L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2016 www.italoamericano.org 11 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE Dear readers, As Prank, Prayer and Political dates approach I want to share these Italian connections with you: October 31st, All Hallows Eve, we honor souls in Heaven with the Feast of All Saints on November 1. On November 2, we pray for All Souls, our dearly departed most of whom are resting in Purgatory, except for those in life described as "era una santa" or "ero un Santo". But what about the souls in Hell? In medieval Ireland, simple peasants worried that the damned, if neglected, might seek revenge. They solved the problem by banging pots and pans on October 31. Noisemaking became their way of letting the eternally lost know that they weren't forgotten. A couple of hundred years later, the Bubonic Plague swept through Italy and France, killing untold millions. Those who survived prayed and meditated on their own mortality by staging elaborate All Soul's Day parades. These "Dances of the Dead" featured people dressed up in the garb of princes, popes, and paupers, all following the devil to the grave, side by side. Meanwhile, on October 31 in England, people walked from house to house, promising prayers for the inhabitants' dearly departed on All Souls' Day in exchange for tasty cakes, dubbed "soul cakes". After England became a Protestant country, every November 5, revelers celebrating Guy Fawkes Day visited houses of known (or suspected) Catholics and demanded food or drink for their merry-making. If the Catholics didn't want to see their homes or business vandalized, they supplied what the revelers demanded. The choice was simple: trick or treat. Many of those traditions eventually died out in their country of origin. In early- nineteenth-century America, however, they found new life, immigrants from England, Ireland, Spain, Italy and France poured into the United States, and brought their ways of celebrating with them. The arrival of more immigrants from elsewhere in Europe brought more traditions. Eventually all those traditions mingled together to form the very American holiday of Halloween… *** Election day will soon be here, but days, when politicians in our United States actively wooed Italian American voters are but dim and dusty memories. It does my hearth good to recall how South San Francisco's Italian American Citizens Club, founded 100 years ago, (1916) achieved many desired goals by remembering that in UNITY there is strength. For example, the Italian American Citizens Club of South San Francisco stopped the Supervisor of San Mateo County from moving the local Court House to Redwood City, they also supported a one cent increase in the local gasoline tax for bettering the roads, and demanded the cleaning, painting, and up-grading of the Baden Elementary School, where the majority of the Italian American community's children were in attendance. On February 19 th , 1937, the IACC unified all the Italian organizations in San Mateo County in protesting against Judge Johnson of San Carlos and against the San Carlos Bulletin for slurs against the Italians. The club then led a successful recall election! The Italian American Citizens Club was founded in 1916, when prior to the political priorities of the 1930's member main priorities were finding and maintaining a job, providing for their families and eventually the hope to return to visit their love ones in the "old country". For Italians in South San Francisco there was no full time employment or benefits, soli part- time work. Because of this situations, the benevolent organization "Società di Mutuo e Soccorso" was formed. Every working Italian contributed a few cents from their monthly paycheck. If they became ill or lost their jobs, the organization would see them through this difficult period. Once regaining employment, they would then repay the money to the organization, As with all immigrants, the few that had some education and were aggressive, sought ways for a better life. They realized the importance of speaking English and becoming citizens. Having English classes in their homes and helping Italians become citizens, by December of 1916 there were enough people to form the Italian American Citizens Club. Coming from a poor country under one ruler, a one important basic principle – no one person would rule and the membership would vote on all items. The President would conduct the meetings; members of the board would chair the committees, which were formed for various events and interest of the club. The committees would report back to the membership to vote for approval or disapproval. This was their way of forming a true active and democratic organization. A second priority of the IACC was to try and unify all the Italian organization in San Mateo County. Instead of confronting prejudice and racial slurs with protests and marches, they would endorse candidates that were supportive of Italian communities. When parades or festivities were organized, other ethnic groups, celebrities and political individuals from throughout the country were invited to attend. This was so successful that eventually candidates from near-by cities would also appear for endorsement. Politics became the main focus of the IACC and in June of 1935 a new bylaw was accepted by the membership . "No member of the club that is an elected public official can have an official position in the club due to conflict of interest". In the mid- 30's, the IACC also because known and respected beyond the confines of San Mateo County. State Representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties sought endorsement for Presidential Candidate Alfred Smith, and later for Presidential candidates Herbert Hoover and F.D. Roosevelt. In 1931, the first Italian American became a candidate for the local school board, and in 1932 the first Italian American was a candidate for the South San Francisco City Council. In the 1930's some successful local projects the IACC was involved in was the building of wooden sidewalks on Linden Avenue to the San Bruno border (the streets were not asphalted at the time) and political support for the building of a "Dog Race Track", across from Orange Avenue park (which is currently Mayfair Village). Later the club succeeded in forcing the Kennel organization to pay $250,00 to the city of South San Francisco each night that the races were on, and that an agreed percentage of workers must be residents of South San Francisco. If you visit South San Francisco's City Hall and notice a large sculpture on the front lawn, on closer inspection you will see that it is a monument depicting the bust of the first President of the United States, George Washington. By a show of hands the membership voted unanimously to financially support the project. On July 4 th , 1937, with a parade, a Queen, representation from throughout the Bay Area and with floats and musical marching bands, the statue was presented to the city of South San Francisco. *** Eugenio Giuseppe Pacelli (1876-1958) an Italian, if not the "Italian" vote helped our thirty- second U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) win re-election in 1936. Although F.D.R. served as U.S. president from (1933-1945) his re-election road for a second term was rocky. It seems that the Ku Klux Klan, burned a cross on the parish grounds of then newly built Little Flowers Church in Royal Oak, Michigan. The parish priest, Fr. Coughlin took to the airwaves to condemn the act. The broadcast were an immediate hit, and by 1930 CBS picked up his show. Around the same time, the focus of the show began shifting from faith to politics, with the Priest denouncing communism and championing Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal". "The New Deal is Christ's deal" he proclaimed. By 1935, however, his support of Roosevelt turned to condemnation. Roosevelt wasn't doing enough to please "the Radio Priest" (as America called him), nor was he doing it fast enough. The following he called for the nationalization of major industries, and limitations on private property rights. With more than 40 million Catholics tuning in weekly to hear the "Radio Priest" broadcasts, Roosevelt feared for his reelection prospects. A well timed "vacation" visit to the U.S. from Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, (who from 1930 to 1939, served as secretary of the Department of Ecclesiastical Affairs and was the Vatican's de facto Secretary of State foreign Policy, before his election on March 2, 1939 to the Papacy, serving as Pope Pius XII until his death on October 9, 1958) neutralized and silenced the "Radio Priest" for awhile. As a post-election "Grazie", in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, appointed Myron Taylor, as his "personal envoy", which did not require Senate confirmation, to the Holy See, thereby re-establishing a diplomatic tradition since 1870 when the Pope lost temporal power. The Lateran Treaty, 1929, resolved the longstanding hostility with the Italian government over the status of the Papacy, and Vatican City became an independent State.

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