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To Filadelfia in 1890 the Economic Union Economic Erbitense was born, with the scope “to accumulate deep, for means of actions; to maintain a case of saving, a case of loans, and an economic consumption of alimentary kinds
exclusively for the single associates”. The cooperative characters testify like
in the small nicosiana community of Filadelfia - radicata above all in the South
Philadelphia and in the quarters of Roxborough - there was the highest percentage of unskilled labors (working not specialized), for which the presence of the
organism mutualistic it helped to better
exceed the deriving moments than crisis and difficulties from the fruizione of wages lowlands. With the accumulated returns the Erbitense Union - opened to the associates only in the day of Sunday - it succeeded, in
the passage of little years, to accumulate
it happens them sufficient in order to acquire various pieces of real estate;
near one of these the nicosiani gathered Sunday. “We came, pushed out
from the destiny, like in the exile earth, leaving there, in native land, the relatives more tender and gentle straits, friends, memories of infancy and youth”,
wrote with nostalgia, some decade after the foundation
of the society of the Erbitense Union, Giovanni
Cost reduction, remembering the sacrifices and the difficulties lived from the small community erbitense to Filadelfia.
In
the cities in which they were present little ones nuclei of nicosiani were more difficult to create associations that protected the interests of the community. Also,
they not they lacked to participate actively
to the organized reunions from the present circles in the metropoli and to answer to the advanced demands for aid from Italy. He is the case, as an example, of the small community of Norfolk, been born in
the last decade
of the 1800's. Its representatives dedicated themselves with sacrifice to the several fields of the industry, of the commerce and the handicraft, catching up altogether
a rispettabile comfort. They
participated to the activity of the other Italian societies American presents in the territory, distributing itself partially in the Italian Society
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of Mutual Aid and Good will and, above all, in the Loggia “Rome” of the Order Sons of Italy, whose founder and president a nicosiano was own, Giuseppe
Montagna.
The will to exceed the personalismi
carried, for a sure period, to the creation
of a confederation of the nicosiane truths of America. The daily paper in language Italian, the Italian Herald of New York, gave 15 November 1905 a benevolent
one judgment on the initiative,
sight like means in order to use in the best one of i ways the availabilities financial institutions of the single societies in the name of a sodalierietà that travalicava the protagonismo of single the pre-eminent ones.
The same sheet praised the organized festivity 30 November - day of the Thanks for the Americans - near Manhattan Casino between 155th and the 8th hail. The society did not have calm life, if still, three years after, Giovanni
Cost reduction augured to the new directive council to resolve the annoso problem of the development of the organization and the union between the
nicosiani of Filadelfia.Melted to the beginnings of
years twenty of the 1900's, after several attempts of which the society made promotore the same Cost reduction was reconstituted with fifty associates in new situated center to the n. 1515 Dikinson Street, eleggendo president
Mariano Sinatra.
To Chicago they were present, besides the SS. Crocifisso, at least others three aggregations.
The Society of Mutual Aid Umberto II Prince of Piemonte, founded
from laborers to the beginnings of the slid century, it had anch'essa mutualistic character and it assigned many efforts in order to maintain you live the relationships
with the earth natia and solid you feel
.
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minds of devozione regarding the reigning house. The aspiration to the development intellectual of its members carried the associates to declare that “we
are laborers and we have not had the good of
being able to cultivate our talent: but the earth novel it pushes to us to new ideals, new feelings of esteem and fratellanza and to one awakening feeling.
Around
in september 1921 an other society to mutualistic character was born at last, to which it was placed side by side, eight years after, 11th the Ward Nicosian Citizen Club.
d. Stumento of integration or brake towards the acquisition
of a new citizenship?
The study of the statutos, the journalistic sources and the interviews collections has evidenced as also the nicosiane societies endured a common evolution to
other organizations of compatriots
in American earth, characterized from an excess fragmentation of the agencies to which a radicato feeling was accompanied parochial. In such context, the associates often covered pompous assignments without to renounce to the registration to other aggregations that they
recognized one some form of public visibility.
Here then explained like never Carmelo Amoruso, correspondent of the sheets citizens the Echo of Mounts and the Nicosiano Bundle, were associate of the Nicosiana
Youth, councilman of the Pocasset Democratic
Club, administrative secretary of the committee been born for the festeggiamenti in honor of Cristoforo Columbus, member of many other associations between which the Leonforte Society, originated this last one from
emigrating of the citizen near Nicosia. And it was not the solo: they are migliaia examples brought back from the numerous printed publication agiografiche
banns are in Italy that to the estero.
The tendency to only limit the registration to the associates of exclusive nicosiana origin it carried in fact, in the years, to the progressive anemizzazione of the
associations minors, destined to disappear
with the dead women or the withdrawal to private life of the founders
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of the societies. Sometimes the truths were moreover thus small and the deep ones on hand thus meager that was practically impossible to comply with the obligation deriving from the charter, like the delivery of the subsidy in case of impediment
to the job, the payment of the ticket of
return in disease case or the payment of funerarie
expenses to the associates.
Other factor that it prevented to the mutualistic societies to satisfy to the scopes statutory it was the continuous engagement in the manifestations that were
succeeded in Little Italy and that it carried to spend the meager bottom in banquets, rents of premises, flowers, flags and uniforms for parades. With the exception of the Nicosiana
Youth to New York and of the SS Crocifisso
to Chicago, the city truths were highly parcellizzate
and, also working in tightened contact with the consorelle greater, not they succeeded to find space to outside of the community of reference and acquiring
a visibility to which, moreover, they ambivano.
The natural generational evolution carried unavoidably the organizations
nicosiane towards an assimilation process that involved the undeniable price
of the acquisition - progressive but inexorable in the time - of the social customs Americans also for the nicosiane associations. Of the transformation is
an example in loggia of the Order of the
Sons of Italy of the society Siblings Head of Nicosia, happened you open in it them of 1922 and the creation of the Loggia “Nicosia” O.I.F.D.I.,
of which he was president Angel Ring.
The participation to the logge Italian-American moreover was diffused also near the city communities to outside of the Little Italy di New York:
the nicosiani of Norfolk, as an example, was
in majority enrolled in the Loggia “Rome”.
An article on the Nicosiano Bundle introduces the Order of the Sons of Italy like an organization diffused on all the territory American, non-political and
not confessional, given over to the mutualismo
between the Italians and the spread of the feeling of fratellanza between the U.S.A and Italy.
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With the publication of the Amoruso article the occasion picked from part its
in order to confirm the vicinity with the Italian-American institution: “nothing adunque communism, nothing masonry or other of settario from which, black, red or white man
who or, our newspaper, than is inspired
to the principles of absolute freedom, escapes again” .If rapportato to that one of the pertaining to the Italian regions of the north, the process
of integration of the single familiar nuclei and emigrating in reality the American one it turns out, in the light of how much said, anything but weak person,
holding account also of the times in which the arrivals
were developed and of various economic atmospheres in
which the sicialian and the nicosiani in particular found themselves. If veneti, from Liguria and Piedmontese they were moved in coincidence of the first phase of American industrialization
continuation to the Civil War,
the sicialian disembarked in the Americas during process of forced industrialization and to the consequent widening of the cities neighbors to the ports and the productive apparatuses. New York, Chicago,
Washintgton, Norfolk,
Hoboken, Philadelphia was the test benches of the nicosiani of America,
forced not to be able to take advantage of the occasions offered in the decades precedence in the West to the many compatriots who, before they, had decided to embark themselves
towards the America.
Today, more than one hundred years from the beginning of the nicosiana emigration in the Americas, the assimilation process, also for merit of the city associazionismo, definitively it has been concluded. Nevertheless, a door on the past is remained opened, to make light on the oblivion that unavoidably accompanies passing of the
time.
Perfectly integrated in woven the social American, the new generations not
they speak Italian neither tantomeno the dialetto nicosiano: they but, for a law kind of the contrappasso, they are more and more often to the search of own
roots. It is up to the sons of those
who they had the fortune not to emigrate, the task of to maintain this passage open and to contribute to the riscoperta one of own municipalities origins so that the sacrifices and the suffering of the e'migre' nicosiani
can to become values of all.
C. Amoruso, “In the order Sons of Italy in America loggia the Siblings Head of Nicosia”, in
the Bundle
Nicosiano, year II, n. 9, 30 you open them 1922.
