Italian Roots and Genealogy
From Sicily to San Diego: Preserving Italian Heritage
What if your family's immigration story bypassed the iconic Ellis Island, heading straight to the sunny shores of San Diego? Join us as we sit down with Tom Cesarini, founder of Convivio, who uncovers his rich Sicilian heritage and shares his family's unique journey to America. From working in a macaroni factory to establishing a vibrant enclave in Little Italy, Tom's memories paint a vivid picture of the immigrant experience, filled with both challenges and triumphs.
Explore the intricate world of dual citizenship and family heritage, as we reflect on our grandparents’ nostalgic lives in small Italian towns. Discover why more people are moving back to Italy and the legal processes involved in obtaining dual citizenship. We emphasize the benefits this holds for future generations, such as affordable education and healthcare in the EU, and the importance of preserving our roots.
Finally, immerse yourself in the efforts to preserve Italian heritage in San Diego. Learn about the creation and evolution of Convivio, its cultural programs, digital archives, and exciting plans for a larger cultural center and museum. Hear about key figures like John Mangiapane, who contribute through film and oral history projects, and find out how you can connect with Convivio Society to support the Italian community in Southern California and beyond.
Turnkey. The only thing you’ll lift are your spirits.
What if your family's immigration story bypassed the iconic Ellis Island, heading straight to the sunny shores of San Diego? Join us as we sit down with Tom Cesarini, founder of Convivio, who uncovers his rich Sicilian heritage and shares his family's unique journey to America. From working in a macaroni factory to establishing a vibrant enclave in Little Italy, Tom's memories paint a vivid picture of the immigrant experience, filled with both challenges and triumphs.
Explore the intricate world of dual citizenship and family heritage, as we reflect on our grandparents’ nostalgic lives in small Italian towns. Discover why more people are moving back to Italy and the legal processes involved in obtaining dual citizenship. We emphasize the benefits this holds for future generations, such as affordable education and healthcare in the EU, and the importance of preserving our roots.
Finally, immerse yourself in the efforts to preserve Italian heritage in San Diego. Learn about the creation and evolution of Convivio, its cultural programs, digital archives, and exciting plans for a larger cultural center and museum. Hear about key figures like John Mangiapane, who contribute through film and oral history projects, and find out how you can connect with Convivio Society to support the Italian community in Southern California and beyond.
Turnkey. The only thing you’ll lift are your spirits.
Hey everyone, this is Bob Sorrentino, from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to check out our blog and our YouTube channel and our great sponsors Doce Vita, italy Rooting and Abitivo Casa. And I'm here today with Tom Cesarini, and he's got a great website called Convivio. So welcome, tom. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Bob, thank you Appreciate you having me. I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1:My pleasure, my pleasure. So, before we talk about the website, what's your background, where's your family from and when did they arrive into the US?
Speaker 2:and they came here late 50s, early 60s, when they immigrated, Set up shop here and all these years later they've got one foot in the old country and one foot in the new country. It's that old standby of who are you really and then what's your identity when you immigrate. So it's an interesting story. But I was raised very Italian, very Sicilian. I learned Sicilian first before going to school. I'm grateful that they taught it to me. I learned Italian as well. So I started grade school not knowing any English.
Speaker 2:But my parents said look, you know, he lives here, he was born here, he's going to figure it out best that. He has, you know, access to all the languages. So I'm glad they did that. So I was very fortunate. So I grew up very, very much as an Italophile in terms of the arts, the culture, the heritage, the history, the folklore. So I'm very, very proud of my heritage, my background. So my mother's family was came to this country. My dad's family stayed behind. So when they got married he came out here to be with her, and that was early 60s when they got here.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a great story. Yeah, I love talking to people who were either born there or first generation, because that's really cool for me. My parents were born here, but some of my aunts and uncles were born in Italy and, of course, all my grandparents were born there. So how did they wind up? On the West Coast Straight to San Diego?
Speaker 2:So what happened? The story is this so on my mother's side, her oldest sister was getting married to an Italian American, and so it was one of those situations where they were back in Osborne, the old country, and someone came along to my aunt and showed him a picture of this guy and said hey, do you like this guy? Sure, why not? Next thing, you know, they're coming over here. So my grandfather, since she was getting married that was a little bit more than that, I just kind of make it a little bit whimsical. But my grandfather came out to set up his oldest daughter, my aunt, my mom's sister, and here straight to San Diego. So he was here before anybody and my grandmother stayed behind with her other four children. So then my grandfather decides well, to keep the family together, which was a big thing. Of course, let's all move there. They really had no intention, if not for that. You know, my grandfather worked as a fisherman, he worked in the quarry mines. They were doing okay, they had a great life there. Of course it was post-war, so it wasn't easy, but there was really no intention to move, except for this. What happened with my aunt? So, since he was already here, my grandmother packed up her children, the four children, there were three boys and then one girl. The other girl was my mother and she was 17 at the time and they came straight here by ship. So that's how they got here. I think it was the USS Constitution. So a couple of weeks, I believe, on the ship, not knowing any English, not liking the food you know. To me I equate it to going from one planet to another, of course, at the time. So they ended up in Chicago and, by Chicago, took a train to San Diego and my aunt was already located in our Italian neighborhood, which is now Little Italy with the redevelopment that we've had. So they settled there for several years and that's kind of how the story began with my mom's side.
Speaker 2:And at 17, my mom went to work. At the time there was a San Diego macaroni factory right there in the heart of the neighborhood, so she went straight to work and the kids helped support the family. The youngest sibling was five, so he was fortunate because he got to be socialized in the American way and he went to school and all of that stuff. My mom did get to go to school, take classes, learn English, learned a lot of things, so she enjoyed that, but really she had to go to work, as did her other two brothers, a lot of things.
Speaker 2:So she enjoyed that, but really she had to go to work, as did her other two brothers. They were older to help support and then, since she was with my dad back in the old country, she ended up going back to get him. They got married and then they came together and that was early sixties. So that's kind of how the story began for them. So it wasn't going the traditional route through Ellis Island. It was straight to the West coast for them, so it wasn't going the traditional route through Ellis Island.
Speaker 1:It was straight to the West Coast for them. Wow, that's so interesting. I'll tell you something funny. I actually my wife and I we actually sailed on the Constitution in Hawaii. They were running the Hawaiian cruises back in 1985. A cool boat, you know, that's when ships were ships, right.
Speaker 2:Ships? Yeah, there were two in Montauk there was the constitution and there was another, I think independence, the independence, there you go yep chief. So she makes reference to that story because it was really um, just, I don't even know what the word is for them it was such an experience and, um, you know, and they were down below third class, looking through portholes at this vast ocean not knowing where they were going, kind of a thing.
Speaker 1:And uh, typical immigrant story, right well, yeah, and the cool thing about those two ships were they were. They were, um, I guess, designed uh either just, I think just at the end of the war I don't know if they were finished by the end of the war um, but when we went on, we, we sat at the table with the chief engineer, so he gave us a tour of the, the engineering and everything and he explained to us that when they designed those two ships, they designed them with two radio rooms, uh, two map rooms, two engine rooms, so if they got hit with a torpedo, really they'd be able to keep going.
Speaker 2:Wow, Isn't that interesting. Yeah, I knew very little about it. Yeah, wow, just from their experience of being on the ship and rough waters and the ship going up and down and looking through little holes and things like that, not being able to eat any of the food, they just could not. The smell bothered them, the food bothered them. It was just that kind of thing, crossing the Atlantic, that kind of thing, you know, crossing the Atlantic. And even when they got here, just getting accustomed to everything was very difficult, but of course they did, as everyone does, but yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm sure, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Now have you been, you've been back to the I've been back.
Speaker 2:It's been a long time since I've been back, but I did go back, fortunately, several times, meet my, my father's parents, my grandparents, of course, aunts, uncles, cousins, lots of cousins still there, and a lot of cousins actually, you know, moved out of Italy. They're in different parts of the world South America, some in Germany, just kind of all over. Some came to Milwaukee so was fortunate to meet everybody. It's been a long time. I'd like to get back there again, so definitely need to do that. Miss it, you know there's there's always a nagging of going back. I think it's a taste of honey is worse than none at all, as they say. So I know what it's like, you know. So it's like oh, I missed that part of it, I missed that lifestyle, which, of course, is vastly different than ours here, and there's something to be said about, about the way of life there, for sure oh, definitely there's, there's no question.
Speaker 1:I mean, we went, our first trip was 20 something years ago, and then we just did the tourist thing. My son was a baby, uh, and then, you know, we went two years ago and then we went last year, uh, to to the hometowns and things and it's, it's a completely different experience. You know, um, you know the food, right, you know people think my daughter thought she was going to have the best fettuccine alfredo in italy that she ever had. I had to break the news.
Speaker 2:It doesn't exist, oh yeah, that's already mentioned here, yeah yeah yeah, that's uh, so funny.
Speaker 1:So now, another funny thing is I have two cousins in san diego, actually, oh, wow, uh, so I'll have to put you in touch with them. One works at the consulate, uh, and the other one owns a restaurant, um, and I'll have to look up the name of the restaurant at the consulate in la, I guess, I guess I guess so, or or interesting, he does something else in San Diego, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure how to point it out.
Speaker 1:But I know the one has a restaurant and I'm pretty sure it's in San Diego, so I'll have to check it out Please let me know That'd be great, and they're the only other. My grandmother's name was Pier Mallo, and other than my grandmother, who had come in the 1900s. These two cousins obviously came, I guess, within the last 10 or 15 years, or something like that, I see. So they're the only other Piemalos that ever came to America. Everybody else is still back in Italy.
Speaker 2:So the regions were from where, from both sides, your grandmother and your grandfather?
Speaker 1:So my mom's parents were from Torito body Okay, so on that side, and my dad's family was from, you know, basically around Naples.
Speaker 1:But they eventually did live in Naples, actually in the city, both both my, both my grandparents, but my, my grandfather was born in Pagani Okay, outside of there, but my grandfather was born in Pagani, okay, outside of there, and my grandmother was born in Masadi, soma, which is now Chirkula, and that's where they lived and that's where my oldest uncle and my two oldest aunts were born there and lived there and they were I think my uncle was probably, I want to say about maybe 10 or something like that when they came and my aunts were like six and two or something like that.
Speaker 2:And they came straight to New York.
Speaker 1:They came straight to New York. My grandmother's aunt lived here with her husband. They came in 1905. So you know, I don't know why both my parents were at the the um, my father was the youngest in his family and my mother was the second youngest. So my, you know, my grandparents were older, uh, by that time, and you know I didn't I was, you know, 10. I thought to ask questions, right, and I used to play cards with my grandmother on my mother's mom and I never thought to ask her about Italy or anything like that. People ask me, you know, when they have these questions. You know, if you could go back in time, who would you want to meet and, like my grandmother Of?
Speaker 2:course yeah. So many stories yeah.
Speaker 1:My great grandparents.
Speaker 2:You know, we don't think about it now. We look back in retrospect and say oh, in hindsight should have, could have done this and should have done that you know, so you're.
Speaker 1:So your grandpa. They must have been thrilled when you went back, when you were you know, yeah, yeah I was again lucky to see them, um, my dad's side, so a few times.
Speaker 2:That was great. Um, and just, you know, again, the way of life in a small town where my parents grew up. Seeing that and experiencing that, you know, I kind of scratched my head why the heck did you leave? This was great. So it's funny now because I look at you know, I also serve as the honorary consulate in San Diego, so we do a lot of, you know, passport renewals and helping co-national with that kind of stuff. People want to get their citizenship, of course nowadays their dual citizenship. Students are studying abroad in droves, getting their student visas, and a lot of people now are buying property there, as you know, and it seems like the tables have turned right. Everyone's leaving the country to go over there instead of back in the day when they would all come over here. So there's this different kind migration happening. Um, of course I put it on a grander scale than it is, but you get the idea of what I'm trying to say is everyone's going over there to say there's got to be a better way.
Speaker 1:We're missing something here, I think yeah, well, I, you know, I have a very good friend. She moved to. We went to grammar school together. She moved to los angeles when she was like 18 or 19 or something like that, and I guess it's. I guess it's five or six years now. She got a citizenship and moved to solano and that's it. You know, she's decided that's. She always wanted to live there, sure, and a lot of folks.
Speaker 2:They're working mobily, you know, remotely, virtually whatever they're, where they get jobs, they're doing what they can and they love the lifestyle, so good for them, kudos, yeah yeah, I'm going from my citizenship.
Speaker 1:Um, I wish I'd done it years ago, um, but I'm working through an attorney who he'll be able to do uh, mine and my kids oh good together. Um, they could petition the court. I'm not going to go through the council because it'll take a million years. In New York City, like Los Angeles, I don't have that kind of time.
Speaker 2:But you have to go through the court system there and try to speed it up.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and he's. You know, they told me it's. It's basically easier because they said we can explain to the judge. You know, if there's a difference in the name or date or something like that, you know we could present and we could talk to. You know we have a little bit more flexibility, but the main thing is they could do me and the kids all in one petition.
Speaker 1:So, that that makes it. That makes it that I want them to have it. I mean, they were in their twenties but I want them to have it because I just think it's good to have you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they get all the benefits of it. Why not absolutely?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, you know, I was just talking to my my I guess she's my third cousin here in america and she's got an eight-year-old and ten-year-old. And I said, I said, if you get citizenship, I says, you know, if the kids ever want to go to college there, it's, you know, it's like 10 or something like even less than 10% of what it costs you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, health insurance, and you're a citizen of the EU after that, not just Italy, so that's great Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, which is really fantastic. Now, were you able to? How did you get your citizenship? Are you able? You're going to?
Speaker 2:ask me the same question. Yeah, so for me, my dad never became a citizen. When he came here, he wanted to retain it and, again, back in the day, there was no dual citizenship, so you had to renounce your citizenship. In order to become an American, you had to renounce the Italian one. So he says, heck, no, I'm keeping mine. And so he got a green card, and he had a permanent green resident alien status forever since he came. My mom became a citizen, though, so she did to bring him over, so I was able to qualify through my dad easily. So at that point, as a minor, my mom just had to send documents in to the consulate. Because I'm already a citizen because of my father, I was going to ask you the same question how did you get yours? What was the, your great, your great-grandparents?
Speaker 1:well, I, I qualify to everybody, um, and so I was gonna do it through my father's uh, parents, my father's father, um, but they were from naples. And then you know the the lawyer said you know, naples is like, you know, it's a lot of people there and the courts are different and you know, they're very a little bit more strict. And then so, um, I decided to go, I qualified through, qualified through my mother, because I was born in 1951, so I was born after 48 after 48, you know uh, my, so I qualify, my brother does it.
Speaker 1:And uh, so, um, when we went there, when we went to Torito last year, and I told them I need, you know, I need the birth and the death and you know the birth and then the marriage certificates and all of that, they were just so great. They said whatever you need, just tell the lawyer, call us, we'll send you the stuff tomorrow. Whenever he asks, we'll send it out there. So you know when you have that, because if you try to to get, go through the comune and write them, and you know if you're lucky, if they answer you um, right, but if you know, I have it in there now. So, and they said, also, you know when you get, when you get the citizenship, you know then you have to be registered in the comune. And they said, sometimes that's a pain, right, but they told me the same thing. They said you're not going to have any problem, you're a citizen of Torito, don't worry, we love you and we'll, whatever you need, you're going to get so.
Speaker 2:so you went through your mom. So, at the time of so tracing it back, your mom was a citizen when you were born.
Speaker 1:Well, my grandparents, my mom's parents, never, never became citizens. That's why Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:They never became citizens. My and your mom was, which means then you can get it right, yeah right, my um uh, my father's parents, my grandmother never became a citizen, okay my grandfather became a citizen, but it was after my father was born, so he naturalized after, so that was too yeah, yeah, so for your brother. Can't the courts petition can? Can the attorneys petition the court for your brother?
Speaker 1:no, no, I don't think. I think I wouldn't say positively, but I think I don't. I think the 48 rule, uh, you can't apply through the for the maternal line at all because of 48, but I thought there was a way to petition the court.
Speaker 2:Now I don't know.
Speaker 1:Oh, maybe it's. You know they always. You know they're always changing the rules and everything right. So yeah, we don't handle the citizenship here.
Speaker 2:It all goes through la, but um yeah, I'm not sure about that, um so anyway, so let's, let's talk about come, come maybe.
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, it's a fantastic website, so, thank you. You know when and why did you start that?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, so that started 2003. So here in san diego I had volunteered part of that for several groups. We have a lot of, you know, arts and cultural groups, community civic groups in San Diego can all do in their piece to promote Italian culture. But there was, as in so many different regions right, there's sort of a lack of a common ground. You know, with the Italians we're very regional and we kind of do our own thing and the groups can certainly be that way as well, kind of working independently.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to kind of create a point of reference for the community here, with the goal of establishing some kind of large-scale cultural center, a historical resource, a museum, so we can sort of preserve our heritage and our cultural traditions that were really disappearing here. So now we have, you know, for the past 30 years we have a new little Italy here that's been redeveloped. The neighborhood's been redeveloped, it's formally managed by an association, a business improvement district that kind of revitalized the neighborhood economically and they run it. So we have the business side, but the, the cultural and heritage side was kind of disappearing. So I wanted to do something in that regard, so I named it Convivio.
Speaker 2:Convivio, of course, coming together, uniting, is inherent in the name. It's, it's. You know, that's what it denotes and that was sort of the impetus to do this. And so through the past 20 years we've done many, many programs. We've developed digital archives for the community, oral histories that we've preserved, that we've captured all kinds of different arts and cultural programs music presentations, concerts, film screenings, educational events and lectures, you name it, we do it. And we do have a base in Little Italy. Now it's a small cottage, it's a historical cottage that we run out of, but now we are going to hopefully soon be developing a larger space and we will have that larger scale cultural center and museum that we can work out of, hopefully in the next few years. So that's kind of been the trajectory these past 20 some years for Convivio Kind of a way to unite us all under that umbrella, yeah uh, yeah, no, that's, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:And you know, that's kind of why I do what I do, because I I really feel where and you know, michael feels the same way we we feel like the you know, the third, fourth and fifth generations.
Speaker 2:They don't, they don't really have a clue, you know right yeah, just too far removed from it, um, but hopefully there'll be a resurgence, I think. And you see, some of that people wanting to know, wanting to know their, their heritage, their lineage, their background, their culture, and preserve as as far as much as those ties are getting looser, I think there's somewhat of a return to that and kind of that knowledge of where we come from. It's important to know where we're going to know where you're coming from, of course, not to be cliched, but it is true I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know I was. I was scrolling through and looking at the you know the board and some of the people that you have on, and I I found a. I found John Mangiapane, and so, and the reason I highlight that is that when I was growing up in Corona, queens, there was a big bakery there, leonard's, and the owner was Leonard. Leonardo Mangiapane Eat bread right. Eat bread Right and his sons were all boxers. Oh, wow, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, john's great. John is our film consultant. We've done a lot of the oral histories and the documentary we're working on is with John as our video director and editor. So he's been instrumental in sort of telling that story of the Italians in San Diego on film. So we're working on a big documentary for that. Something I've wanted to do for some time. We're finally starting to realize that dream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so the site, though mean it's not, it's not exclusive to people who live in san diego.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know you have a lot of different things out there, you have a blog and things like that right, yeah, we're focused, of course, on san diego, but we have, you know, followers and supporters, you know, regionally and certainly nationally, and some even globally, to follow what we do. Um, we have an event or we have a program that we offer. We get just everyone, from different backgrounds, who attend, which is great to see. That Italo files people, of course, that you know grew up in San Diego, but a lot of people from out of town or non-Italians that just want to learn and want to participate, which is always great to see. All roads lead to Rome, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, no exactly. And so what kind of things do you have on the blog?
Speaker 2:So the blog we have different articles, some on history, some on just general cultural things, some articles on the blog on what we're doing. So just random mix of different articles, different posts on our blog that really hopefully sort of attract people and get them involved, get them engaged with what we're doing. We might blog about some events that we have or some local color, local stories, different kinds of things, and we have a separate site just for archives or digital images that you can access through conviviosocietyorg. It has its own web address, italianarchivesorg, and there you can learn about the history of the Italians in San Diego through digital images. And we'll be we'll constantly upload images to it and we'll be uploading videos as well soon images to it, and we'll be uploading videos as well soon.
Speaker 1:So that's interesting. So so you know, for people listening when. When did the italians first arrive in san diego?
Speaker 2:so the history of the italian presence in san diego goes back to late 1800s, so about 1888. In 1886, 1888, we started to see a few, started to start to arrive, uh, in san diego. They settled near the waterfront, of course, the italian neighborhood down there, which is now little. They settled near the waterfront, of course, the Italian neighborhood down there, which is now Little Italy, right on the waterfront, close to it. And an influx of the Italians came from San Diego. So after the great 1906 earthquake, because a lot of Italians had settled in San Diego, started a fishing industry there but contributed to it. Then, after the quake you know the city city unfortunately a mess, it's on fire A lot of Italians heard about fishing in San Diego, which was starting to boom, and the Chinese and Japanese were already here doing some fishing. The Portuguese as well became a prominent group in fishing as well as other ethnic groups. But after the quake we see a large influx of Italians come down the coast and they settled in San Diego and really helped contribute to the start of the fishing industry here, and at first they were fishing for sardines, rock cod, but then came tuna and once the tuna industry boomed, san Diego became the tuna capital of the world for decades. So all the tuna in the world was coming out of San Diego decades. So all the tuna in the world was coming out of San Diego. So the cannery started to set up on the waterfront. All the boats would come in, all the groups fished together and it became a really huge industry here. The women, many of them, worked in the canneries while the men were out fishing.
Speaker 2:And so the Italian colony was born early 1900s, as it was called, sort of seeing it as an outpost of you know, the old country. Eventually pre-war and post-war, that was sort of the heyday of the community here in San Diego. For the Italians it was just known as the Italian neighborhood. And then when the fishing declined in the late 70s, early 80s and of course our freeway, the Interstate 5, which cut right through the neighborhood when they constructed in the mid-60s, also broke up the neighborhood. So a lot of Italians moved out.
Speaker 2:That with the decline of the fishing industry kind of started the demise of the neighborhood, among other reasons, but those were two primary ones and everybody kind of moved out and the community kind of just fell by the wayside Into the 80s. And then in the early 90s merchants got together and again they redeveloped the neighborhood to create now a little Italy and kind of you know, as any community gets gentrified bring in new business and developers and really kind of bring it back to some kind of glory, which is what they've done. They've done a great job with the revitalization and a lot of businesses have moved in. We see a lot of new sort of immigrant times coming in, business partnerships and business individuals setting up shops here, restaurants and different kinds of retail establishments. So San Diego's Little Italy has become sort of a destination for business folks and residents and tourists alike.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 2:And it's formally managed by the Little Italy Association.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool. You know, all Little Italy is basically gone. You know, from New York. Arthur Avenue is still kind of there, but you know the rest of and you know in New York there were many, many, many, many of them. But interesting thing that you said about the interstate cutting through the neighborhood. You know, people don't realize that Italian neighborhoods were split by interstates. You know, Makes me nuts when I see these things where they say, oh, you know, they split the neighborhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and through whatever eminent domain, whatever you know, they took over the houses, the property. They had to move, they were forced to move, you know. So then San Diego is very large. They moved to the suburbs, whatever they had to do. But when I say it cut through the heart of the neighborhood, it literally cut through. If you visit today that Interstate 5 is going right through what used to be all of the decline of the fishing industry due to, you know, environmental laws and cheaper imports and things like that. Unfortunately, the community just kind of you know, disappeared and through the decades in the 80s it was just called harbor view, for obvious reasons it had a great view of the harbor there back even prior to that. Early on it was called middletown. We have Old Town, san Diego, we have New Town. Of course, downtown Middletown was where it's situated now, in between.
Speaker 1:So Middletown is where the Italian colony, kind of you know, sprang from and then and I'm I'm guessing because they were close to the water they must have been impacted during the war, right, big time yeah, and what?
Speaker 2:during the war? It's interesting because the government actually acquisition many of the fishing boats to patrol the South Pacific. So a lot of the fishermen saw their boats taken saying, hey, we need your boats to go patrol. They eventually did get them back, but that also did put a sort of a halt to the fishing for that time period during the war. And even during the war on the streets, you know there was a warden. You know air raid warden there was. You know we talked actually about a lot of the Japanese American internment, the camps, and the same thing happened to the Italians, not in great numbers like the Japanese, but it's certainly it happened to them as well.
Speaker 2:In San Diego, you know a government official would come and there are many stories of people knocking on you know residents doors saying we need to check your papers, basically. And the irony, of course, is you had a lot of the soldiers, the Italian American boys were fighting. You know, overseas, you know the women were involved in the war effort. The men were involved in the war effort, of course, and they're getting knocks on their door saying, you know, you guys are enemy aliens. So what's going on there? That was the time, so that's a little-known story that needs to be told as well. So many stories, you know. The Italians, americans, had curfews in the neighborhood. Some officials confiscated short-wave radios. So many stories of that during the wartime, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, my um, my mom's parents I have their alien registration cards photo of it, you know, uh. So you know, has that picture and they've been. You know they were, I guess, in the late 50s, early 60s. You know, right, uh and uh. But I didn't know that they actually confiscated the boats. That's something, yeah.
Speaker 2:Took the boats for quite some time and, yeah, they sent them down and you know, make sure everything's cool down there, as it were, many of the boats, because at that point, you know, the fishing started with little bait boats. They were small, of course, you know bamboo, pole fishing but then a lot of the Italian innovations, they started going to what was called super sauners. They had big nets with rigs and automatic, you know, machinery. These boats were huge so they could travel farther. So you know, that was eventually in the 60s and 70s. But as the boats progressed, you know, there were a lot of bigger boats that the government could, could acquisition and they would call them yard patrol boats, y boats, yippies.
Speaker 1:Colloquially they were known as yippies that's, that's something a lot of stories of those as well here in san diego well, and and my uncle, because he was left behind, behind by my grandparents. He had a he. You know, after the war they stopped the immigration. My whole family was here except for my one uncle, and at the end of the war my grandmother had four sons in the service and, uh, he had to wait in canada for like five, four or five years sure yeah it didn't matter that his brothers fought in the war no, I know that's what was going on at the time.
Speaker 2:So to me again, a lot of history that needs to be told, trying to preserve as many stories as we can, like that in San Diego, through a more formal process, of course, and hopefully we have a space someday where we can share those Digitally. It's great we can do a lot digitally nowadays and that's very important, but I think having a physical space where people can come together is also important and they can join and kind of learn together. So that's what we're about.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and I think I don't know if it opened yet. But you know, the new museum in Little Italy is either just open or it's about to open. I mean, they're like years behind.
Speaker 2:I know they were developing a new building.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, you know it's a bespoke building just for us.
Speaker 2:it was in the was in like an old bank building before or something like that and uh, and now they're going to have, you know, exhibits and rotating exhibits and media rooms and right, uh, things like that so that's something that we want to do for san diego again, there's a huge italian presence here, you know, through the decades, again going back to the 1880s, um, such a strong presence, such a strong influence, um in san diego, and unfortunately those stories are disappearing and that that heritage is disappearing.
Speaker 1:So we really need to do something to preserve it, you know well, and you know, and that's important because you know us new yorkers, um, we, you know, we'll tell you that. You know, all the italians are in new york, right, and I found that, you know they, we'll tell you that you know, all the Italians are in New. York, right, and I found that you know they're all over the country. They're in Ohio, they're in Pennsylvania, they're in San. Francisco, Texas, Colorado.
Speaker 2:Everywhere you know there's a lot of museums and cultural centers. You know, nationally, everywhere, yeah, all over the place, yeah.
Speaker 1:Doing some great work. So before we go Tom, where can people find Convivio?
Speaker 2:Yeah, our website is conviviosocietyorg. All the information is on there. They can follow through the social channels, of course. At Convivio Society they can learn about what we do. They can link to our archive site through there. There's a page on heritage in San Diego and shows some of the oral histories we've done, some of the things we're working on and they can link to the digital images through Convivio Society as well and some of the things we do now, our programs and events. They can see all of that in our background and that also links to the consulate. So for those people that live in Southern California Nevada, arizona, new Mexico the jurisdiction is Los Angeles. So if they need help with anything that's consular related, we also help them as well through the Honorary Consulate Office in San Diego.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. That's really great.