L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE W o r k s o n g s did not usually b e g i n a s m u s i c , t h e y w e r e a response to necessity. L o n g b e f o r e t h e y w e r e collected, studied, or per- formed on stage, they were practical tools: a way to keep time, coordinate bod- ies, and endure work that was repetitive, heavy, and shared. Italy's long history of collective manual labor has left behind a particular- l y r i c h t r a d i t i o n o f t h e s e songs, with two of the clear- est examples coming from places that seem far apart: the rice fields of north- ern Italy and the tuna fisheries of Sicily. In the rice-growing areas of Piedmont, Lombardy, and Emilia, the songs of the m o n d i n e were born d i r e c t l y i n t h e p a d d i e s , where women spent long days bent over in shallow w a t e r , p u l l i n g w e e d s b y hand. The work was season- a l , e x h a u s t i n g , a n d f o r many years poorly protect- ed by labor laws. Singing emerged naturally in this setting, because it helped r e g u l a t e m o v e m e n t a n d pace, but it also did some- thing less measurable and just as important: it turned individual effort into some- thing collective. One voice would begin a line, the oth- ers would answer. Call and response spread the strain, kept bodies moving togeth- er, and made the hours pass a little less heavily. Over time, these songs absorbed rhythm, carried humor, irri- tation, irony, memory, but also social upheaval when, in the decades after the Sec- o n d W o r l d W a r , t h e y b e c a m e c l o s e l y t i e d t o b r o a d e r s t r u g g l e s o v e r wages, rights, and dignity. What we now recognize as p a r t o f I t a l y ' s s o c i a l a n d protest song tradition grew directly out of this environ- ment but in the fields them- selves the singing was never symbolic, it was practical, a s i t h e l p e d p e o p l e g e t through the day. It isn't surprising then, to learn that when researchers a n d e t h n o m u s i c o l o g i s t s later began recording these songs, they treated them as r e a l h i s t o r i c a l a r t e f a c t s . I n s t i t u t i o n s s u c h a s t h e Istituto Ernesto de Mar- tino approached them as documents of lived experi- ence, their recordings pre- serving not only melodies, b u t a c c e n t s , w o r k i n g rhythms, group dynamics, and the physical conditions i n w h i c h t h e s o n g s w e r e p r o d u c e d . I f w e l i s t e n t o them today, what strikes the most is, perhaps, their intel- ligence, with voices shaped by breath and stamina, by t h e n e e d t o c a r r y s o u n d across open fields, by the reality of work itself. Any s e n s e o f b e a u t y t h a t emerges is incidental, the result of necessity. Further south, the land- scape changes: fields give way to the sea, boats, and d e e p w a t e r , y e t , i n t h e Sicilian tonnare, the logic of work songs remains very s i m i l a r . H e r e , s i n g i n g accompanied the mattanza, t h e t r a d i t i o n a l s y s t e m o f t u n a f i s h i n g c a r r i e d o u t through fixed nets. Far from being a moment of enter- tainment, the cialome, the songs associated with this work, were part of the oper- a t i o n i t s e l f : s u n g b y t h e crew and often guided by the rais, the head of the ton- nara, they helped coordi- n a t e m o v e m e n t , s u s t a i n effort, and keep everyone acting together at moments when timing was crucial. Cultural documentation d e s c r i b e s t h e c i a l o m e a s inseparable from the labor of the tonnara, and tied to specific places, such as Fav- i g n a n a , a n d t o a w i d e r M e d i t e r r a n e a n w o r l d o f m a r i t i m e w o r k . L i k e t h e rice-field songs, they are collective rather than indi- vidual, because no single voice dominates for long. What matters is the group, b r e a t h i n g a n d m o v i n g t o g e t h e r , u s i n g s o u n d t o hold the work in place. S e e n s i d e b y s i d e , t h e songs of the mondine and the tonnaroti help under- s t a n d b e t t e r w h a t w o r k songs really are: they are songs for work, not about w o r k . I n t h e r i c e f i e l d s , singing allowed bodies to repeat the same movements for hours without slipping into silence and isolation, w h i l e i n t h e t o n n a r e , i t h e l p e d c r e w s m a i n t a i n rhythm, strength, and coor- d i n a t i o n u n d e r i n t e n s e physical strain. The sounds may be different, and the environments incompara- ble, but the purpose of both is very much the same. B u t t h e h i s t o r y o f t h e c a n z o n i d e l l a v o r o a l s o helps explain why they have become fragile. Work songs depend on collective labor, on people doing the same thing at the same time, in the same place but, as work has become more mecha- nized and individualized, the need for a shared pulse has faded. What remains are recordings, archives, some memories, and this is why preservation matters. W i t h o u t c o n t e x t , w o r k songs risk becoming mere aesthetic objects, detached f r o m t h e l a b o r t h a t g a v e them meaning. There is another risk as well: simplification. When work songs enter popular c u l t u r e , t h e y a r e o f t e n reduced to a single well- known title or a neat origin story. In reality, traditions like those of the mondine and the cialome were never fixed; they changed from p l a c e t o p l a c e , g r o u p t o group, even from one work- i n g d a y t o t h e n e x t , a n d their strength lay precisely in that flexibility. W h a t s u r v i v e s , i n t h e end, are a sense of history a n d r e s p e c t : t h e s e s o n g s remind us that the human voice was once a working instrument, a way of orga- n i z i n g t i m e , e f f o r t , a n d endurance. From the rice fields of the North to the tuna fisheries of Sicily, Ital- ian work songs show how music can grow directly out of labor, and how singing together once helped people carry the weight of the day, side by side. Voices at work: the songs of Italy's fields and fisheries LUCA SIGNORINI 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.

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