If you go to Sicily

By James Calogero, Globe Correspondent, 01/04/98

The double identity is popular locally because of the large number and the importance of Porticellians in the Gloucester fishing industry.

In Gloucester, Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association, concurred with Giuseppe Germano, Italian consul general in Boston, that in New England Italians with a Sicilian background outnumber those from any other region of Italy with a heavy concentration of them in Gloucester.

Sanfilippo, who has headed the Gloucester fishing industry advocacy group for 20 years, said in an interview that she has found that about 32 percent of the city's population of about 29,000 are of Italian heritage, 98 percent of them Sicilian by birth or parentage. ``Many of them, like me,'' she said, ``are from Porticello.'' When we told her we were heading for a tour of Sicily, she practically demanded that we visit Porticello. ``Its beautiful,'' she said, ``and it hasn't yet been discovered by tourists. Look up my cousin. He'll show you around.'' She told us that he runs a restaurant called Francu u Piscaturi (Sicilian for Frank the Fisherman), right at the water's edge. It was a suggestion well worth heeding.

Porticello, a 20-minute drive from Palermo, offers a stark contrast to the traffic, the noise, the hustle, the crowds, and the somberness of old buildings in Sicily's capital city. In Porticello, one sees low-slung homes and apartments, many of them painted in bright pastel colors on a hillside leading down to Largo Pescheria, the town's main square, off which more than 400 fishing boats are moored.

The boats, too, are painted in gay colors with names on them, many crudely hand-drawn, of the wives or children of the owner. One of the colorful scenes in Porticello is the blessing by the parish priest with a Mass when a boat is named. We find Sanfilippo's cousin, Francesco Crivello, on a dock negotiating the purchase of fish for that evening's restaurant menu. Most of the fleet is already in after venturing out on trips ranging from part of a day to a month, depending on what they hope to catch. Porticello fishermen generally come in with tuna, swordfish, anchovies, squid, and red shrimp. Porticello supplies most of the fish consumed in Palermo. The daily catch is as much as 20 tons, we are told. Crivello tells us that more than 80 percent of the men in Porticello are involved in the local fishing industry. ``Even the children,'' he says, ``they play on the square near the water and often their toys are play boats, and broken fishing gear and nets. Our mayor, though, Salvatore Roccopalumbo, was not a fisherman, but his father was.''

On a tour of the village, not yet despoiled by tourists, he points out a Norman castle and an ongoing archeological dig near a hilltop as evidence of the town's historic significance. Then he points to a modest house in the adjoining hamlet of Sant Elia and says, ``That's where Joe Alioto (former mayor of San Francisco) was born. His people were fishermen. He was a baby when the family moved to the United States.'' Crivello says the link between Gloucester and Porticello was established more than 50 years ago when Porticellian fishermen emigrated to Boston and then found Gloucester and its fishing industry better suited to them.

Peter LoCoco, whose business in Porticello is to supply ice to the fishing boats to keep the catch fresh, and who for many years lived in the Boston area, says the link between the two communities continues strong, a lot because of amore.

He explained: ``It is quite common for a Porticello man living in Gloucester to come home to marry a Porticello girl, and vice versa. There is a lot of traveling back and forth.'' LoCoco said the one time in the year when most emigres from Porticello try to return home is the first Sunday of October when the village observes the feast in honor of its patron saint, Madonna del Lume (Madonna of Light).

LoCoco, chairman of the festa committee, says it is a time for religious reflection, family reunions, and celebration. It is the one day in the year when the image of the Madonna on a slate is taken down from a wall of the church named in her honor and paraded through the village on the shoulders of barefooted men. During the celebration, many games are organized, one of the most popular of which is the competition to see who can climb a 10-foot-high mast, greased with fat or soap, and capture the flag at the top.

On the following Sunday, families, friends and guests climb into fishing boats for a colorful procession at sea to nearby Capo Zafferano to bring flowers to a little chapel where there is a copy of the sacred image of the Madonna del Lume. LoCoco says the chapel is located where legend says the slate with the Madonna's image had washed ashore hundreds of years ago. He adds that the festival ends with a fireworks display that attracts people from all the surrounding hamlets. He said there is also a festival for Porticello's Madonna del Lume in Gloucester, but it's a smaller observance and thus made a part of the city's festival in honor of St. Peter.

Crivello sent his regards to all the Porticellians in Gloucester and says is sorry he can't visit because he goes to Japan for several weeks every year.

Why does a Sicilian travel to Japan instead of Gloucester, where so many of his relatives and paesans are? I ask. He replies, ``I go there to teach Japanese how to cook Sicilian style under the auspices of a local winery. We Sicilians use a lot of wine, you know.''

Right.