People often ask me how I got involved with preserving Italian-American history and why on earth I would even want to tackle having my own organization. The response is simple: I'm not doing it for myself.
When I was a little girl, my mother would take me to a restaurant in Clarks Summit called Dino and Francesco's. Every time we'd go, the placemat on the table would have a map of Italy (they still do!) and my mother would promptly-- and proudly-- tell me that her father was from there. One day, she even took a clean placemat home and sat me at our dining room table, tracing the boot, telling me about my Nonno Joe and how he was never able to go home to Guardia dei Lombardi, where he was born in 1916.
Nonno Joe died in 1973, eight years before I was born, but his story has stayed with me throughout my life. Why was this place so important to him? Why did he want to go back?
As I got older, I began to research my family tree, learn Italian (even graduating from the University of Scranton as an Italian major in 2003) and do whatever I could to learn about my grandfather's homeland.
When I published "The Italians of Northeastern Pennsylvania" in 2004, I never dreamed it would take me to Guardia, fulfilling my Nonno's dream of going home. I knew I had to do more.
I was involved with several local Italian-American organizations but never really felt that my love for heritage preservation had a "home." I needed to do more, it was in my blood, it was in my heart-- but with my background and expertise, I didn't want to have to keep having my work approved by anyone when I instinctively knew what I needed to do. Passion always makes the difference and I knew my work had that extra "oomph" that couldn't be found anywhere else.
In December 2014, I was the chair of the "Celebrating Guardia dei Lombardi" exhibit at Lackawanna College in Scranton. This exhibit was... for lack of a better word... my baby. I gave it every ounce of myself that I could, culminating in the formal declaration of a Sister City relationship between Scranton and Guardia as well as the renaming of a city street to Guardia dei Lombardi Way and even a piazza renamed for Scranton in Guardia itself. The exhibit hosted photos of people from Guardia upon arrival in the USA and gave a glimpse of what their lives were like here. In my years of studying immigration history, it seemed as if stories trailed off upon arrival at Ellis Island as an "...and they lived happily ever after." I knew there was more to the immigration story and I hope I told it through "Celebrating Guardia dei Lombardi."
SIAMO wants to continue telling those stories, not just the story of those from Guardia, but also those from Gubbio, Avigliano, San Mango, Felitto, Calitri and any other town that ended up with a large population here in Northeastern Pennsylvania. I fully believe that there are still immigrant voices wanting to be heard.
I ask anyone who wants to volunteer with SIAMO to please contact me at info@siamonepa.com. If you have an idea for an exhibit or event, please share it. In the meantime, you are all invited to participate in our events and activities as they are scheduled.
Every immigrant to this county-- not just Italian-- has a story to be told. Like my Nonno Joe, so many of them never returned home. It is my hope that SIAMO, at least for the Italian community, can bring the stories back to life and, hopefully, inspire other ethnicities to do the same.
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