The bride took her seat behind a table at the end of the room, removed her flowers and put them in a pitcher of water, and having carefully arranged her veil was ready to receive her friends. “Come,” said Lucy Colletti, “we must go up to the bride.” This ceremony over, we stood back and watched the children scramble wildly for the pennies the men tossed up. Although the musicians were nearly an hour late, no one seemed to mind. The children raced and played and rolled on the freshly waxed floor with fearful results to their clothes.
By the time the music began, the room had grown so crowded that the dancers were confined to a small circle in the center. As the evening passed the air became blue with dust and tobacco smoke, and the physical discomforts of the place increased to the point of general exhaustion. Yet one could not but take delight in a scene where enjoyment was so evident and so thoroughly sincere. Every guest participated; no one was neglected. Grandmothers were led out for a gay turn by grandsons who cavaliered their little sisters in the next dance. Fathers and daughters, sons and mothers, made light-hearted couples. It was a sight never to be seen at an American gathering, but common enough wherever Italians are assembled for any kind of celebration or enjoyment. In pleasure, as in work, the family rules.
But weddings and family dances do not come very often, and other evenings must be spent in the tenement home under strict guardianship and oversight. Against this strictness of another land are constantly beating all the new, free customs of America. The conflict begins as soon as Carlotta gets her working papers and takes her place in the factory. Inevitably the influences of the new life in which she spends nine hours of the day begin to tell on her. Each morning and each evening, as she covers her head with an old crocheted shawl and walks to and from her factory, she passes the daughters of her Irish and American neighbors in their smart hats, their cheap waists in the latest and smartest style, their tinsel ornaments, and their gay hair-bows. A part of the contents of their pay envelopes goes into the personal expenses of those girls. Nor do they hurry through the streets to their homes after working hours, but linger with a boy companion making “dates” for a “movie” or an “affair.”
Slowly but surely their example is beginning to have its effect on the docile little Italian whose life has hitherto swung like a pendulum back and forth between her labors at the factory and the duties and restraints of home. She begins to long for the same freedom that the other girls enjoy. But freedom does not mean for her what it means for the American girl, trained in a different school from the beginning. She has not the same hard little powers of resistance, nor can she make the same truculent boast of being able to “take care of herself.” She is not able to present the same rough and ready front to rowdy good times.
Free and easy as are the manners of her American sisters, they usually draw a line, distinct enough from their own point of view, at “tough” and “fresh.” The Italian girl has no idea of where the line is, or whether these bold-appearing girls really have any standards of conduct. Her line, the line her people have drawn for her, is placed well in front of the commonest enjoyments of the West Side girl. Once it is broken over by a “lark” with a crowd of boys and girls, then she is, by her own and her people’s standards, condemned. Very often, however, she fails to feel the weight of her old friends’ disapprobation as heavily as might be expected because she is still accepted by the standards of the new country, her country. As long as she does not overstep its particular line, she is safe. But to her the American line of conduct is blurred and indistinct. It is determined by conditions which she does not recognize or understand. The little tragedies and conflicts of this semi-Americanization are familiar enough to those who know the Italian girl of some years’ residence.
It is useless to expect that her young, wholesome craving for amusement will continue to be satisfied in the ways approved by her people. The irresistible lure of America which has already drawn her parents from the ancestral plains of Italy continues still to draw her. She must enter upon her kingdom. But unaccustomed as she is to the newer ways, the Italian daughter must be taught intelligently to meet American conditions and trained in the forms of self-protection which they necessitate. Her parents cannot do this. They have themselves still too much to learn. But the community to which she has come, bringing her all—her health, her strength, her industry, and her children—owes it at least to her to safeguard the innocent joys of her youth.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX A
ECONOMIC CONDITION OF THE FAMILIES
Our 65 girls came from 55 different families. Forty-one of these families had at some period in their lives been aided, or investigated, or disciplined by some sort of private philanthropic or protective agency. Of these, all but one had records with some relief agency. In a very few cases the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and the Charity Organization Society records show that the family received no relief, but only visitation and advice. Usually, however, actual relief was given. Thirty-nine had records in the registration bureau of the Charity Organization Society. Eleven had Charity Organization Society records only; 15 had records with the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor only; one had been helped only by the church. Thirteen had records of relief from or intervention by more than one society; as, the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, or the Charity Organization Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, or again and again both the Charity Organization Society and the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. One had been under the care of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Board of Health.