L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers, Cali- fornia, our 31st State was admitted to the union i 1850 and on September 9th we Californians celebrate Admission Day. Gold was found in California in 1848. People came by land and sea to dig for it. Today more minerals are mined here than in any other state. Californians can grow more than 200 different crops. Most of the almonds, dates, figs, olives, pomegranates, and wal- nuts grown for market in the US come from California. Grazie to an article written by Bill Cerrito, president of the Ital- ian Cultural Society in Sacra- mento (and beautiful Carmichael, California) which ran in the Soci- ety's 1994 newsletter I can share with you the fact that beginning with the Gold Rush of 1848 Cali- fornia has had an abbondanza of Italian connections. Immigrants from Genoa and Liguria were among the first Italians to settle in the United States during the 1850s. In California, they also played a vital role in shaping the destiny of the state and its econo- my. *** Genovesi settlers were one of the largest immigrant groups to settle in San Francisco and north- ern California. By the 1860s, they dominated the production of fruits and vegetables and, 20 years later, were operating about 1,200 "Italian Gardens" or truck farms in California that employed 10,000 people, mostly from the mountains surrounding Genoa. The Genovesi also were successful fishermen. By 1910, they and the Sicilians controlled 80 percent of California's fishing industry. Despite these entrepre- neurial efforts, they and other Italians were victims of discrimi- nation. Many Genovesi became garbagemen as they were relegat- ed to the lowest occupations and, in the San Francisco area, were excluded from the labor unions until the 1920s. Four Genovesi pioneers, how- ever, played prominent roles in creating industries that provided other Italians immigrants with work and helped them advance in American society. The first was Marco Fontana, who arrived in Califor- nia in 1859 and established a chain of canneries under the Del Monte label in San Francisco that became the largest food pro- cessing corporation in the nation. *** The second was Andrea Sbarboro, who founded the Ital- ian Swiss Colony in 1881 in Sonoma County as a cooperative of Italian immigrants from the wine-growing regions of Italy, It became one of the largest pro- ducers of wine and dominated the U.S. wine market during its heyday. The third Genovese was Domenico Ghirardelli, who established the Ghirardelli Chocolate empire in 1852 in San Francisco and employed Italian immigrants in his factories. Branch banking was started in the US by the fourth Genovese, Amedeo Pietro Giannini, who organized the Bank of Italy in San Francisco in 1904 and estab- lished the first branch banks in the nation in Italian neighbor- hoods across California to serve Italian Immigrants. A.P. Giannini had Genovese roots but was born in San Jose, California. After his mother became widowed (his father was shot by a disgruntled Santa Clara Valley ranch-hana) young Amedeo would accompany his mother from San Jose to San Francisco's Produce Market. In later years, after he opened his Bank of Italy, (Later Bank of America) in San Francisco, he opened his first branch bank in San Jose, California and Italo- Americans provided most of the bank's early workforce. During the Great Depression years he refused to foreclose on property owners who could not pay their property tax. The four Genovesi were also active in San Francisco's Italian community. Fontana, Sbarboro, Giannini and Ghirardelli's sons and name sake helped found the Italian Welfare Agency in 1916 to help needy Italians in the Bay Area. It is still operating under a new name, the Italian American Community Service Agency. *** Trash talk back in the late 1880s through the 1920s among unskilled Genovese immigrants was, literally, exactly that. In San Francisco, the Sunset Scavenger Company had its early origins in the California Gold Rush when several waves of Italian immi- grants came to California to seek their fortune. Some struck it rich, but many arrived after the surface gold was panned out. Unskilled workers had to make a living doing what  no one else wanted to do, garbage collection. These first garbage collection companies, called "scavengers," were generally small partnership of two-to-eight members, with a few horses and wagons. They competed with each other for ter- ritory and customers. In 1878, a fraternal organization called the Scavengers Protective Union was formed to arbitrate quarrels between collection companies and to provide sick and death benefits to their members. During the 1920s  garbage collection and disposal in San Francisco was in a state of chaos. Over 150 different companies were picking up the city's garbage. Collection routes often were a tangled mess and resulted in heated arguments among garbage collectors. The need to streamline garbage collection and disposal in the city became evident, so the mayor formed a special commit- tee that drew up a rate schedule and strongly recommended the scavengers companies were con- solidated. The result was two compa- nies: Sunset Scavenger Compa- ny, incorporated on September 22 1920, and Scavenger Protec- tive Association (Golden Gate Disposal), incorporated the fol- lowing year. Now, Recology Sunset's ser- vice area covers the entire city except for the financial district and northeastern residential areas, which are serviced by Golden Gate Disposal. Sunset's business includes residential and commercial accounts. Recology also plays a central role in help- ing San Francisco meet waste reduction goals by operating the City's Residential Recycling Pro- gram. The City has never experi- enced a garbage strike, and even the Loma Prieta 1989 earthquake couldn't stop service. Sunset Scavenger Company has traveled a great distance since its humble immigrant beginnings, and built a successful American Dream, that includes fewer sons with Gen- ovesi roots signing on as garbage collectors. *** Garbage, the saga of a boss scavenger in San Francisco by Leonard Stefanelli, was pub- lished earlier this year by Univer- sity of Nevada Press, shortly before the author's passing in April, at age 83. You will enjoy this book, as Stefanelli's breezy writing style makes it such a delight you won't realize you are reading about a smelly serious subject.  Leonard Stefanelli was a gen- erous multi-faceted gent. He was President of Sunset Scavenger, now affiliated with Recology, for 20 years; he was also Presi- dent of the Scavengers Protective Union and a past president of the California Refuse Recycling Council.  He trekked horseback with the Sonoma County Trail Blazers & Rancheros Visitors. He was Co- President of the Irish-Israeli-Ital- ian Society (3 IIIs) and a 39 year member of his beloved Calamari Club.

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