Forgaciu

Julia Forgaciu

Professor Larry Rowley

Honors 1000

October 6, 2017

For Our Emilia

Non ti dimenticare mai da dove vieni, ti aiuter solo ad essere pi forte.1

Vita mia2, you have just turned 4 but it seems like only yesterday your mama told me she was

expecting. You are too small to realize how much you have already experienced, the wonders youve

already seen. You will never know what it means to leave everything you know all because of a piece of

paper. That is why your mama and I have decided that our history must be written down so one day,

when you wonder who you are and where you came from, there will be an answer waiting for you.

We come from a village in Sicily, Italy called Montalbano Elicona. Your mother and I both grew

up there, as did many generations of our families before us. I was working as a farm hand when I met

your mother. Nicolette was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen - you are lucky Emmy, that you have

her features and not mine and when I turned 23, I married her. She was 21 at the time. A short year

later, you arrived. Two even shorter years later in 1916, we arrived at Ellis Island, New York City. Ciccia3

you cried the entire journey across lOceano Atlantico but your incredible mother never once doubted

our choice to come to America. I thank God for giving me a wife who is not afraid of a challenge, as this

has been the biggest challenge of our lives. In Italy, I worked as a farm hand not because that is what I

had always dreamed of doing but because that was the only job available for a man of my class. Your

grandfather, although hard working, was a poor man by most standards. All he had to pass on to his

1
Translated to: Never forget from where you come, for it will only make you stronger.
2
Italian term of endearment my life
3
Italian term of endearment

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children was his love of reading and learning. He used to say to us, Knowledge is the one thing no one

can ever take away from you. Treasure it. I want you to know Emmy that the decision to come to

America was not an easy one. We had to leave everything that we knew; our families, our language, our

customs. Even so, I knew the life I wanted for you and your mama was not possible in Italy. I worked

from sunrise to sunset on the fields yet barely had enough to provide for the two most important people

in my life. I would, and will, do anything for you Emmy, and you Nicolette, even voyage across loceano4.

The Americans might look down on us because we are immigrants, but Emmy listen here: I came to

America to give you both the life you deserve, the life Italy never could have given us. No one can take

your dreams away from you. Let their prejudice be your motivation. This land of industry and

automobiles is our future, not the fields we left behind.

We did not stay long in New York City because word had travelled of a man named Ford who

was offering his workers a chance of a lifetime. Work was hard to find in New York, since not many

people wanted to hire a man who was still learning to speak English. Employers did not care that I was a

fast learner, or that I was well-read. All they saw was another immigrant begging for work. The living

conditions were terrible as well, certainly not what I had imagined for our family.5 We stayed just long

enough to save the money necessary to make the trip to Detroit, Michigan. I had a dream for our life

and nothing would get in the way of that dream. Within a year of arriving to New York, we had settled in

Detroit, where we now live and you, Emmy, will grow up.

I mentioned a piece of paper being the reason we are here today. We came to New York

because it was the city our friends, the Santorini family, travelled to when they left Elicona. In a land

4
the ocean
5
Italian immigrants typically settled in areas where other Italians were already located. These areas became
known as Little Italys. Conditions in these Little Italys were dreadful because the people who settled there were
usually poor farmers who could only afford to live in settlements abandoned by previous immigrants. Little Italys
began as slums but improved as their tenants financial situations improved. See Italian Americans Worldmark
Encyclopedia page 310.

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where everything is new, you hold dear what is even slightly familiar, making New York the obvious

choice for us at the time. But if I have learned anything from my time in America, it is that fearing what

is new will only trap you in the past. I came across a newspaper that had made its way north from a city I

had not heard of before; Detroit. It was an old article but important nevertheless. Although some of the

words were lost on me, the title I will never forget; New Industrial Era Is Marked By Fords Shares To

Laborers: Minimum Wage Is Determined At $5.6 I let that title motivate me to put my family through

yet another big move. Emmy, you will one day come to understand the strong desire to do anything and

everything to make a better life for those you care for.

Working in one of Henry Fords factories was never what I had in mind when I dreamt of coming

to America. To be fair, I had no idea what America had planned for our family, only that it had to be

better than what Italy could offer. I work on the production of Mr. Fords Model T automobile. The year

we first arrived in Detroit, 1916, there were almost 730,000 Model T automobiles made!7 Oh Emmy,

they were quite a wonder to see driving up and down these streets. The work itself is not hard, but the

affect it has on the mind is draining. All I do is install a few screws into the chassis of the auto8 over and

over and over again, day after day. Wearisome as it might be, the pay we receive allows me to give you

the future I had always imagined. We are trying to meet the rules of Mr. Fords Manual in order to share

from a part of his success.9 We have not met the 6-month working requirement yet, but we are very

close!

Life is better here than in New York but it still has its challenges. We live on a block with mostly

other Italian families plus some scattered Polish families here and there. We are all immigrants, you

6
See NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA IS MARKED BY FORDS SHARES TO LABORERS.
7
See Ford, Henry. page 287
8
Italian word for car.
9
See Ford Motor Company. Helpful Hints And Advice to Employees to Help Them Grasp the Opportunities Which
Are Presented to Them by the Ford Profit-sharing Plan. Page 8.

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would think we could find common ground, but those Poles make finding common ground incredibly

difficult. Emmy, I hope when you are older, you never judge someone because they are different from

you. Differences do not define a person; it is their character that should make a man. You will be hated

by some, distrusted by others, and altogether avoided by many due to your apparently problematic

immigration status.10Neither should a mans literacy define him. Just because he does not speak its

language perfectly should not prevent him from coming to this beautiful country. Although I am grateful

this new literacy test11 came to be after we had already arrived, it breaks my heart to think it is

preventing others from having the same opportunities we have been blessed with. Living here in Detroit

has changed me in many ways. It opened my eyes to see the inequalities amongst its people and

inspired my tongue to try and do something about it. I hope to inspire you Emmy to be a leader in your

own right, to not be afraid to speak up for what is good. You will not understand these words until you

are much older, and by then I hope things have changed for the better. But if not, I want you to

remember that change can begin with one person.

Emilia, as an immigrant, you will have many rooting for you to fail, for their own successes to far

exceed yours. Do not let this discourage you. Mam e io12 believe that il Dio13 brought us here to give us

the chance for a better life. We will do anything we can to make that happen for you, to make your

future burden lighter. If you take anything from this account of our beginning let it be this: immigration

is not something to be ashamed of but rather something to be used as motivation. You have new

opportunities. Work harder and remember that nothing worth getting in life comes easy. Never take

10
See Kohler, Max J. Some Aspects of the Immigration Problem.
11
The literacy test, part of the Immigration Act of 1917, was a way to restrict immigration. See Gale Encyclopedia
of Multicultural America page 508.
12
Translation Mama and I
13
Translation God

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anything for granted Emmy, for we have been blessed with what many others can only dream of. Take

advantage of this plentiful land, and never forget that we love you Passerotta!14

Tua Papa e Mama,

Antonio e Nicolette Pavarotti

14
Italian term of endearment little sparrow

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Notes

1. Translated to: Never forget from where you come, for it will only make you stronger.

2. Italian term of endearment my life

3. Italian term of endearment

4. the ocean

5. Italian immigrants typically settled in areas where other Italians were already located. These

areas became known as Little Italys. Conditions in these Little Italys were dreadful because the people

who settled there were usually poor farmers who could only afford to live in settlements abandoned by

previous immigrants. Little Italys began as slums but improved as their tenants financial situations

improved. See Italian Americans Worldmark Encyclopedia page 310.

6. See NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA IS MARKED BY FORDS SHARES TO LABORERS.

7. See Ford, Henry. page 287

8. Italian word for car.

9. See Ford Motor Company. Helpful Hints And Advice to Employees to Help Them Grasp the

Opportunities Which Are Presented to Them by the Ford Profit-sharing Plan. Page 8.

10. See Kohler, Max J. Some Aspects of the Immigration Problem.

11. The literacy test, part of the Immigration Act of 1917, was a way to restrict immigration. See

Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America page 508.

12. Translation Mama and I

13. Translation God

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14. Italian term of endearment little sparrow

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Works Cited

"Ford, Henry." Business Leader Profiles for Students, edited by Sheila Dow and Jaime E. Noce, vol. 1,
Gale, 2002, pp. 284-288. Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Ford Motor Company. Helpful Hints And Advice to Employees to Help Them Grasp the Opportunities
Which Are Presented to Them by the Ford Profit-sharing Plan. Detroit, Mich., 1915.

Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. Ed. Thomas Riggs. Vol. 2. 3rd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2014. p505-
522.

"Italian Americans." Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life, edited by Timothy L. Gall and
Jeneen Hobby, 2nd ed., vol. 2: Americas, Gale, 2009, pp. 310-313. Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Kohler, Max J. Some Aspects of the Immigration Problem. The American Economic Review, vol. 4, no.
1, 1914, pp. 93108. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1804985.

"NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA IS MARKED BY FORD'S SHARES TO LABORERS." Detroit Free Press (1858-1922),
Jan 06, 1914, pp. 1, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Detroit Free Press (1831-1922).