would come in. They didn't have root canals in those days, right, so you'd end up taking out the tooth. SPEAKER 1: He wasn't doing major facial surgery. We're talking of… ROBERT: No. Doing internal, oral… SPEAKER 1: Yeah, root canals…12 ROBERT: Yeah. SPEAKER 1: … extractions, yeah. LINDA: Well, I was going to ask you about pulling teeth. It seems as though people back then would just have their tooth pulled… ROBERT: Tooth pulled out and not saved, and nowadays, people are saving their teeth. Maybe years -- in his early practice, how that 70 percent of the people had full dentures, huh. Population maybe over 50 percent certainly… SPEAKER 1: Really? ROBERT: … had full dentures, and now it's down to like 25 percent. And I can remember teenagers coming into his practice when I was there the first few years and saying, "I want all my teeth out," 16, 17 years old, and my father would refuse to do it. And two months later he would tell me he would see them with dentures. LINDA: Now, why would they do that? ROBERT: Because they were here to have it made, they had money to fix them, and someone told them just get them all out of teeth and get dentures, and what a terrible thing. And my father wouldn't do it, and a number of people wouldn't do it, but I guess there were two or three dentists around who would do it. My father says he'd always see those people six months later with dentures. He used to kick them out, "Hang on to these." They'd come in and ask that [unintelligible - 00:19:51]. SPEAKER 1: Again, it's… ROBERT: But I know I used to see a lot of 16-year old kids taking out one tooth at a time, and 8 months later taking out the other one, and a year later another one would go. And I know a couple of people today that are running like that. [Laughter] LINDA: Right. SPEAKER 1: Well, as long as it's a couple that…13 ROBERT: Yeah. Well, see, I'm seeing it now in Florida when I volunteered at an indigent clinic, in Florida, during the winter. Seeing the same thing now with all of the immigrants that have come in over the past 10 years and the minorities. They're really back to the '50s dental education-wise, because these minorities they go and have a toothache and have it taken out, and I see the same thing happening as what's happening back in my early days. LINDA: Now, is that because they don't have the money or the education or both? ROBERT: Both. Both. They come from third world countries, and… you know, we had a couple of dentists in town, they go every year, over to -- where do they go, Bangladesh or something? SPEAKER 1: No, no, no. They go to El Salvador. ROBERT: El Salvador? SPEAKER 1: I think. ROBERT: And he'd see people standing in the line. They walk all night for six, eight hours to be at the clinic early in the morning at the tent to have teeth taken out because they had been suffering with toothaches for months. And there's -- every morning there's a line of people, he would say. SPEAKER 1: Or Colton tells a… ROBERT: He says over there that's all we can do. And I think I mentioned to you last time, you know, people in Colombia who said, "Let's get… let's pool some dollars and get some old equipment and get it over there to the clinic in Colombia, and the Colombian doctor who was working with us in Miami said, "Don't bother, they'll get stolen within 24 hours." LINDA: Hmm. I don't remember you mentioning that. ROBERT: Oh, didn't I? LINDA: I do remember you mentioning Florida. ROBERT: Oh. So you never know.14 LINDA: See? So it's coming back to you. ROBERT: Yeah. We're trying to get a grant passed now. I sent her the stuff, a lady has the clinic, and see if we can get Rotary and Kiwanis and all of those groups involved in helping out some of the poor people in Florida. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. No one wants to do it down there. LINDA: No one wants to… SPEAKER 1: The other day, the dentist don't want to… ROBERT: No, no difference in this, with the county. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. ROBERT: You know, the welfare system is so screwed up, and the fees are so low and the people don't show for appointments. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. ROBERT: And the only way you can do it is if you had a clinic. In fact, tomorrow night there's gonna be a meeting locally in town, and the local dentist society is gonna talk about that with some of the politicians. And I think the only answer is to develop a clinic every so often and have us guys in private practice go volunteer half a day, a week, and have some kind of tax incentive. LINDA: Trying to get people to volunteer is a problem. ROBERT: Well, you gotta give them -- you gotta give them a tax incentive… LINDA: Yeah. ROBERT: … a couple of hundred bucks of a day or something like that, you know. And then -- see, years ago, my father was -- and I just finished the rest of it, I'm doing it all, the school examiner… SPEAKER 1: He asked you. Yeah. You and your father both were school dentists. ROBERT: Right. Yeah. My father was the -- well, they didn't have school dentists anymore; he would just examine teeth. But the program started with a guy named [Bumgardner] who's a living legend. The patient that used to come into my office shaking like this 15 because they were afraid of the dentist. I used to go to Dr. Bumgardner. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] I actually hear some people say that to this day. ROBERT: To this day. "My parents used to go to Bumgardner." Oh, he must have been… SPEAKER 1: He must have been horrible. [Laughter] ROBERT: So he'd say -- he was the school dentist. He used to take out teeth without Novocainee and did things like that, you know, and just -- I mean, a kid could come in with a sore tooth and just yank it out. LINDA: I can remember you telling me -- I think you told me that you were known as to be more gentle than your father? SPEAKER 1: Yes. ROBERT: Oh, that story, too, yeah. SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] ROBERT: He was pretty rough. [Laughter] But people loved him. SPEAKER 1: Well, he was quick. ROBERT: Yes. If you said ouch he'd say, "Oh, shut up." SPEAKER 1: Well, yeah. Your father worked on me once. And when I said ow, he said, "That doesn't hurt." LINDA: [Laughter] ROBERT: [Laughter] That doesn't hurt. LINDA: You [unintelligible - 00:24:04] went to him once? SPEAKER 1: Once? [Laughter] ROBERT: Well, I told you a story about the first toothache ago was the nearest from the hospital, I guess. SPEAKER 1: That was a story. ROBERT: That was a story, yeah. And I gave him a Novocainee and she said, "Ouch," and I said, "I'm sorry." She said, "Your father would've told me to shut up." I said, "Well, shut up." She says, "Good! I feel more at home now." [Laughter] 16 Then the other guy was Bill Botta, who used to be the head of United Fund here and played tennis with him. He says, "I never found out there was Novocaine until I left your father." Went to another dentist, he said, "Do you want Novocaine?" He says, "What's that?" [Laughter] He says, "Your father, decided -- " he was a big, overweight, burly guy, and I'm sure my dad decided he was strong enough not to take, that he could take the pain, why give him a Novocaine. [Laughter] He says he grew up without Novocaine, and he's well with that, you know. I don't know if it was terrible, but -- actually I don't take Novocaine now. I grew up the same way. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: And I don't understand that. I cannot imagine not having Novocaine. ROBERT: Well, I used to study how it felt. It would help me practice, really, because I kinda knew what happens. Dang it. SPEAKER 1: I just hope… [laughter] yeah, well, before the war. ROBERT: It wasn't part of my education, but it really is not bad. LINDA: [Laughter] So tell me about… ROBERT: All right. LINDA: Tell me more about your father's connection to Burbank Hospital. ROBERT: He and Dr. Beckman, this other dentist, had decided -- I guess because my father liked these surgeries so much. He's taken out a lot of teeth, people would demand that. Started the dental department, really, the dental staff at Burbank Hospital, and which became… SPEAKER 1: So they had… ROBERT: And to mingle with the medical staff eventually as we, dentists, became accepted as doctors as the years went on. SPEAKER 1: So then they had hospital privileges in the OR. ROBERT: And we had hospital privileges in the OR, right? And I remember when I first got out of school going up with him and he was so 17 good at taking out teeth and so fast. He used to just toss them, and the girls would be running around trying to catch them with a can. [Laughter] And he caught [unintelligible - 00:26:20] mouth extractions on elderly people and senior citizens and then put the dentures right in immediately, and they'd walk out with a full set of teeth. SPEAKER 1: There was a time when both father and son were on the staff together. ROBERT: Together. Right. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, well… ROBERT: We did cases together. And it was part of my training, really, going into pediatric dentistry because I ended up dealing with retarded adults. Probably one of the few pediatric dentists that had six years of general dentistry experience, and then took a lot of retarded people to the hospital, and did fillings and their special equipment to make sure you did rehab in the hospital, at least special, and some medically compromised people. SPEAKER 1: That's what you did. ROBERT: And some apprehensively compromised people, that were adults that we took into the -- or young kids under three or four. In fact, well they're starting to change, to pass the bill in town now, in the state, been at it for three years, I think they'll get it through this year, 23 States out of… SPEAKER 1: Fifty. ROBERT: The 50 that passed it to force the insurance companies to pay for hospital costs for serious dental problems for kids under five years old. LINDA: Oh, good. SPEAKER 1: About time. ROBERT: Which we used to have years ago, and in fact, that's one of the few things Medicaid still covers. But then the insurance companies 18 dropped it. As we hear they dropped circumcision, because that's not treating a disease but preventing. SPEAKER 1: Really. ROBERT: Pennsylvania they had started it and a few states picked it up. The insurance companies are so under the wire now they think of everything they can think of to not, not to pay. Because the dollars are so tight. SPEAKER 1: Don't get sick. Stay healthy. LINDA: [Unintelligible - 00:28:25]. ROBERT: Yeah. Well, they've… they've prepared, they're doing this evidence-based medicine, and some of the insurance companies now want to allow only one clean and fluoride a year for children instead of two, every six months. LINDA: And how long does it take them to make a change like that? Typically speaking. ROBERT: I don't know. I mean, when the change comes out and there's some noise about it, because when they come out with a change they won't pay for it. SPEAKER 1: No, but does it take years, months? ROBERT: I don't know. I started reading about it a year and a half ago, and I hear some insurance companies now are just trickling in. SPEAKER 1: So probably about a year… ROBERT: A couple of years. Yeah, a year or two. LINDA: So there's really no public discourse; it's just immediate, but it comes down… SPEAKER 1: Yeah, they just do it and tell you about it. ROBERT: The public comes when they get hurt later and they wanna make a noise about it. SPEAKER 1: When they found out they're not covered. ROBERT: Like what happened with the HMOs. Many years nothing happened until a few people died. Actually, a few senators' 19 daughters, kids got involved and said, "Dad, you know, this isn't government." Dad said, "Gee, my insurance is still okay, [laughter] I got the big stuff up here in Washington." You know, and then word started to trickle through, and then they started to get after the HMOs. And here's the big thing now about passing a law whether you could sue an HMO or not. What is negligence, what isn't? LINDA: What's going on with the doctors and all of those insurance changes? ROBERT: To clarify with the patient, the pros and cons of both sides and letting the patient know what they want to do, what's available for them and how much money they will get from it, pros and cons of each kind of treatment, what will happen if they don't get treated. And some people say, "Hey, I ain't got any money. Do the treatment that they will pay for, even if it's second class." And the doctor then has to decide -- and a lot of second class, second steps are okay, as long as it's average, good. You don't have to buy a Cadillac every day, right? You can buy a Ford, still get there, but you don't wanna buy last year's junk. LINDA: Well, what if, let's say, the Dentists Association or whatever you call the professional organization, what if they felt very strongly that children should have their teeth cleaned twice a year? And the insurance companies says… ROBERT: We're not strong enough. That would take a decade to change, and we'd need a lot of public support behind it. Unfortunately, the children don't vote, so that's not gonna happen. Now, if it has something to do with adults, like if they took away, maybe root canals, maybe the adults would get it done faster. But things to do with kids don't change too quickly. SPEAKER 1: Not just quick.20 ROBERT: It's the kids they're taking advantage of, what can I say? When you wanna get cheers, who gets -- used to be the kids and the senior citizens got it. Now, the senior citizens, there's so many of us that vote, we're now getting listened to. Especially now with the next group of baby boomers that come along. SPEAKER 1: Very vocal. ROBERT: Very vocal. Runs and goes, gonna vote… SPEAKER 1: My feeling is that somehow in this society we children like they're commodities, aren't people, they're just things, are just -- they have it real tough, children. ROBERT: Yeah, it's terrible. There's a story of a little girl I tried to tickle once, dirty clothes and dirty… and when Medicaid is out, "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" How many sisters or whatever I asked her, and her answer, in two words, told me, the answer was, "Too many." And I couldn't get her to laugh, tickling her, that's how -- she could've been four and a half years old, pretty face, you know, worn out clothes. You could see. And those kinds of kids you just wanna give them a hug and help them out as much as you can. Every week in our office we would, I would say, "We should do something for nothing and we should tell the girls," and it gets me to the end of the week. And we then find someone, you know, we wanna do something for and remind me, and so Fridays we can do it, because they would know a lot about the people sometimes more than I did, in busy days. SPEAKER 1: That sounds more. We just don't like the insurance company… ROBERT: We don't like someone telling me what we can do for nothing. That's one we choose ourselves. But that was always a good exercise. Or if we charge someone some money, they'd come back, they'd say, "Wait a minute," and they'd come back and say, "These people really can't afford it." That's okay. [Unintelligible - 00:33:14] work out something.21 LINDA: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: I always had that nice relationship with my best friend so that we could, so that we could really be helpful to people when we could, on those who needed it. And on the other side of the story where someone comes in, you know, a little kid who came with us with an interpreter, Spanish kid with a toothache, and I said, "How did she get on Medicaid so quickly? She's only been here two weeks, you tell me?" and the interpreter told me, "Oh, we got her on Medicaid before she even left Puerto Rico. She had a toothache in Puerto Rico. And we paid for the flight over." SPEAKER 1: That annoys me. And we don't… ROBERT: So there's, you know, there's two sides to every story. And being a doctor or politician or anybody, a judge, lawyer, boy, you're in the middle of some of this ethical stuff. It's tough to make a decision sometimes. Gotta go with your heart. And sometimes you get in trouble though, with your heart. So sometimes you just pull back and don't do anything; that's not good. SPEAKER 1: It's not good for people. ROBERT: Because what's happening to a lot of medicine now; they're pulling back and not doing it because they're afraid to make the right suggestion. They have a poor doctor in Boston with a basketball player, with Madge… SPEAKER 1: Dr. Madge. ROBERT: Dr. Madge, it's my cardiologist. SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] LINDA: Wow. SPEAKER 1: So I said to him when I… ROBERT: I asked Dr. Madge, "If I had a little irregular heartbeat when I'm playing tennis, what should I do?" He said, "Just play through it." [Laughter] I said, "Thanks a lot, that's pretty…" SPEAKER 1: … before we asked her.22 ROBERT: No, even now. LINDA: Even now? ROBERT: Why are you telling me that? But I'm not sure. He said, "You have to make your decision." LINDA: Uh-huh. ROBERT: It's tough. SPEAKER 1: He lost that case to… ROBERT: No, no, he won it, but two years later. Two years of misery. LINDA: I thought that we're now… SPEAKER 1: … but they took him again. ROBERT: But it's civil. SPEAKER 1: Oh, civil. ROBERT: He still made it. He won the case. I don't know what happened with the civil case. SPEAKER 1: No, I don't know what happened. ROBERT: She wanted the big bucks. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. ROBERT: You know, he said, if she were alive now he would have earned four trillion dollars… LINDA: You know what, I think… ROBERT: … so I don't want part of that. Because you said that if he played basketball he wouldn't die. It's like bringing the [unintelligible - 00:35:40] in and saying if you could change the distributor the car will work. Probably. If you changed the guy's heart, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Look at the guy who just got in trouble and he had an artificial heart, and stroke, blood clots. SPEAKER 1: I printed that, Reggie Lewis, I think she was gonna start a third suit, but I haven't heard anything about that. ROBERT: Is that right? LINDA: Haven't heard anything.23 ROBERT: Well, her lawyer keeps going, going and going. He wants to get -- he probably started the case and said, "I won't take anything until we're winning." He's just gonna keep coming up with stuff until they win. LINDA: They had a big negative backlash last time, which I'm sure they weren't prepared for. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. LINDA: So I can imagine they'd keep going now. ROBERT: Me neither. I thought he was finally done. For 12 months he had at least -- remember the first year? He had to take off two months because he had plenty of phone calls from his family, and his life and everything from people, and he just left the city, upside down. SPEAKER 1: You know you can see… I mean, you can see people thinking, "Oh, it's his fault," because you don't get all the information on TV, so… ROBERT: No, you got just what the media wants you to get. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. ROBERT: So we wonder how much of this stuff we're hearing about the war is true. We hear only about all our successes, we don't hear about the failures. LINDA: It seems that anytime we do hear about a failure, it's always a mechanical… ROBERT: Brought it down, mechanical, right. Oh yeah, they were there on a training mission. SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: Anyways. Boom. Well, here we are spending two hours again. We gotta… LINDA: I know, I'm sorry. ROBERT: This is terrible. SPEAKER 1: No. ROBERT: Look. What other questions you got?24 LINDA: Oh, I want just to cover with the information about your starting your practice, and I seem to remember that you went into the pediatrics floor in [unintelligible - 00:37:26]. SPEAKER 1: He practiced with his dad first. ROBERT: I practiced general dentistry with my dad for six years and found myself doing more and more of the younger population of the practice, and enjoying it, and being successful at it. Probably enjoying it is the main word. Oh, I just enjoy the kids. SPEAKER 1: IE, he is the kid here. ROBERT: IE, I am a kid still. SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] ROBERT: Well, they are the next leaders of the world, and it feels [unintelligible - 00:37:58] time thinking about what they're thinking about, it keeps you young. The body doesn't like that, but the mind that's -- you know the story, "I just got my mind together and now my body is falling apart." And it took 60, 65 years to get to here. [Laughter] LINDA: [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: Anyway, that's when he… ROBERT: So all the parents used to say, you know, I guess -- well, last time the parents used to tell my father, "I don't want go over to your son. He just got out of dental school. But I don't mind if my kids go to your son." So I guess that's why I got the younger population and enjoyed it and did well with them. Because I have magic, it's a hobby, and sleight of hands, so I was always -- to this day, I think, would keep thimbles and cards next to my chair. LINDA: How did you learn that? ROBERT: This 91-year old Sylvia here that we're talking about started me in as a hobby as a kid, and puppets and all that stuff. I think I broke my leg at one point, and that's when I got introduced because I was in a cast for some weeks and nothing to do, and she brought the 25 stuff and happened to like it. But the… you know, one of the many stories of kids is the kid had been to three dentists and with a toothache, four-year old, and screaming and yelling at me and kicking, and me, the dentist, could handle him and finally made their way to pediatric dentist office, my office. And so I looked in the mouth as the kid was screaming and produced a red thimble from his mouth, and the kid stopped crying right away, put his hand to his head, scratched his head and said, "No wonder why that damn thing was hurting." [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] ROBERT: And I had him then, right? [Laughter] Yeah, I said, "Lemme look around some more. You got any more of those in there? Ah, over here," and goes, "Why not. Well, go get rid of that," you know. "I can do that magically, you know. Boom, I got that." [Laughter] LINDA: He's a cute… ROBERT: So probably he said, "No wonder why that damn thing was hurting." [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: They really do… ROBERT: Oh, I've got some great stories, yeah. [Laughter] And sometimes, also, when I used to lecture, I used to tell that story, and nobody would laugh. And I'd look and I'd say, "Come on, guys, wake up. Get a life. Do any of you have any kids, anybody, I mean, kids at all? That's a funny story." LINDA: Even if you don't have kids I think that was… SPEAKER 1: Right. ROBERT: That's a funny story. Because you guys are too serious. I used to tell adults that and get nothing out of it. I tell you, these guys are really too serious. It's like golfers rather than tennis players with dentists. We have a good time. In golf everybody's, "Don't make a sound. Be serious." And I'm throwing clubs around [unintelligible - 00:40:40] I can't understand.26 SPEAKER 1: He used to talk… ROBERT: I can't understand why they take this game so serious. LINDA: So can both of you talk a little bit about being Italian, what it means to you? ROBERT: Other than being proud I'm Italian -- I grew up not knowing there was much difference 'til recently. I got interested in the history of all of this, and yet I think my wife has a different story. SPEAKER 1: That's very recent to him. He just thought of himself as American [laughter] more recently, I think… ROBERT: Yeah, I mean I didn't know there was any difference to… many years SPEAKER 1: We were always -- our family was very into the history of being an Italian, very proud, you know, really proud of everything connected with being Italian, whether it was, you know, where you came from, or the country… ROBERT: Oh, yeah, I was smart enough to marry an Italian. LINDA: … the history. Thank you. The history, the architecture, I mean, we were all -- our family was always -- there were some parts of it. Some were more into the food, some were more into the history, but there was always, you know, you're an Italian American, you know, it's great to be an Italian. So it was just -- although, living where I lived, where we were, talk about a minority, we were really a minority. In the school I went to we were also a minority. And I do remember -- but just in that neighborhood, I don't remember while I was in anywhere else, but there were people who -- now, we were… ROBERT: Who thought you were second-class citizens, right? SPEAKER 1: … we were third generation, and we had some people who were first generation but spoke English thinking that we were second-class citizens because we had those funny-sounding names. ROBERT: First generation of another group, another ethnic group.27 SPEAKER 1: Yeah, of another -- yeah, they're not Italian. Right. And I thought, "Excuse me?" you know, I was born here, my parents were born here… ROBERT: So she experienced some prejudices that I don't remember. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, and in school, too. LINDA: Now, where was this? SPEAKER 1: Boston. The suburb of Boston but it was a very, very predominant Irish, Catholic neighborhood. I went to an Irish Catholic school, so while the nuns were Irish… ROBERT: Irish Catholics… SPEAKER 1: … so the nuns couldn't quite… ROBERT: Well they were Catholics, that's the… SPEAKER 1: You know, they couldn't quite understand, you know, anything. And then we had, maybe, like, two Polish kids, maybe three Italian kids. So we did feel different, but only in that, you know, instance then we were in the rest of the, you know, with my relatives who lived in all over suburban Boston, [unintelligible - 00:43:23], whatever, you know, lived with the -- it wasn't a problem… ROBERT: Which brings up my story, which you're probably waiting for, again, because I must've… SPEAKER 1: That was when I was -- then we moved to another neighborhood in Newton, I don't live there now. ROBERT: When I was in this progressive school and my parents were -- we were family members of a local country club that was limited in the acceptance of people, of members, and I took home a black friend of mine from school for the weekend, grabbed my neighbor, who was Jewish and took him up to play golf and get kicked off of golf course with a black and a Jewish guy. That was in the early '50s. LINDA: And where was this? SPEAKER 1: At the local…28 ROBERT: At a local country club. SPEAKER 1: He was too dumb to even know… ROBERT: I was too dumb to even know that they had restrictions. Right. SPEAKER 1: Sorry, I didn't mean dumb. LINDA: What kind of -- what did they tell you? Was this before you got on the course, or did somebody…? ROBERT: No, no, we were right just -- took him out on the course. Apparently we were coming back close to the clubhouse again on the third hole… SPEAKER 1: Someone saw him. ROBERT: … and the manager came out and told me I had to get off the course. LINDA: Did you ask why? SPEAKER 1: He didn't tell you? ROBERT: I don't remember. Yeah, we left… LINDA: And then? ROBERT: He was the boss, he said, "Get off," I got off. LINDA: But was it clear that he was doing because it was…? ROBERT: Yeah, I guess I knew that -- I figured it out once I was in the car and got home, I guess. I didn't figure it out right on the spot, but I think once I got in the car I figured it out. I didn't even think of checking on it when it went up, because I did the same thing recently, I took a lady on men's day who had Levi's, and you never have to have Levi's up there, same club. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: Well, they were happy [laughter]. If you knew who was Wednesday… ROBERT: [Laughter] I forgot. I thought Wednesday morning was men's day and then Wednesday afternoon was okay. SPEAKER 1: They don't want pants with Levi's anywhere. LINDA: So it was key to double win.29 ROBERT: There was a double, so-- I got permission… I did get permission to go out on men's day in the afternoon. They said, "If nobody complains, just go out." When I get back in, head of the pro comes up to me and says, "And I heard you want Levi's, too." SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] ROBERT: I said, "I didn't even think to look at that so much." [Laughter] LINDA: All right. What's our next question? How did you feel coming here? I know we talked a lot more about this last time, but how did you feel coming to Leominster after living in -- was it Newton? SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I thought this was the end of the earth, [laughter] I thought this was… ROBERT: She said this was the on the other side of orange. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: No. I thought it was real country. ROBERT: Out there an echo. SPEAKER 1: And I thought when I first came here, well it was late fall, so it was winter by the time we moved in our house and no one welcomed us, and I thought what an unfriendly place. And the ward of the dentist who welcomed us, the one nearest our age was 15 years older than we were, so I thought, "Oh, Lord, there was no one my age." I don't even know if there are any neighbors here. I never saw a face, and it didn't dawn on me that, well number one, it was winter, so people were kind of [unintelligible - 00:47:09] down. Number two was this is a real family community, generations are born and married and stayed here, so they have all extended families living right here. It's not that you're all spread out though… ROBERT: But the lights kept going on in the houses around us. You didn't see any people, but the lights kept going on at night. SPEAKER 1: And there was -- not Leominster, and I told him I thought the city had these houses wired up and they just flipped the switch at night [laughter].30 ROBERT: And the lights used to go because there were no people around us. SPEAKER 1: I thought there were no people. LINDA: And what year was this? SPEAKER 1: I thought it was '63. And then I realized after that, well, number one, it was winter and people weren't so ready, you know, to welcome you. Number two, his name was known in town, so they assumed, I guess that he had tons of friends and family, whereas, he really didn't because he was all the way to school, and his family -- well, because his parents were in Florida, so we had the one aunt and uncle who lived here in town. So I think people just assumed, "Well, we have our huge extended family. They must have theirs," so it was mainly lonely and I thought unfriendly. So it took -- it took a while, then when the thaw came, the neighbors… ROBERT: Spring came and we started raking leaves and we see people around. SPEAKER 1: … come. And then I found out it was a nice neighborhood, and the neighbors were nice, because the snow melted and out they came. But it took a while. I was really thinking, "Oh, boy. What a -- this is awful." ROBERT: There was like about -- we moved up here, right? We were like -- there were three houses up here in this hill, three of four houses, right here the top of the hill, and these people built houses and moved in, I always bring a bottle of wine and welcome them, maybe from the experience that we had. And it was all fine, that's great, whatnot, and then we decided after -- well, never, never heard from them after that. SPEAKER 1: Hmmm. No. People aren't as friendly as they are in the Midwest. Well, I worked… ROBERT: Then we finally said -- oh, great people, Midwest. SPEAKER 1: … people are different.31 ROBERT: Different. Then we decided we're gonna throw a street party. So we opened up our house and we sent a letter out to everybody with the old farm road address, 95 percent of the people showed, right? SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. ROBERT: Never heard from them since. That was 15 years ago. Other than the, other than the people who are touching us [unintelligible - 00:49:31] land here. LINDA: Mm-hmm. SPEAKER 1: Well, people are busy. It is different. People -- it's not like when we were kids. I think people are just so busy. ROBERT: When I grew up in the street where we had everybody, had each other's keys and everything when I was in grammar school, high school and whatnot. That street was close. SPEAKER 1: Well, those were your high school, what, home high school friends. ROBERT: Those were my home high school friends, right. But I mean, geez, you know. SPEAKER 1: But I have… ROBERT: We were in each other's houses all the time. Streets were… SPEAKER 1: I don't think… I learned to like the area, but it took a while. It really did. Took quite a while. Probably it was better when my children learns… ROBERT: When we saw the kids enjoying it, then we got to like it better. SPEAKER 1: … yeah, I probably -- great place for children because there was so much available that was close by, where on the city you really had to travel, you know. Here they could do everything within the, you know… ROBERT: Yeah, five-minute ride. Then it wasn't -- it was easy to go to wherever you want to go. Now, if you ever decide to go from Leominster to Fitchburg or across our city. LINDA: I just did.32 ROBERT: 3:30 to 5:30, it'd take you an hour and a half to get from one city to the other. If you're going north, then the south isn't too bad. But we come off the highway, we – every… well Route 13, Route 12, every one of those going north is loaded. SPEAKER 1: Well, I laughed. He told me 30 years ago, "Oh, you just wait," because I complain, I still miss the city. I didn't miss living there, but I wanna be a little bit closer so that I could just run in and take advantage of everything, I missed that. And he kept saying to me thirty years ago, "Oh, just wait. This Leominster is just gonna be a bedroom community to Boston," and I would just laugh hysterically and said, "Oh, my God, no one is coming past Concorde." And… ROBERT: And here we are. SPEAKER 1: Here we are. Yeah. ROBERT: Build the highway and they will come. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: Yeah. LINDA: So which church did you join? SPEAKER 1: Ah, that's something… ROBERT: She remember one of the… SPEAKER 1: I wasn't used to that. We were in North Leominster and there was a knock at door, and there was this priest standing there and I went, "Well, I've never seen this in my life." No one -- no priest ever knocked on my door before. And it was the pastor from the Italian church in Fitchburg trying to convince me to join his church. My [unintelligible - 00:51:54], "Oh, that's fine, that's…" ROBERT: And we were living in… SPEAKER 1: North Leominster. ROBERT: Leominster. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, and, of course, I came from Boston where you went to church, and whatever neighborhood you lived there and whatever, 33 you know. He wasn't surprised when he came home. He said, "Oh, yeah," you know, but I didn't join that church… ROBERT: No, I said, "But you don't have to feel you have to join." SPEAKER 1: The one that was dear in my life, Lady of the Lake, we lived in North Leominster, that was there, so that was the church I joined. But then when we moved here, my daughter was in public school in first grade, we just moved, and I thought, "Well, yeah, I have to sign her up to CCD classes." So this house had been St. Leo's Parish, which was the Irish church. Well, I thought, well, that's obviously where I have to send her to… ROBERT: Closest church. SPEAKER 1: Well, again, didn't dawn on me that's where, you know, but if I had known, I mean, Saint Ana's was just hop, skip and a jump down the road, I could've signed her up there. But it -- still, it was the '70s now, and I still wasn't thinking, "Oh, well, this is different." And I called the secretary of the church who answered it and asked who it was, and she signed up my daughter, and I thought, "Well, don't you want -- aren't you gonna ask me my name? I haven't been -- don't you want us to join the church?" I never heard of a church that would take a child to CCD if the parents didn't belong to it. And she said, "Well…" in her accent, "… um, well, I thought you might… you might wanna join Saint Ana's church." ROBERT: -Which is the Italian church down the road. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: I didn't know, this is 1970 whatever, and I said… ROBERT: "What?" SPEAKER 1: Yeah. I said, "What?" ROBERT: Why? SPEAKER 1: I was so befuddled. And I said to him, "I wish I had thought fast enough," I probably would've said, "Well, I'm Protestant anyway, so I don't wanna join any church." [Laughter] My sister was so 34 overwhelmed by that. So I thought, well change comes very slowly out here. [Laughter] ROBERT: Did you know we have the largest Finnish population in the world. LINDA: In the world? SPEAKER 1: No, no. In the United States. ROBERT: In the United States that's -- yeah, that's a Finnish group and we have a sister city in Finland. LINDA: Hmm. I didn't know that there were so many Finns around here. ROBERT: A lot of Finns. They're great people. LINDA: Just like my grandfather is Finnish. ROBERT: Is that right? SPEAKER 1: Oh, really? ROBERT: Oh, I remember in my dad's practice, and then I was… SPEAKER 1: Well, still. ROBERT: Great Finnish people. Wonderful people. SPEAKER 1: They have this pact, signed a pact in Fitchburg, and they still have big gatherings, Finnish gatherings and so forth. Yeah. LINDA: So would you like to speak about anything else? ROBERT: No, I need to have lunch. LINDA: Lunch? SPEAKER 1: Oh, poor dear. LINDA: It's dinner. I don't know… ROBERT: Put something in my tummy before I go play tennis at dinnertime. SPEAKER 1: Every Friday he has to play tennis. Yeah, still have fun. ROBERT: Fun time. SPEAKER 1: What else? What else? I guess just my Italian experiences are a little bit different from his. I think… ROBERT: Yeah, well you grew up in a different place. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. Well, and our family might have been different. We had more traditional meals and we did the traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We did the traditional…35 ROBERT: This reminds me, my mother made homemade raviolis every Thanksgiving and Christmas. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. That wasn't Christmas Eve in an Italian household; you have all fish Christmas Eve… ROBERT: Yeah, if you're like -- there aren't any fish out here. SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] No, that's true. ROBERT: Years ago, but I said the fish was four days old… SPEAKER 1: … when I found that out… found that out… ROBERT: … by the time it swam up the national river. ROBERT: That was true. The first time I bought a fish here I threw it out. I couldn't even eat it. I thought, no wonder he doesn't likes fish. ROBERT: It was after the… SPEAKER 1: He was used to getting it live from the… ROBERT: Oh, that's when I got the live fishes, this meeting with her relatives. They had fresh fish and wow, what a difference. SPEAKER 1: We did have… ROBERT: But we didn't have fish houses around here until, maybe, like three, four or five years after we're married. It moved… SPEAKER 1: Yeah, at least. Yeah. ROBERT: It took the… late '60s. SPEAKER 1: I know your mother. I don't remember your mother ever doing -- she did -- I mean, she baked great pies but never did Italian cookies, Italian version. We did all that Italian stuff at the holidays so we were more… ROBERT: The lady next door did, Vermonti. SPEAKER 1: Oh, wow. You were lucky. ROBERT: She used to bring them over. SPEAKER 1: Oh, wow. The stuff you do with this… ROBERT: With all the onion on them and stuff like that, there were ribbon things? Yeah. Yeah?36 SPEAKER 1: I think they have someone I'm looking for a recipe for that because only our -- a distant relative on the other side made those, and we only had it when we went to her house, not… LINDA: Often you don't… SPEAKER 1: Oh, I would love that. That's the one I'm trying to… ROBERT: Yeah, you've been looking for fill-ins. SPEAKER 1: My children are so into this. ROBERT: We make [unintelligible - 00:56:38], we're the intersect. We have her grandmother's, her mother's… SPEAKER 1: [Unintelligible - 00:56:45]. Yeah. ROBERT: [Unintelligible - 00:56:45]. And we get her up all nights and mix us the stuff and… SPEAKER 1: My father's family were great cooks, and my mother actually cooked like my father's side of the family. There were two different sides, and you could tell the difference. My mother's side cooked one way and my father's side cooked the other way… LINDA: Why? They're from different regions? SPEAKER 1: No. ROBERT: No? SPEAKER 1: From the exact same place, but it seems like the Fridocelli cooked with a little bit more… LINDA: Cooked cuisine. SPEAKER 1: You know, a little more fancy. And then my mother's side, they were a little more peasant, plain… ROBERT: You mean there was merit having both grandma and grandpa from the same city. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: Well, my four grandparents came from the same… ROBERT: Oh, is that right? SPEAKER 1: Same province. ROBERT: Same province. Yeah. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. But still the cooking was a little different.37 LINDA: Wow. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. And that was it. It was important, and I'm glad my kids still think it's important. It's very important for them to -- and often the Italian are important to them. Even though… LINDA: Now, they didn't marry Italians? SPEAKER 1: My daughter married someone who's half Italian. LINDA: What is her last name? SPEAKER 1: Well, she goes by Frigoletto. Yeah, she kept her name. LINDA: But who did she marry? SPEAKER 1: Peter De Feo. D-E capital F-E-O. And then my son, really, broke with tradition. He married Tamara Taylor. [Laughter] ROBERT: Oh, yeah, but he was going with an Italian. SPEAKER 1: He was going with an Italian… ROBERT: Italian, but she turned out to be too strong for us… SPEAKER 1: [Laughter] LINDA: Oh. SPEAKER 1: So Tamara Taylor… ROBERT: Direct battleship. SPEAKER 1: Actually now… she's a redhead, but delightful. She's Norwegian and Scottish. I thought Taylor was English, but she said Scottish was her blood. And her family, they have traced her family back to the first two boats that came over the Mayflower and the next one. What was the other one? Two names, I forget what it is. ROBERT: I don't know. SPEAKER 1: So they're into the history, too. So now the two of them… ROBERT: Has it anything to do with the Minnon, the Tintin, the Sta. Maria? [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: No. But she's had -- but she's very much into Italian… ROBERT: Wrong group, right? SPEAKER 1: … go back. She was trying to learn the language. LINDA: Mm-hmm.38 SPEAKER 1: She was trying to learn to speak it. LINDA: Oh. ROBERT: She's in [unintelligible - 00:58:57]? That daughter-in law? SPEAKER 1: Boy, no. I forget. Yeah, we were trying to learn all this… ROBERT: New Ireland, I think… I forget. No memory anymore. Kinda learn all these Italian words… SPEAKER 1: The word for parent is genatori. ROBERT: Genatori which is… should be -- parenti's relatives. SPEAKER 1: Right. Yeah, that's… ROBERT: Parents genatoris. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I can't figure that one out. Right. ROBERT: Yeah. SPEAKER 1: Now you are part Italian? LINDA: My grandmother was Italian, my maternal grandmother. Then she married a Finn. SPEAKER 1: Oh. LINDA: And then my mother married a Yankee, then I married a Swede. SPEAKER 1: So you're all that? ROBERT: Did you watch the Hall of Fame last night? LINDA: No. SPEAKER 1: Oh. ROBERT: There was a cute love story in the war, early '40s… SPEAKER 1: Based on a true story. LINDA: Oh, my goodness… ROBERT: In Italy. LINDA: … need to tell me but… ROBERT: Yeah. And a lot of Italians. They spoke too fast, though. SPEAKER 1: You know, I'm not -- and that was the first time I said that's… ROBERT: But a lot of sceneries were filmed entirely in Italy, and it was about this guy that… SPEAKER 1: But you can buy the tape. It's a Hallmark story, though.39 ROBERT: Yeah. LINDA: It was Love and War. Thank you. SPEAKER 1: Love and War, yeah. ROBERT: Love and War But it was an interest of -- the thing I thought was cute, that I hadn't learn or forgotten, I guess, is that a British soldier, it might be British saying, when he falls in love with this Italian girl that they took him in and saved his life, he says, "We, growing up, we used to call you macaroni heads," from British, from the -- derogatory thing, you know, those Italians, they're macaroni head. He says, "Now I found out how wonderful you people are." [Laughter] He says, "I feel guilty." That was kind of a cute part of the story. LINDA: I think that's sort of true. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. LINDA: In any culture, if you just open yourself up and… ROBERT: Sure. SPEAKER 1: But I -- actually, you must've -- I can remember, in Boston… ROBERT: I don't remember. SPEAKER 1: … he had a lot of this derogatory terms. ROBERT: Well, dego, I remember but I didn't hear -- macaroni I thought was just English, that was an English that was the… SPEAKER 1: Yeah, that was it. What I'm saying is that you did hear -- but then, again, you would hear it for the Irish, you would hear it for the Jewish, you always would hear about derogatory terms for -- at least in the city we get through all the ethnic… LINDA: So tell me what some of them are, you know, what's so politically correct now that you don't really…? At least my children don't know any of the… SPEAKER 1: You know, I don't really… LINDA: … Italian being derogatory… SPEAKER 1: No. Dego, wop…40 ROBERT: Dego, wop. And when in Chicago we used to -- we used to walk back East to look at the watch and, "Watch the dego by," [laughter] and used the word "dego." LINDA: Oh, dego. Where did that come from? SPEAKER 1: I don't know either. ROBERT: I don't know. SPEAKER 1: I don't know either. LINDA: I've never heard dego. SPEAKER 1: I don't either. ROBERT: Like, what? Pollack is Polish? SPEAKER 1: Pollack would be for… ROBERT: Be Polish and… SPEAKER 1: Mic are half… ROBERT: Mic were half for Irish. Right. And we were dego and the wops. So I would be French… SPEAKER 1: No. I don't know where they… ROBERT: Don't know the origins of all of those things… be interesting, which my uncle would've mind. He was such a [unintelligible - 01:01:51]. He was doing the history of words. SPEAKER 1: He was so… ROBERT: After he retired that was his… LINDA: Did he keep his information? ROBERT: Yeah, he's kept it going, and when he died I tried to get it from my aunt. SPEAKER 1: And when he couldn't… ROBERT: I guess she gave it to one his younger teachers. I don't know where it is now. SPEAKER 1: He gave it to another elderly person… ROBERT: Another elderly person and got lost or something. SPEAKER 1: Right, it's gotta be… ROBERT: We even offered to pay her for it.41 SPEAKER 1: Yeah. ROBERT: It was -- yeah, it was just so interesting. SPEAKER 1: He was the professor of Roman languages, so he's doing the… ROBERT: He knew the different languages. SPEAKER 1: … words, whether it came from France… ROBERT: France or Italian or whatnot. SPEAKER 1: We desperately want… ROBERT: I wanted to get a hold of that. SPEAKER 1: We couldn't, we tried. ROBERT: Every time we'd see him, which is like twice a year, that it's, "Oh, I got, you know, twenty… twenty more words…" LINDA: What's his name? ROBERT: Merlino. My mother's name, Merlino. SPEAKER 1: Camillo Merlino. ROBERT: Camillo Merlino. How's that? SPEAKER 1: Yeah. He was the… ROBERT: Protestant Italian. SPEAKER 1: … head of the department at BU… ROBERT: Head of the Roman's languages at BU. And still I didn't get the language. SPEAKER 1: No, he did not inherit that. No, my kids took after my part of the family. We have an air for languages, he struggles so with it. Doing better than I ever… ROBERT: I got so frustrated last night watching that… SPEAKER 1: That was tough, I had… ROBERT: But you said you had a tough time, too. Two years trying to learn words, just to recognize [unintelligible - 01:03:12]. SPEAKER 1: I mean, I think you're doing well… ROBERT: It's got nothing. SPEAKER 1: … trying for all these years. LINDA: I think you have to be immersed in it.42 SPEAKER 1: Mm-hmm. That's true. ROBERT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good idea, let's go. [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: That's my mother. ROBERT: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for a month, that's her way of saying we gotta go. SPEAKER 1: But that is no close. ROBERT: [Laughter] SPEAKER 1: Well, before we let you on, could you take another picture of us? LINDA: Oh, yes. I have central… SPEAKER 1: I'd love that. LINDA: … because I almost forgot the camera, too. SPEAKER 1: Oh. LINDA: This was supposed to go over real low. SPEAKER 1: No, we wouldn't hold you to it. I just thought -- I didn't like my plaid shirt, I looked like the… the fire hand. LINDA: He said you'd say amazing things. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. Well, I may -- well, I was that day. Well, I was today, too, but… ROBERT: Guess what? It's four o'clock. SPEAKER 1: It's now four o'clock in the middle of a family interview./AT/jf/jc/es
The purpose of this report is to inform practitioners on gender dynamics in Bolivia as they relate to natural resource management and climate change. This is done to provide new knowledge for mainstreaming gender into rural development projects. The aim is to go beyond general gender assumptions and provide more detailed empirical knowledge on differentiated gender roles and the relative access of women and men to resources. The report will demonstrate that women and men in rural Bolivia have many different roles and opportunities, which are not equally distributed. The paper will also show that these roles are changing as a result of both general development trends and climate change. Further, evidence demonstrates that women and men experience vulnerability and adapt to climate change differently. As a result, rural development and adaptation strategies should integrate the relative capacities of women and men and respond to their particular needs. This will help avoid counterproductive out comes that widen gender gaps and allow for more sustainable, pro-poor rural development. This report will begin by introducing the methodology and case study regions. It will then examine in detail the specific roles of women and men in rural Bolivia. Next it will look at the gendered access to and control over resources and how gender roles, access and control are changing as a result of climate change. The report will finish with some general conclusions and specific recommendations for development practitioners in rural Bolivia.