L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2017 www.italoamericano.org 12 L'Italo-Americano KENNETH SCAMBRAY P it mining of any kind has its risks for miners. In the U.S. before 1950, millions of immigrant miners descended into coal mines risking their lives from mine explosions or dying a slow death from black lung disease. Despite the risks, what drew them to such a perilous job was that the miners in the U.S., especially in western states such as Colorado and Utah, were well paid, a fact not usually recorded in the literature of the period. Olivia Cerrone has written about another kind of mining, sul- fur mining in Sicily. Sulfur min- ing existed in the island for near- ly two hundred years until its demise in the 1980s. But there was one major difference between mining in the U.S. and in Sicily: sulfur mining used an abusive form of child labor. Cerrone is an accomplished writer. She has won many awards, including a "Distin- guished Fellowship" from the National Endowment for the Arts. A resident of Boston, she has told a heart-wrenching tale about the impoverished conditions of the Sicilian underclass at mid-century in the Valguarnera Caropepe region. She did years of research and interviewed scores of miners from the region to write an histor- ical novel joining others on this subject, one of which I reviewed in this column several years ago, Angelo Coniglio's 2012 novel The Lady of the Wheel, published by Legas. Cerrone's novel focuses on what was called the soccorso morto system, which was a form of indentured slavery for children from poor families. Destitute families were coerced by mining companies to indenture their boys as young as eight or nine years old for a small stipend when they signed contracts with sulfur min- ing companies. The contracts indentured the young boys to work in the sulfur mines for up to seven years, the time it usually took for a boy to pay off the "loan." Though technically out- lawed by the Italian government as early as the 1880s, this inhu- mane practice of contract slavery for children continued well into the twentieth century. Cerrone's precisely written novel is set in the village of Rac- colto in 1948. When the novel opens, her main character, twelve-year-old Ntoni had been laboring in the sulfur mine for nearly a year. The year before, his father was killed in a mine explo- sion, leaving the Giordano family destitute. Before the war, his father had labored long hours to support Mussolini's war machine. The post war years did not bring Sicily or the Giordano family any relief from their impoverished cir- cumstances. With his father gone and no other options to sustain the family in Raccolto, his mother, Regina, took the only option to save her family from homelessness and starvation and signed the contract that indentured her son. As a caruso, the Sicilian name for these unfortunate children, he was assigned as an assistant to Sci- avelli, an adult miner. His job, like all the other children assigned to a miner, was to load baskets of sulfur that their overseer dug and haul them up the arduous incline out of the mine pit to the calca- roni, where it was processed. If a boy did not move fast enough or tripped and spilled his load, he was summarily beaten by his overseer. In addition, the boys and the adult miners live in con- stant fear of the build-up of grisù, a toxic, odorless gas that poisoned the men and boys and then, when it came into contact with a flame, exploded. They worked under constant threat of an explosion every day of their working lives. Ntoni Giordano dreams of the day that he can escape the mine and his contract. But he knows that if he were to escape, he would sentence his family to star- vation. Worse, his younger broth- er would be blacklisted from working in any mine when he came of age. If he escaped, he would leave his family totally destitute. In the process of telling her starkly realistic tale, Cerrone also provides a brief but effective rep- resentation of Sicilian culture, especially religion, in the village. Ntoni's only comfort in life is Saint Calogero, the village patron saint. Superstitious, he searches for signs of his father's soul marooned in purgatory. When he prays to Saint Calogero to deliver his father's soul from purgatory, he readily expects to receive some sign from Saint Calogero that he has heard his prayers. But his belief in the saint is not enough for the beleaguered Ntoni. One day Ntoni is surprised to learn from Ziu Peppi, a mechanic at the mine and a friend of his father, that before his death his father was plotting to leave his family and travel to France to work in the mines. It seems that neither Ntoni nor his mother knew about his plans. It was something of a shock to Ntoni, but also a revelation of what was possible for him. He was not sure what his father's plans were, whether he intended to abandon the family or perhaps send money home. But his father's plan to leave gives him hope. If his father could do it, then why couldn't he? He realized, howev- er, what his leaving would mean to his mother, brother, and sister. But his suffering was beyond what he could endure for the remaining years on his contract. After Peppi's revelation, to ease his pain, he dreams often of an idyllic French countryside of endless green meadows. He embarks with Ziu Peppi on a vague plan to escape, how or when neither can say. But Peppi assures him that when the time comes, he will know it. Then fate intervenes. What else was possi- ble for the poor Sicilian? They had no control over their destiny. While Ntoni is working one day, there is an explosion and Peppi's workshop collapses, killing him and Ntoni's younger brother, who had earlier begun also to work in the mines. Protocol after an explosion was that all miners must sign a roll book to inform management who had survived the explosion. Ntoni suddenly sees and opportu- nity. He cleverly avoids being seen in the chaos surrounding the explosion, does not sign the roll book and hides at home. His grieving mother pretends that she has lost both sons in the explo- sion and hides him from the pry- ing eyes of neighbors and possi- ble informants. She quickly makes arrange- ments for Ntoni to escape to Catania where the family had rel- atives, and from there to an unnamed American port where he could work and send money home to his mother and little sis- ter, Lina. With the money that he had recovered from Peppi's col- lapsed shop, which he had been saving for their journey together, Ntoni begins a new life. The Hunger Saint is an accu- rate portrayal of Sicilian life at mid- century. In the process of writing about the plight of the carusi, Cerrone portrays effi- ciently the religious ritual, beliefs, and cultural ambiance of the era. It is a Sicily that today has largely disappeared but still remains in many of the religious observances and the worship of local patron saints. The Hunger Saint is a well-written narrative that takes the reader to the heart of Sicilian life at a moment of cultural and social change in the post-war period. Ken Scambray's most recent book is Queen Calafia' Paradise: California and the Italian Ameri- can Novel. LIFE PEOPLE MOVIES MUSIC BOOKS The Hunger Saint by By Olivia Kate Cerrone . Bordighera Press, 2017

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