Why Sicily is luring Americans
Some have family ties, and all love the beauty and the people
By James Calogero, Globe Correspondent, 01/04/98
ALERMO, Sicily -- An increasing number of American tourists are being
lured to Sicily by its archeological and religious shrines, beautiful beaches,
an active volcano, year-round temperate climate, zesty cuisine, and
gregariously friendly people.
Many of these travelers are Americans of Sicilian heritage who as kids in
the North End and East Boston used to say, ``Boy, am I glad my father
(grandfather) took the boat,'' but now want to see where it all began for
them. Other visitors are Americans born in Sicily who go back to visit
relatives left behind.
Typical of these is Maria Rizzo, an attorney in Everett, a frequent
traveler to her native land, who says she sees something new in Sicily with
every trip. She says, ``Most of my fellow travelers go there for family
reasons. Their snapshots and stories of Sicilian wonders encourage a lot of
others to go there.''
Rizzo says the beauty of Sicily is such that few people would ever
emigrate from there if it weren't for an unemployment rate that reaches as
high as 30 percent, and a stagnant economy that depends heavily on farming.
She quotes an anonymous source as having written, ``Take the Sicilian out of
Sicily and he will achieve.'' That, no doubt, accounts for the emigration of
more than 3 million Sicilians since the unification of Sicily with Italy in
1860 -- 80 percent of them to America.
Another type visitor, travel agents say, is the history buff aware that in
Sicily, you can walk the same paths that Archimedes and Plato trod in the
years Before Christ when Siracusa (Syracuse) was the island's capital and
which today has a well-preserved archeological complex to match anything
Athens has to offer.
For those of literary taste, there is in Agrigento, the birthplace and
lifelong residence of author Luigi Pirandello, who in 1934 won the Nobel Prize
for literature. His classic was ``Six Characters in Search of an Author.''
For others, there are resorts by the dozen, some of them, like Taormina,
world famous. There are also mountains to climb, including Mount Etna, twice
the height of New Hampshire's Mount Washington, which still emits an
occasional belch of smoke, and the mountain at Montelepre outside Palermo,
where the Italian Robin Hood, Salvatore (Turiddu) Giuliano, not long ago hid
out for months while robbing the rich purportedly to give to the poor. And for
everybody there are ancient stone tombs, Greek temples, Norman castles,
Roman amphitheaters, Byzantine missions, Baroque churches, and Arab
cloisters, all reflecting Sicily's storied past. For beauty and scent, there
are groves of lemon, orange, almond, pistachio, and olive trees, and fields of
wheat everywhere.
You will find that Sicilians love and warmly welcome Americans, with whom
they have a strong affinity, and for good reason: More Italian-Americans in
New England stem from Sicily than from any other region of Italy, according to
Giovanni Germano, Italian consul general in Boston whose jurisdiction includes
all New England except Connecticut. ``There are about 1.5 million
Italian-Americans in the five states my office covers, of which about 300,000
have a Sicilian background,'' he said. ``Ten to 15 thousand of them are first
generation Americans born in Sicily.''
Germano also said that in New England the greatest concentration of
Sicilians in proportion to the total population is in Gloucester, many of them
from the fishing village of Porticello, just outside Palermo.
Sicilians are particularly proud of such Sicilian-Americans as Frank
Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, movie directors Frank Capra and Vincente Minnelli
(Liza's father), and uncountable political and business leaders. For
all that, though, it is impossible to ignore that Sicily also spawned the
likes of Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese. In Boston and even in Rome when we
mentioned that we were heading for Sicily, the typical comment was along the
lines of ``Uh-oh, be careful -- that's Mafia country.''
In our recent travel through big cities and little villages in Sicily, we
never witnessed or heard of a Mafia shootout or ever felt threatened, even on
late-night walks. It was common to see women travel alone at night on public
transportation without fear.
A cab driver in Parlermo tells us, ``Certamenti, the Mafia exists in
Sicily and always will as long as there is omerta [the code of silence]. Defy
the Mafia and you or a family member incurs the penalty of death. Mind your
own business and you are perfectly safe anywhere you go in Sicily. The Mafia
is not unaware of the importance of tourism to the Sicilian economy and goes
out of its way not to bring harm to tourists. If a tourist's handbag is
snatched that's not the work of the Mafia but that of delinquents.''
Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, with an area of 9926
square miles, is about the size of New Hampshire, but its population of more
than 5.1 million is about 4 1/2 times that of the Granite State. More
than one writer has called Sicily the cradle of invasion. It was first overrun
by the Sicels (thus the island's name), then by the Phoenicians, the Greeks,
the Carthaginians, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Saracens, the Normans
(which accounts for some blond, blue-eyed Sicilians), the French, and the
Spaniards -- all preceding the Italians.
By far, Sicily's number one tourist attraction is the resort town of
Taormina, high on a terrace of Mount Tauro with a spectacular view of the
Ionian Sea and the occasionally fuming 11,053-foot-high Mount Etna. The
locals say it was one of Winston Churchill's favorite vacation spots, not to
mention much of Europe's jet set. The wedding scene in ``The Godfather'' was
filmed in Forza d'Agro near Taormina.
If there is a drawback to Taormina, it's the town's preoccupation with
the tourist trade to the extent that you can't turn in any direction without
facing yet another glitzy souvenir shop.
In Taormina, we heeded the recommendation of our cousin, Armando Lunetta,
a public relations executive in Catania, and headed for Ristorante Il Corsaro
(The Pirate) off the beaten track at the base of the mountain. We knew we were
in for a treat when we learned that the owner, Giuseppe Caltobiano, for 22
years had been private chef in Los Angeles for Gaylord Hauser, who wrote
extensively on food and health and served as a consultant on those subjects
with a long list of Hollywood stars as clients. There's good reason that
Caltobiano has been host at Il Corsaro to such dignitaries as Fred Astaire,
Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Rita Hayworth: The food was superb.
After dinner, Caltabiano graciously walked with us down a nearby lane
shaded by fruit and olive trees to point out the villas once occupied by Greta
Garbo and Caltabiano's old boss, Gaylord Hauser. Hurry before the tourists
discover Il Corsaro.
From Taormina, go south along the east coast until you come to Syracuse,
founded in 734 BC and once the most dominant seaport on the Mediterranean. Not
only does it boast Archimedes and Plato as its sons, but natives say that the
apostle Paul stopped there long enough to convert the city to Christianity
before continuing on to Rome.
Highlights in the city's well-tended archeological zone are the Greek
Theater with its seating carved out of rock in the fifth century; and an
artificial grotto measuring about 25 yards high and about 70 yards long in the
shape of an ear and known for centuries as Dionysius Ear. Legend has it that
Dionysius, the tyrant ruler, took advantage of the grotto's extraordinary
acoustics to eavesdrop on his prisoners kept in the Ear -- leading one to
believe it was the first case of bugging a prison cell.
Along the southern coast, just east of Agrigento, is the town of Gela,
which was the striking point of the last of the many invasions of Sicily. The
assault landing involved about 60,000 American soldiers led by General George
Patton in July 1943 when Italy, under Mussolini, was allied with Hitler in
World War II. What the American soldiers found was not resistance but a
friendly welcome by Sicilians, many of whom had relatives in America.
By the second day of the invasion, Sicilians were inviting American
soldiers to their homes for spaghetti dinners and volunteering to fight on the
American side. By the third day, women were crowding into Patton's
headquarters asking when the Army would start schools so their children could
learn English to go to the United States. On the sixth day, Gios Connero, a
farmer who had volunteered as a litter bearer, was hit by a shell fragment and
was evacuated to the United States with the wounded Americans. He lived in the
United States for 14 years. By the 37th day, Italian soldiers were giving
themselves up to the Americans by the thousands and there wasn't a German
soldier left in Sicily.
In 1947, Sicily was established as an autonomous region under the
Italian Constitution with nine provinces, a parliament of 90 members each
elected for four years with power to legislate, and Palermo as the capital.
Sicily has come a long way since the days of the early emigres. Don't
expect to see straw-hatted donkeys pulling gaily decorated Sicilian carts, or
many old women all in black, either in mourning or, as comedian Pat Cooper
used to say, ``ready ina case somebody die.''
Here's what today's Sicily is really like:
``You have a cousin, Maria LaTorre Fretto, in the village of
Pietraperzia,'' I was advised. ``She's 84 and a widow. It would be nice if you
went to visit her.''
I had the vision of a little old lady, black stockings, black shoes,
black dress, black shawl over her head sitting on a kitchen chair outside her
front door, peeling fava beans. When I looked her up, Maria looked as though
she had just stepped out of a Milan fashion house wearing a sharp gray suit,
sheer, flesh-colored hose, neatly coifed tinted gray hair and high heels. She
told me she goes dancing just about every Saturday night and, more than once
recently, won prizes for her adeptness on the ballroom floor. That's Sicily
today. One thing American tourists are sure to learn: Sicilians know
how to celebrate. Every city and town has a patron saint and there is no
better time to celebrate than during the festa on that saint's day. And
Americans are welcomed to join in the festivities.
And you don't even have to know the language. Sicilians still talk with
their hands, their shoulders, their heads and their eyes. Every little motion
has its own meaning.
Capische?
