A trade-union organizer and a home-work investigator were recently discussing the Italian girl of sixteen. The former had found Italian girls slow to respond to trade organization and was pessimistic about their economic future. “They will not progress, nor can you blame them when you think of the history of their women in Italy.” “You forget how far these Italian girls in the factory have already progressed,” said the home-work investigator. “The Italian women I know best are doing tenement house work and earning pitifully low wages because they will not leave their homes to work in a factory.”
The Italian girl works in the factories nearest home. These on the West Side happen to be principally candy factories and laundries—such as Kohlberger’s, where Lucy Colletti worked, and the laundry where Rose Morelli was employed as a folder. Should the factory move she looks for another nearby. Evil lies in strange parts. If the neighboring candy factory overworks its employes, as it usually does during the weeks before Christmas, requiring night work[87] and Sunday work, the girls and their families regretfully submit to these weeks of exploitation.
But although economic necessity may force Carlotta into the factory, it does not make her otherwise more independent of her family. Her father and mother cling persistently to the old-country custom of close watchfulness over her. Parental surveillance may be relaxed during her hours of work, but it is promptly revived when the day’s work is over. The streets, the dance hall, even the well chaperoned amusement club are prohibited; nor may she spend her money on dress or choose a “fellow” for herself. Italian girls have acquired to a less degree than American girls the habit of spending.
But of course this system breeds an occasional rebel. There was Filamina Moresco, for instance, whose calm investment of $25 in a pink party dress, a beaver hat, and a willow plume, was reported as little less than the act of a brigand. If she had withheld 20 cents out of her pay envelope from her mother she would probably have been beaten. As it was, she appropriated $25 and her high-handedness was her protection. Jennie Polini’s form of rebellion—choosing a “fellow” for herself and “seeing him on the sly”—was not as successful. The other girls regarded her conduct with doubt and disapproval, though they shared all of Jennie’s bitter resentment against the stern discipline of her parents from whom she was separated by the old abyss between the generations, widened and deepened by the disparities of the old world and the new. The pleasures which the Italian parents permit their daughter are those which she may enjoy in their company. She shares in the celebration of family events which the church recognizes and dignifies with a ritual; such as a birth, a death, or a wedding, the seasons of Christmas and Easter, the saints’ days, and the American holidays. These latter she interprets in her own way. Angelina Costa informed her parents on Lincoln’s birthday that the schools were closed because it was an “American saint’s day.”
The patriarchal festivals of the Italian contadini are reproduced, however sordidly, in the christening parties, the wedding dances, and the burial ceremonies of the West Side. To the daughter of fourteen a wedding party is the summit of bliss. She lives from wedding to wedding, treasuring memories of the last one or preparing for the next, until her own turn comes to be the central figure. One cannot fancy her stealing away to a secret marriage as so many of the West Side daughters are inclined to do. That would be to miss the most glorious day of her life.
The “school lady’s” invitation to Angelina Marro’s marriage announced that the wedding dance would begin at 5 in the afternoon, immediately after the marriage ceremony. The “West Side Café” had been engaged for the night’s celebration. Surely a place with so high-sounding a name must lay claim to considerable pretension! It was with some disillusionment that the “school lady” entered a small doorway and groped her way through a narrow, dingy, and perfectly dark passage toward a tiny slit of light which promised another door in the far distance. Repeated knocks on the panels below this ray finally caused a slipping of bolts. A huge black Italian appeared at the opening. Near him stood a countryman. They were both engaged in getting ready the refreshments, but they welcomed the intruder. On a big, round table stood a large tin washtub filled with water for rewashing the beer mugs after use. Large wooden trays were piled high with a quantity of sandwiches that one could not believe any crowd, however large, could consume. An enormous Italian cheese, plates of Italian cakes, and a number of crates of beer completed the preparation for the feast.
The room may have been 30 by 50 feet; the ceiling was low and the only means of ventilation were two small windows at one end which opened on a court. These were tightly closed, with shades and curtains drawn. Around the walls were benches and chairs. At the end opposite the windows were the piano and chairs for the musicians. The walls were decorated with cheap prints, a large color print of George and Martha Washington being most conspicuous among them. Stretching from the four corners of the ceiling to the gas chandelier in the middle of the room were strings of flags, representing all nations, but most of them were American and Italian.
The bride and groom had not yet arrived, but one of the bridesmaids, Lucy Colletti, came forward and greeted the visitor cordially. The bride was having her picture taken, she explained, but would arrive very soon. The room began to fill up with relatives and friends of the married pair. There was no dressing room. All the wraps were piled together on the top of a high narrow wardrobe. One of the men stood on a chair and threw on top of the fast growing pile the additional coats, hats, and furs.
Guests of all ages, from grandparents to toddling children, continued to arrive in parties. Suddenly the outer door opened and the young bride and groom entered. There were cries of welcome, a burst of hand-clapping, and a general rush for the pair. The dark, frail little bride in her elaborate costume looked like a child playing at “dressing up.” The fine net gown and veil, the white slippers and gloves, must have meant months of saving and stern denials of necessities. She was only sixteen, and Nick, who walked beside her bearing his head like a young prince instead of the young butcher’s helper that he was, had barely turned nineteen. One could not but reflect that if he had been living in Gramercy Park instead of on the West Side he might now be receiving his high school diploma instead of assuming the burden and responsibility of a family. And the little bride might be heading the freshman basketball team with years of care-free development ahead of her, instead of facing the imminent trials of child-bearing with the probable addition of factory labor.
The wedded pair made their way down the hall to the chairs placed for them at the end. The fact most striking to the outsider was the total lack of self-consciousness or awkward embarrassment on the part of either, young as they were, at being the center of attention, the object of laughing comments and affectionate raillery from all present.