…………….It is well established that this country was created by IMMIGRANTS….from the first Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock escaping religious persecution seeking FREEDOM…It has also been said that Vikings were here even before them…..Of course we all also know that when these Pilgrims arrived there were many tribes of AMEREICAN INDIANS, but somehow it has become convenient to discount these people who had been here for centuries before the “white man” invaded, and literally stole their lands……..The……..”IMMIGRANTS”……..in this photo just so happen to be my GRANDFATHER, MAURO DELL’OLIO, and MY FATHER……VINCENZO DELL’OLIO…….My grandfather brought his oldest son, my dad, to this country in the early 20s through Ellis Island as so many thousands of other immigrants did who entered this country from many different countries……My grandfather was a fisherman in Bari, Italy, but when he came to this country he couldn’t find work as a fisherman so he built a wooden cart with wooden wheels, and pushed it around the city collecting paper, bundling it up and reselling it….My father would be tagging along with him as my grandfather had no one to leave him with…..Where my grandfather got the idea of collecting used paper I don’t know…..probably from some other Italian immigrants he saw doing it. My grandfather and father shared an apt with other Italian men in “Little Italy”, an area in the south part of NYC where many Italian immigrants congregated…..Today, it is in the SOHO area, but there is very little left of the original Little Italy…..just a few restaurants…….Eventually, my grandfather worked his way from literally nothing, to create a business successful enough to bring his wife and the rest of his family, four daughters, to this country….Two more children would be born in the US….My father was eventually to take the business over and grow it even larger…My oldest brother, Mauro joined my father in the “family” business and grew it even larger…..My grandfather, and father and the rest of the family did not speak English when they arrived, and my grandfather and grandmother never did learn the language, but somehow they survived because their “tribe” stayed together, and supported one another….My grandfather eventually sent my dad, and the rest of his children to a Catholic school where they leaned to speak English and eventually they all became American citizens…..At this Catholic school my father became an alter boy!!!!…Knowing my dad this is hard for me to imagine!…..My grandfather, who played the guitar, gave my father money for violin lessens…. My dad told me, as a teenager, he used this money to shoot craps with other priests behind the church!!!….He never learned to play the violin very well, but he did grow up loving music!……My grandfather became successful enough to buy a four family house in Brooklyn, which then was considered the “country”….He had quite a bit of land, and had fruit trees and grape vines from which he made wine……From the old photos I have many of the main roads, and boulevards were still dirt!…….I lived in this house until I was three years old when my mother and father and two older brothers moved to Long Island in 1951…A house boom was going on after WW11…. In our area there were still many farms. It was a wonderfully innocent place and time growing up there….so very different from today…….Soon the farmers sold their land, and new homes were built….My grandfather’s house is still there today!…My mother’s story was very similar. Her father and my Dad’s father were friends in Italy, and came from the same village. My two grandfathers traveled together with their oldest sons on the same boat from Italy, and went through Ellis Island together. so my parents knew each other as children………The point of this story is…..All of these thousands of immigrants who came to this country were ALL LOOKED DOWN UPON!!!! They were all ridiculed, called horrible names, and would be treated badly by the so called “Americans” who’s families also came to this country decades before….as immigrants too……Because of the way immigrants were treated my parents never taught us how to speak Italian. They were fearful that we would have an ACCENT, and would also be treated badly……I didn’t know this until years later when I asked my mother why they never taught us their language?….It would have come in very useful in my career with all the traveling for business I did to Italy!……It was these men and women…..these thousands of immigrants who BUILT THIS COUNTRY…………One could only wonder if they were to come to this country today would they have been let in or turned away?……..IMMIGRANTS are the people who built this nation, and continue to do so……What is happening to the INNOCENT immigrants today is deplorable!
