Families
and social structure
Eli Cizewski-Robinson
Philip Lovetere's and Angelina Giordano's great-grandson
My great grandparents like so many others left their lives
in extreme poverty in rural
Sicily to seek a better life in America. They came to Chicago because
they had relatives that had
already moved there, there was a strong Italian American community and
there was a large need
for workers in Chicago. My great-grandfather Philip Lovetere came over
sometime before 1917
and my great-grandmother Angelina Giordano around 1920.
When Angelina came the U.S. she
was engaged, but she wanted to go to Chicago where she had family and
the man she was
engaged to didn't, so she called off the engagement. They were both
from Santa Caterina
Villarmosa a small town in Sicily, while they had heard of each others
families they met and
married in Chicago.
Philip Lovetere was illiterate and most likely would not have become
a
citizen if he had not joined the army in 1918 as many immigrants did
and still do today. He was
sent over to France where he fought in the 64th Infantry Regiment.
During the war even though
his unit was involved in some major battles, he was never seriously
injured. However his unit was
shelled with gas by the Germans almost every day. Later in life he
complained about trouble with
his senses of taste and smell.
After Philip returned from the war in 1919 he met and
married Angelina. At that point
they were both living with relatives and actually lived across the
street from each other. After
running into each other on several occasions, they started dating and
eventually got married. They both worked for Roscoe a company that
provided uniforms to workers, such as gas station
attendants. Philip prepared dirty clothes for cleaning as well as
ironing clean cloths, while
Angelina was a seamstress.
While working at Roscoe Angelina became friends with an African
American woman, but neither of them felt safe in the other's
neighborhood so they always met in
downtown Chicago.
Philip was the official head of the family but Angelina could read
and write
in Italian as well as write a little in English, she also made more
money than Philip and she held a
lot of power in the family. At one point the Mafia tried to recruit
Philip and Angelina threw them
out of her house. Out of economic necessity Angelina made clothing for
their children.
For some time they lived in an Italian-American
neighborhood, but after someone was
murdered on the steps of their apartment building, possibly by the
Mafia, they decided to move.
They found a place in a nice French-Canadian neighborhood, but the
landlord was worried that
renting to Sicilian immigrants would bring the Mafia to the
neighborhood. So they decided to tell
everyone that Philip and Angelica were French.
Philip and Angelina had three children named
Grace, Philip and Anne Marie, my grandmother. When Anne Marie was born,
she was named
Annita Maria Lovetere, but when she started Roman Catholic grade school
the nuns said this is
America and now your Anne Marie.
Instead of going to high school Anne completed two years
of clerical school and due to
the depression when to work as a typist at the age of 16. During World
War II Anne and her sister
Graces were having trouble finding work, because employers didn't want
to hire Sicilian-Americans, so they started saying they were French to
get jobs.
Anne worked until she married
my grandfather Felix Cizewski in 1948. Felix's Polish family considered
him marrying a Sicilian
to be a mixed marriage and considered Sicilians to be closer to Arabs
and Africans then
Europeans. Ironically Felix's sister's marriages to a German-American
and a Polish-American
both ended in divorce, but Felix and Anne were together until Felix's
death in 2004.
Philip and
Angelina would have preferred that she marry an Italian-American, they
didn't share the
prejudice that Felix's family had toward the marriage. After returning
from World War II Felix
and Anne went looking for a house. One seller saw Felix's Polish last
name and commented that
he sure was glad they weren't Sicilian. My grandparents immediately
told the seller that they
didn't want to buy a home from him.
Felix worked as a truck driver for most of his life. Anne
didn't start working again until after there four children Philip,
Felix, Nena and Leonard, my
father, were born. Nena's name was originally spelled Nina but the
nurses at the hospital decided
to Anglicize the spelling and changed it.
All of Anne and Felix's children went to Catholic
schools, but not all of them remained catholic, for example my father
is now an agnostic Zen
Buddhist. While my dad Leonard Cizewski was in school, he faced some of
the mainland Italian
racism against Sicilians. Thanks to Felix's union job, he had enough
money to put his children
through college and gave them economic opportunity.
My family was originally very close, Angelina and Philip
lived next door to Felix and
Anne, when Anne was working Angelina would take care of the children.
Angelina and Philip's
other children moved to Arizona and Nevada, and there have been some
tensions and disputes
that have divided the family. Felix and Anne's children live in
Wisconsin, Illinois, and Florida.
My father went to college for a nursing degree and later met and
married my mother Cheryl
Robinson who is also a nurse. They lived in Chicago for a while, but
moved to Madison to get
out of the big city. When my brother and I were growing up, my dad
worked part time on the
night-shift so at least one parent would be home at all times.
Many parts of my family history are similar to those of
the main stream, like many people
they came to America for economic opportunity, they faced racism that
affected where they
worked and lived. It was hard for my grandparents and
great-grandparents to find places to live
and work because of their ethnicity. Due to economic necessity women in
my family worked, and
sometimes made more than their husbands. Angelina was a very strong
willed woman and is a
great example of strong women in the past, from leaving the man she was
engaged to, to
throwing mobsters out of her house she displayed a lot of strength. My
family history is similar
to many peoples, but it is unique in many ways as well.
A Spring, 2007 paper for the undergraduate Introduction to Sociology
class at the
University
of Minnesota Twin Cities
Minor spelling and formating changes made by Leonard H. Cizewski