L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D e a r r e a d e r s , Deported is a w o r d w e associate with " o r d e r e d t o leave the US" but it turns out deporting boats float both ways… I t a l y d i d n o t e x i s t a s a nation in the early 1800s, and the Italian exiles who arrived in New York came directly from Austrian pris- o n s . M o s t o f t h e m w e r e political dissidents. In 1835, the new Austrian Emperor F e r d i n a n d I I o f f e r e d a n amnesty to Italian prisoners held in the dungeon at Spiel- berg, on the condition they got out and stayed out, that is, they accepted perpetual banishment. Most of these prisoners were youthful rev- o l u t i o n a r i e s c a l l e d c a r - b o n a r i , w h o h a d b e e n i n their early twenties at the time of their arrest. Felice Foresti, who later would become a professor of Ital- ian literature at Columbia University and serve as rep- resentative for the Roman Republic in America, had been in Austrian dungeons for 18 years. Foresti was a young lawyer born in Fer- rara. In a book called My Pris- ons, author Silvio Pellico wrote an account of the suf- fering endured by Italian patriots at Spielberg and other Austrian dungeons. In August 1836, having accept- e d t h e o f f e r o f a m n e s t y , about twenty such men were put aboard an imperial Aus- trian brig in the Adriatic and brought to New York under guard. In New York, still techni- cally prisoners, they were r e c e i v e d b y t h e A u s t r i a n Consul who liberated them to American authorities. The American press hailed these "martyrs of Spielberg" and, a s t h e N e w Y o r k T i m e s pointed out in a piece wel- coming them to American, they were not immigrants but exiles; and "we sincerely trust these worthy victims of despotism may be able to find hospitable sympathy in our country until a change for the better in the politics of the European Cabinets may afford them an honor- able occasion to return to their homeland." Arriving in 1836, most of them found it difficult to adapt to an environment that was wholly new. They had to learn a new language, embrace new customs, and there was no "Little Italy" area to make the transition easier. Most men lived quiet, rather melancholic lives as political exiles. Some earned a precarious living teaching Italian at home, however, two Sicilians, Pietro Bachi a n d L u i g i M o n t i b e c a m e Harvard professors. Later, Luigi Monti served as Amer- i c a n C o n s u l t o P a l e r m o (after 1861). Louis Tinelli, a Lombard lawyer who had established a silk spinning plant near L a k e C o m o p r i o r t o h i s arrest by Austrian police, established, with the help of s o m e A m e r i c a n f r i e n d s , mulberry groves and a silk spinning plant in New Jer- sey, winning a gold medal from the institute of Ameri- can Industry in 1840. He w a s a p p o i n t e d a U n i t e d States Consul to Portugal in 1841 and, during the Civil War, he helped form an Ital- ian regiment in New York, then saw action himself as a Colonel in the Union Army. H i s t w o s o n s w e r e a l s o U n i o n s o l d i e r s . B e f o r e dying, in 1873, Tinelli asked to be buried in Brooklyn. By 1850, eluding the Aus- trians, many political pris- oners fled to New York. New York was a different kind of t o w n w h e n G i u s e p p e Garibaldi, himself fleeing the Austrians, sailed aboard t h e E n g l i s h p a c k e t s h i p Waterloo and reached Amer- ica in 1850. In a mid-century census taken that year, only 3,045 Advancing our Legacy: Italian Community Services CASA FUGAZI If you know of any senior of Italian descent in San Francisco needing assistance, please contact: ItalianCS.org | (415) 362-6423 | info@italiancs.com Italian Community Services continues to assist Bay Area Italian-American seniors and their families navigate and manage the resources needed to live healthy, independent and productive lives. Since Shelter-in-Place began in San Francisco, Italian Community Services has delivered over 240 meals, over 900 care packages and made over 2000 phone wellness checks for our seniors. I t a l i a n r e s i d e n t s w e r e counted in the entire United States. Italian immigrants were already crossing the Atlantic Ocean by the thou- sands, but they were bound for the countries of South America, particularly Brazil and Argentina, where they could dwell with other Latin p e o p l e a n d w h e r e t h e p r o c e s s o f a s s i m i l a t i o n promised to be smoother and more rapid. Since Italy did not exist as a nation, but as a geographi- cal description, if a citizen of Venice emigrated to, say, Philadelphia, he did so as an Austrian subject, who could expect very little support from the Austrian consular o f f i c i a l s i n t h e U n i t e d States. An immigrant from Naples would have been, on the other hand, a citizen of the Kingdom of Naples. *** Quarantine as we know i t b e g a n i n V e n i c e i n t h e 14th century, in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics. The term used for the isolation was "quaranta giorni," hence the name "quarantena" in Ital- i a n a n d " q u a r a n t i n e " i n English. The Venetian forty- day quarantine proved to be an effective formula for han- d l i n g o u t b r e a k s o f t h e plague. Scientists now know that bubonic plague has a thirty-seven day period from incubation to death. That's why the Venetian "quaranta giorni" were successful.

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