F04H615.002.Second Assignment.NarrativePlan.JrnlArticl.

Assignment Two M. J. Miraglia
Fall, History 615.002 September 29, 2004

Narrative Plan – adopting journal article to video format.

Robert Orsi, “The Religious Boundaries of an Inbetween People: Street Festa and the Problem of the Dark-Skinned Other in Italian Harlem, 1920-1990.” American Quarterly 44 (September, 1992): 313-347.

Proposed Film Title: “The ‘Inbetween’ People: Finding a Place in the New York City’s East Harlem American Scene, 1920 to Present – based on Robert Orsi’s theory of ‘Skin Color’ and Americans of Southern Italian heritage or an interpretation of Italian-American History.”

Opening Narrative over the opening title and the first historic images of 19th and 20th Century Roman Catholic Street Procession celebration of the Madonna of 115th Street, the annual festa of “Italian” Harlem’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel, first initiated by immigrants from Polla Italy in the province of Salerno near Naples.

Act One, Scene One: Exposition of Author’s theory.
Narration: “Swarthy, kinky-haired immigrants from southern Italy (as they were almost always described by the press in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) were . . . fascinating to white Americans . . . they could not figure out what they were looking at. Were the olive-skinned newcomers white or black, the only two possibilities in the domestic racial taxonomy [Orsi, pp. 338-339]?”

Video images will change from historic stills of Southern Italian immigrants entering the United States (debarking ships and processing at Ellis Island), streets scenes of “Italian” Harlem, and Italian immigrants in their homes and at work.

Music played under narration during segments of debarkation will be traditional folk music of Italy and during the images of East Harlem will emphasize the folk tunes of the Neapolitan area. Music played during the scene of the street procession will be traditional Italian marching band or open-air concert music. Arias from Italian operas will underline the scene of family life and religious devotion. The popular Italian song “Mama” will underscore the images of mothers, especially those showing devotion and cooking/serving food for a celebration (scenes of the home). Scenes (images) of tension between communities (Italian and Puerto Rican conflict) might be underscored by orchestral music from ”West Side Story.” If possible, in the scenes depicting the cooperation between the Haitian and Italian-American communities during the festa will feature music of contemporary processions in which the communities play each other’s music.

Scenes Two, three, and four: Narration exposes the themes of “inbetweenness.” The images and narration (especially using the author’s own words) explore the author’s belief that the experience of separateness by Southern Italians and their families, in Italy and during three periods in East Harlem’s history, exemplified the total Italian-American experience in America. Especially featured in the narration will be 19th century (probably still existing) negative attitudes and policies of discrimination of Northern Italian officials’ (and people) toward Southern Italians (with all the stereotypes) and the extension of these attitudes and beliefs to the New World (United States).

The use of the street celebrations (festas) not only demonstrates (first) their special way of celebrating their faith, traditions, and importance of family. It (second) also demonstrates their “Americanness” and visualizes their acceptance as different and distinct from the new “dark skinned” community that moved in and began to replace them in East Harlem, just as they had replaced earlier immigrant groups of German and Irish immigrants and their children when those groups moved up town and to the suburbs.

Next (third) the festa is used to demonstrate the exclusion of Puerto Rican faces from the celebration, again demonstrating their (those Italian-Americans who remained) state of inbetweenness. Hopefully, there will be images that demonstrate the growing tensions (images and words to quote from newspaper articles and the diaries and letters from both communities besides those quoted in the article). The narration (fourth) must indicate that the Italian old-timers’ anger demonstrated toward their growing new neighbors was two fold. First, it meant change in their way of life. Second, the anger toward the newcomers (“the so-called Puerto Ricans”) was an outlet for their unexpressed anger toward their children for leaving the community (allowing space for the newcomers) and, most important, betraying their most important and precious value, belief system, or possession of identity and worth, the “familia.” Finally, (fourth) will be the absence of the Puerto Rican presence or images in the celebration, except to show their ignoring or interfering with the procession, and the recent arrival of accepted Haitian immigrant faithful (devoted to the Madonna of Mount Carmel), some how perceived as non-dark skin and as co-religionists.

Video images with include historic maps of Italy (before and after unification), maps of upper New York City’s East side, (if possible) stills of the early Italian immigrant settlement, the entrance of Puerto Ricans (after World War II and the 1950s), the relocation of the Italian immigrant’s children in the Bronx, etc., and the remaining Italian-American population.

Act Two, Scenes One, Two and Three: This section will explore contemporary images of celebration today (both stills and video) with interviews of participants, priests, neighborhood residents (Italian-Americans and Puerto Rican immigrants, as well as descendents) to test the author’s themes. See if it is possible to interview the owners of Rio Restaurant on their views—they are located a block or so from the church and the procession. The narration underlines the evidence airing from the images and the interviews and examines the evidence to confirm whether the author’s findings of over ten years ago still hold up.

Act Three: The video concludes with narration over images (both fictional—movies and television depictions of contemporary Italian-American life—and actual—historic stills of Italian-American suburban communities). There were four converging factors constituting “inbetweenness.” The mid-suspended state in which the immigrants of Southern Italy and their descents found themselves was based on first, “the use of racist categories by northern Italians to distinguish them from and to exclude southern Italians.” Second, it was based on “the assumption of this same discourse by American commentators on southern Italian immigration.” Third, there was the coincidence of this migration with the movement of other darker skinned peoples into North American cities.” Finally, there was “the determination of southern Italians to make dignified lives for themselves in the terms of the new environment [Orsi, p. 314].”

“Urban street religion generally, and the festa of the Madonna of 115th street in particular, cannot be simply cast either as the site of racist exclusion or of solidarity and community in ‘the inner city. It was rather the place where the dilemmas and dangers of inbetweenness in the complex circumstances of American city life were encountered, explored, enacted, and narrated [Orsi, p. 341].”

Video images close on the features of the Madonna and a historic or contemporary female figure (if possible, American of Italian Heritage) in prayer, and mixture of images of festa.

Narration concludes over the closing credits and above images: “ . . . urban street religion is one of the privileged sites as which different peoples with a variety of complexions encounter each other and enact their understandings of themselves in relation to the other, in ritual and story, for themselves and others to see and hear, over the changing movements of their histories. This is why violence is so often dreaded at such events, even though it erupts less frequently than it is feared. People understand that these public religious occasions are times of conflict and contestation, when the world and one’s place in it are played out in the streets [Orsi, p. 339].” Final Comment in different narration voice: If you wish to read Dr. Orsi’s definitive study on Italian Harlem, please consult: The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem. New Haven: Yale University Press, c 1985, 2002.

Comments

[Willaim Raffinello]

My mother, Josephine Degasaro was born in Polla Italy in December of 1900 and moved in 1923 to America where she settled in Manhattan with her aunt on Lexington Ave and 115th Street. Has anyone heard of the name Degasaro?

[Alfred Grimaldi]

My mother was born in Polla/Salerno in 1904 and came to the U.S.A. when she was about 17.
Her maiden name was Angela Corpersito and she had a brother in Polla on Via Vallina. My fater also lived in Polla and his name was Polo Grimaldi. I visied Polla in 1954 when I was in the Army.

[Rosemarie Raffinello]

My grandmother, Josephine Digassaro AKA (Raffanello) was born in Polla Italy 1900 then Came to America and settled in Manhattan (NYC) Lexington Ave/115 St. with her aunt. She married soon after to William Raffanelloand they settled in Howard Beach Qns. she had 2 sons and a daughter. her husband then passed and she moved to Brooklyn. I am looking for any info that anyone can provide...her father was a miner in Italy.