Transcript
Speaker: Hi everyone, thank you for listening to our new podcast. It is a labor of love on behalf of my brother and I. If you have any feedback for us, please email me at chloeadoma at gmail .com and I will make sure that it either gets fixed then and there or later in the future, if not next episode. Thank you.
Speaker: Hello, all. Welcome to All in the Familia, a family history podcast. Thank you for listening wherever you are. I'm Chloe. And I'm Guy. And today we're going to be talking about immigration, specifically how and why our great grandfather emigrated from Sicily to the United States. Now, in our last episode, Guy, you talked extensively about issues in Sicily that led to millions of Southern Italians immigrating during the 1800s to the early 1900s.
Speaker: might be still good to just very quickly recap everything that happened leading up to that particular moment where a great grandfather ended up immigrating. Well, I can try. So we can start. So it starts with the French Revolution in the ideals of a liberal type of government, where the people rule and not a monarch spread it around.
Speaker: This terrified every monarch in Europe at the time, including the monarch of the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, or the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. So this monarch was anti, was vehemently anti -liberal, anti -intellectual, and this caused a lot of problems with the middle class of Southern Italy and Sicily. Social strife incurred.
Speaker: The king was kicked out and replaced by king appointed by Napoleon. After the end of the Napoleonic War, that king was removed and the previous king was instilled again. And this situation with the normal traditional feudal government lasted until the expedition of the 1000 by Garibaldi.
Speaker: after the Kingdom of Two Sistles was abolished and in the unification of Italy, the traditional feudal structure was abolished. And while there were some attempts for the Italian government to replace it, they didn't do enough or they didn't have enough money or the populace is too resistant. And over time, this anarchic
Speaker: time led to the rise of, of like, uh, bandits that came from different villages and they, this would lead to the rise of the Italian mafia. And this caused lots of Southern Italians to basically flee this, uh, so they wouldn't get murdered or robbed or their land taken away or starve. And they, most of them went to the United States or any other place that would take them in.
Speaker: That's leave where I left off or we left off. Yeah. Yeah. You and me, I guess. So writing off the heels of that, um, between that, the high taxes, the bandits, because when government fails, gangs will take over. Uh, that's when our great -grandfather Gaspar Adamo enters a scene. He is a young man whose father was murdered in the streets of Palermo.
Speaker: His father was most likely a corporal for his style de los dado, which was a branch of the Italian police force that focused on environmental protection. I say that, I specifically say that because dad mentioned that he was either our great great grandfather was either an enforcer of some kind or like a forest general, something like that. So that's why I think he might've been a corporal for his style de los dado, basically forest corporal.
Speaker: a state forest trooper. Now this particular branch, which was most likely a holdout for the medieval days, focused on enforcing poaching laws, safeguarding protected animal species, and preventing forest fires. Basically again, like your average forest trooper today. Ranger, yeah. Just a government official that has the power of a police officer, but mainly focuses on
Speaker: in the forest, basically. Yeah. Basically smoky the bear, but like pre 1800s. In 2016, it was dissolved and incorporated into the carabinery. And the carabinery are their own interesting topic for another day. They basically acted as the main paramilitary police force that both got Mussolini into office and forced him out of office. The rules in which the police would follow were emergency powers.
Speaker: They basically work in internal security. Yeah. They're John Darmay. Like an overpowered SWAT team, maybe. But yeah, now the rules in which the police would follow were emergency powers created by the PN Munk code, inspired by Napoleonic laws and regulations. Now keep in mind as well, there were very few police in those days. So few, in fact, that oftentimes groups of people would raid neighboring villages.
Speaker: leading to said villages dire people to raid the villages that the initial raiders were living in. As we mentioned, this was most likely the beginning of the modern Italian mafia.
Speaker: Now I'm not saying that the police are superheroes or anything like that. I myself have witnessed police brutality, a police brutality event firsthand, and our own father has been the victim of police brutality. One of our great uncles was also a victim of police brutality, but there needs to be someone who keeps the peace and the order and or gives enough resources to the people to prevent petty crime in the first place. And that was definitely not happening, not happening at all.
Speaker: Just no infrastructure. No infrastructure. Someone bad will take over the infrastructure. That's how this works. This leads to the question of like, for what reason, uh, Gaspar's father got shot in the first place.
Speaker: Oh, we'll get to that, we'll get to that. So Gaspare's dad was pretty well off, despite the lack of economic opportunity, probably because he was a forest corporal. He was well off enough to own a pearl -handled pistol, and he rode around on a white horse. That's pretty flashy.
Speaker: And because so many people had so little, anyone with any amount of visible wealth was vulnerable. And this led to our great -great -grandfather getting murdered in the streets of Palermo. Months later, his friends found his dad's pearl -handled revolver and white horse being paraded around by some random guy. They mugged the guy, tied him to a horse, and dragged him in the streets until he died. Then they returned the horse and pistol to his mother, who sold off everything and got on a boat to America where they had family.
Speaker: at this point, Gaspare and his mother were completely impoverished because without the dad making enough money for them, they have nothing, essentially. So their best bet was to quite literally just give up on Sicily for the moment and go back to, or not go back, but go to the United States. So before we get into the actual voyage, let's start off with what was life like on an immigrant ship?
Speaker: Well, for all intents and purposes, it sucked. It sucked a lot, actually. The both were all right for the most part. By the 1880s, sailing ships were replaced with steamships, mostly. Lower -class immigrants often ended up in steerage, though, which was named for the fact that it was near the bottom of the ship on her lower decks, where all the steering equipment used to be.
Speaker: There were a small few who could afford to travel in second class, but most ended up in the bottom of the boat packed in with upwards of around 2 ,000 bed frames, often sectioned out for single men, single women, and families. I should also mention that the steerage was lovingly perfumed with the faint smell of vomit that would only get stronger as the journey to America went on.
Speaker: They would also often eat out of tins in these rooms. By the 1910s, this had gotten somewhat better with competition and government regulation. Immigrants by this point often ended up in third -class cabins, which would have had an actual dining room with dining ware and china and a long table for everyone to sit at. But on older ships, they would still be transported in what was probably the worst cruise imaginable.
Speaker: You can see this in some diaries, such as one that belonged to Karl Puff, I don't know, it's spelled P -U -F -F -E, a Bavarian from what is now Czechia, describing everyone vomiting from storms and seasickness. In one of his entries, he even wrote that the storm he went through was so rough that a woman on the ship went into labor and gave birth in the middle of the night during the storm. So it was rough. In other words, it was a bad time.
Speaker: always make the argument that anytime before before, you know, luxury luxury liners or just the advent of like, big ships, like big metal ships, just being on the sea just sucked objectively speaking, especially when you need like 300 guys stuffed into a
Speaker: wooden boat about the size of a football. Well, not even the size of that. Like half the size of a football. Yeah, just an incredibly tiny space that no human should ever be capable of living in. And yet here is all of humanity doing just that. How incredible. On a side note though, immigrant ships ended up being the precursor to what is now the modern day cruise ship. Just a little fun fact there.
Speaker: Now, there are two ships that we need to talk about before we get into the actual voyage. The SS Argentina and the SS Franconia. Now there's been a lot of ships over the years that got renamed to the SS Argentina, but the one that we know about that Gaspare took was mentioned through the immigration and naturalization records and details of how many times it's been sold off and so forth. Mentioned as follows.
Speaker: Built by Russell & Co., Port Glasgow, Scotland, 1907, three steam triple expansion engines, twin screw, yada yada yada, steel hull, two decks, shelter deck, ship history. Built for the Austro -Americana line under the Austrian flag in 1907 and named Argentina.
Speaker: Advent in Trieste, South America, Trieste, New York service. Used as a hospital ship in 1918. Sold to the Cusulik Line Italian flag in 1919, Mediterranean New York service. Sold to the Florial Line Italian flag in 1926. Sold to Turrenia Line, Italian flag, 1932. Scrapped in 1960. Average amount of passengers it could hold was about 1 ,450.
Speaker: Now about the Franconia. It was built by Swan Hunter and Wagon Richardson Limited in Newcastle, England in 1911. That's 71 feet wide, steam quadruple expansion engines, twin screwed, yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: two masts, two funnels, three decks. As for the ship history, it was built for the Cunard Line, British flag in 1911, and named the Franconia for the Liverpool, New York, or Boston service, became a troop ship in 1915. It eventually got sunk by a German U -boat off Malta in 1916.
Speaker: The only thing that I could find for any sort of voyage in 1914, which is when our great grandfather supposedly emigrated to the US, was a brochure for a travel to Boston.
Speaker: On the SS Argentina's manifest, there are four names that stood out to me. One was obviously the name of our great -grandfather, Gaspar, or Gasparre. At this point, he was 15 years old and going by his original Italian name of Gasparre Adamo from El Camo Caprari. This is arguably the most aggressive Italian name I can think of that isn't stereotypical. There was also a 14 -year -old Giovanna Adamo right next to Gasparre on the ship manifest. His profession was listed as a traitor, and hers was underage.
Speaker: above them was a 49 -year -old woman named Giuseppe Valenti, whose profession was listed as a housewife. Below them was Francisco corruption? I don't know, the ship manifest. It had a lot of cursive and it was a nightmare to try and decipher on ancestry. And, you know, welcome to the early 20th century.
Speaker: But what I find interesting about all of these is that on the far right of the document, there's a bracket that encompasses the four of them and lists nobody in big cursive letters for the name and address of the relative that they came for. Now, this is when things turn strange. Interestingly, there's another Gasparia Dabo the same year, same month, and same day but only a few days apart.
Speaker: Hey y 'all, I don't think I made this very clear when I was talking with Guy about this, so I just wanted to state that according to great -grandfather Gasparé's naturalization records, he apparently came over on the SS Argentina, which to me served some interesting clues. Okay, that's all, back to the rest of the podcast. He, according to the SS Franconias, manifests.
Speaker: On that same manifest, nearby was another female Giuseppe Valenti, 49 years old, and a Francesco Corao. This is in addition to a Giovanni Adamo female and 23 years old.
Speaker: They were supposed to have arrived on April 5th, whereas our great grandfather, according to his naturalization records and the records from the SS Argentina, arrived on April 10th. They all also originated from Sicily, just Sicily, according to the SS Argentina, whereas our great grandfather came from, according to the Franconia,
Speaker: El Cabo Caprani. Now some of the names on the ship manifest for the SS Argentina got crossed out and lined up with some Adamos, but only some of them. But they also had names of relatives they wanted to see on the original manifest from the Franconia. So that being said, looking at all of these Ellis Island records and naturalization records that I got off of both the Ellis Island Registry and Ancestry, I'm wondering
Speaker: if they literally had to jump to another ship mid -journey to get to America. Because again, no mention of the Franconia's journey in 1914. Maybe there was like another ship that they were supposed to go on, like a bust or something. I'm not sure.
Speaker: I also looked at the Ellis Island records again a little bit after writing this originally and I saw that while it was the SS Argentina that arrived on April 10th, 1914, the ship was listed as having been built by Swan, Hunter, and Wiggum Richardson, the company that built the SS Franconia. Now they could have just gotten on the wrong boat or arrived late so they got on another boat but again we don't know. Maybe a random shipwreck happened. Maybe they just
Speaker: I don't know, what do you think? Well, a thousand things could happen, so they could have originally supposed to be on one boat, but missed it, or the other boat couldn't take them on, so they went onto another one on shore, or maybe they had to switch boats, or maybe they went to Ellis Island, got turned back, got on another boat, waited, then went back
Speaker: and then actually got through the immigration process, there's thousands of different things that could have happened. That's fair. Yeah. No, well, there is one lore, piece of lore from the family history that might fill in some of the gaps in these records. So it is said that according to our family history, at least,
Speaker: that over the Atlantic Ocean, the original ship broke down in the middle of the Atlantic and they ran out of food. But at some point somebody went into the basement and they found a bunch of onions.
Speaker: And they lived off of onions for two weeks until they got saved and transported the rest of the way to Ellis Island. Now obviously it was only like five days later. They were only like five days late to get to Ellis Island, but like it is interesting. And like if you look on the Ellis Island records under Gaspara Adavo, you will see that like he is, his name is present on two different ship manifests. So
Speaker: It's really, really bizarre and it's really, really complicated. And this is an example of oral history is important because sometimes, no matter how fantastic, at the core of it is an event that most likely happened. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. It should be used to supplement historical research into
Speaker: you know, offer alternative explanations or just it should be it shouldn't be completely disregarded in reality, I believe. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, no, it doesn't make a lot of sense it or not. It doesn't make a lot of sense. But like, it's just so bizarre how like, we have this little family legend and then
Speaker: The actual records don't completely back that up, but they're weird and confusing enough to make me think that there might be something to that family legend. It might be a little bit fantastical, but maybe they're right in some sense. Anywho, once in the Grinscotts of America, they had to go through Ellis Island. There, they initially line up in the most echoey room known to humankind.
Speaker: Eventually they would get interviewed, checked to make sure that they were up to date on vaccinations, although many both provided vaccines that they weren't disabled or an anarchist, and that they were letting in immigrants who could work and sustain themselves.
Speaker: Now, let's touch on a population that would fall into that last category, single mothers. Although single women did often immigrate to the U .S., they often had a hard time getting citizenship without, quote -unquote, permission from their husbands. And considering that Gaspari's mom was a single mother, I'm sure that made everything a little bit harder. Now, this raises a lot of uncomfortable points about ableism and who we let into the country, but, you know, welcome to the modern world.
Speaker: Thankfully, most people were able to get through Ellis Island and Great Grandpa Gasparé was one of them. They did have to pull some interesting maneuvers to get into the US though. Since the ship was so late in getting Gasparé on this motor to the US, their family basically gave up waiting for them. They were having trouble getting out of customs until some random guy said to his mom, hey, I'll pretend to be your husband to get you through customs. And after that, they got in and were set to go into the US.
Speaker: They were very lucky in this regard. They were quite literally part of, as we were talking about during one of our meetings, he got great -grandpa Gaspard was quite literally part of the last wave of Italian immigrants to arrive before the gates shut on basically almost all immigrants.
Speaker: although they had been closing since the late 1800s when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is implemented. In 1911, Congress published a study proving that Western and Northern Europeans were the better, more dignified people compared to Eastern and Southern European people, which
Speaker: is geogenics and junk science at its finest and as one man by the name of William Graham Sumner said if we do not like the survival of the fittest we only have one possible alternative and that is the survival of the unfittest which is
Speaker: Such a stupid quote. I'm sorry. That's just such a dumb quote. Like, it's xenophobic, eugenicist nonsense all around, and people were genuinely worried about new traditions mucking up their white Anglo -Saxon Protestant worldview. Between the onset of World War I pushing Italy to try and keep citizens within its borders and the 1920s when the US started putting quotas on immigration, Gaspari basically slid into the gates right as they were closing.
Speaker: And at that, our great grandfather Gaspar, an impoverished Southern Italian who spent the last couple years of his life on the streets of one of the most impoverished countries in Europe, began a new chapter of his life. One full of even more gang violence and rum running than he could probably think of. He was part of the last wave of Southern Italians across the Atlantic Oceans in hopes of a better life. Was it a better life? We shall see.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much for listening to All in the Familia. Feel free to rate us. Feel free to check out my YouTube at Chloe Adamo. There will be references in the description. Guy, anything you want to add? Well, there's only one thing you can say about moving from one place to another, where one place has a lot of gang violence, blood feuds, and general discontent.
Speaker: only to move into, uh, New York City and get, well, I guess, uh, bitter... What the fuck am I saying? Cut that out. No, please. Please. I'm not going to.
