Italians, descendants part of community’s mainstream

Exactly 517 years ago tomorrow, on Oct. 12, 1492, an Italian navigator working for Spain spotted land in what is now known as the Bahamas, thereby kicking off an unprecedented age of exploration and expansion.

Italians didn't come to America in great numbers until 400 years after Columbus spotted land, but nearly every city in the United States, including Annapolis, developed an Italian community.

In Annapolis, Italians settled on Fleet and East streets, near their jobs at the Naval Academy, and some lived on West Street.

"I was born downtown on East Street, at 67 East St.," said Tony Ristaino, 84. "I was born here because my grandfather was invited to (come to Annapolis and) rebuild the Naval Academy Band" in the 1920s following the death of famed bandleader Charles A. Zimmerman.

Ristaino said his grandfather, who played several instruments, brought with him from Italy a number of excellent musicians and his 14-year-old son, who would grow up to become Ristaino's father.

"Annapolis was a wonderful place to be a boy," Ristaino said, recalling the many creeks and piers that were always open for fishing.

In a comprehensive history of Annapolis slated to be published soon by Johns Hopkins University Press, historian Jane McWilliams said, "The first Italian immigrants of modern times came to town in the mid-1890s as Naval Academy bandsmen and then a few years later as stonecutters for the new Naval Academy. Some brought their families with them, others sent for relatives when they could or provided the connections that attracted friends from the home country. ... (N)ames like Florestano, Maggio, Schifanelli, Ciccarone and Rosati became part of the local scene."

Angelo "Angie" Calabrese, 77, recently stood in his barbershop in West Annapolis and talked about his life. On one side of the room were the ice cream parlor chairs that once sat in the barbershop his father ran on West Street.

Calabrese's father came from Sicily in 1919, after World War I, along with his four brothers. All five of the young Italian immigrants were barbers; two settled in Annapolis, two in Baltimore and one in Florida.

Calabrese and his brother, John, grew up in the home, which was the back of the barbershop, and followed in the family business and became barbers, but their children have not followed in their footsteps.

"I am the last one (barber working); I think that is why I hold on," he said.

"My father did well; he came here and couldn't speak English, but he learned," Calabrese said.

Language has always been an issue for immigrants, and starting in 1905, in New York City, Italians formed The Order Sons of Italy, a national mutual-aid society that gave immigrants a place to learn English and helped them preserve their culture.

Italians in Annapolis had local organizations but joined the national Sons of Italy in 1970.

Last Tuesday, a small group of these immigrants' descendants sat around a table at the lodge on Ridgely Avenue. They were there to learn Italian.

Bygone days

One of the students, Ristaino, the musician's grandson who grew up on East Street, is a retired chemical engineer who lives in the prestigious Pendennis Mount neighborhood.

Ristaino said his own father worked very hard earning a living with a pushcart, selling fruits and vegetables up and down the streets of Annapolis.

After a Piggly Wiggly grocery store moved into town and drove him out of business, Ristaino's father found work at the Naval Academy, where he earned a steady but somewhat modest income.

Ristaino said that as a child, he often collected old newspapers to sell to the fishmongers along City Dock, who used the paper to wrap their product.

"That's where your paper got the name 'Crab Wrapper,' " he told a Sunday Capital reporter. "We'd go around and get the old papers and sell them for 3 cents or 5 cents a pound. If I had a shoebox, I could sell it for a nickel - they wanted it to put crabs in."

Like many in the local Italian community, Ristaino was baptized at St. Mary's Church and married there. Looking ahead toward the funeral that will mark the end of his life, he said of St. Mary's, "I was hatched, matched and probably will be dispatched there."

Ristaino said that as a child, he learned a lot about life by exploring the streets of Annapolis, and he still remembers a lesson he learned when he spent a nickel for a candy bar.

"I remember an old black man who saw me, and he said, 'If I had a nickel, I'd buy half a loaf of bread,' " Ristaino said.

"I don't see many children in downtown Annapolis anymore," he added.

Ristaino fathered 10 children, eight of whom went to college and several of whom own their own businesses.

Of the most recent wave of immigrants, the Hispanics, Ristaino said, "I see the banditos who commit crimes, but I see so many more good people, the Hispanics who go to St. John Neumann (Church) on Sunday. They are great Christians, so what the hell?"

Recent generations

One of the students in the Sons of Italy Italian class was Ristaino's niece, Janet Vitelozzi-Alexopulos. She was born on East Street on Columbus Day, 1954, and will turn 55 tomorrow.

"How about that?" she said, recalling that St. Mary's Elementary School, which she attended, would cancel classes every year on the special day that Christopher Columbus had to share with her.

"Both of my parents were Italian," Vitelozzi-Alexopulos said. "They made me feel like the whole world was Italian."

Vitelozzi-Alexopulos said her mother's family came from near Naples, and her father's family, mostly stonecutters, came from near Carrara, a region in northern Italy known for its marble.

Now a speech and language pathologist, Vitelozzi-Alexopulos said her grandparents spoke Italian to each other, but she never learned the language until she attended college.

She has one child, a son - he doesn't speak Italian, but manages a Mexican chain restaurant and speaks Spanish.

'Losing battle'

The interest in Italian culture, and in Christopher Columbus, appears to be waning.

Baltimore, which claims to have the oldest Columbus Day parade in the nation, canceled this year's event, but there will be a low-key wreath-laying ceremony tomorrow at the Columbus statue near the Inner Harbor.

In canceling the parade, city officials cited a shortage of money and a drop in attendance over the past several years.

"We cannot recruit the young Italians anymore," said Eastport resident Antonio Tripodi, a past president of the Sons of Italy lodge in Annapolis and a former officer in the regional office in Baltimore.

"The old people do all of the same old work" associated with running a benevolent group. "All the (other charity) groups are like that, too," he said.

"The Sons of Italy is failing because of age," said Diane Cerone, current president of the Annapolis lodge. Despite its name, the group allows women to be members and officers, and Cerone has served multiple times as its president.

She said members are typically between 70 and 90 years old.

"They are all active, but when I see that (age range), I say, 'If I were a young person, would I want to join a group of old people?' "

The Annapolis lodge has 169 members, Cerone said, less than half the number it had during the 1970s.

The group continues with public service projects. Between 2000 and 2007, the lodge raised more than $47,000 for various causes, including medical research, plus $8,000 for scholarships, according to the group's books.

Still, the organization has cut back a number of its cultural functions. It no longer has a Christmas party, for example, and this year's annual boccie tournament nearly had to be canceled because of a lack of teams. After some effort, the lodge was able to round up three teams of four members apiece, who competed on one member's lawn.

"We used to have great parties for the children. We had Christmas parties where members would dress up as elves for the children, and we had cruises," Cerone said. "We don't have children's parties anymore."

As she talked, Cerone looked around the tiny lodge building which, she believes, was once a one-room schoolhouse. She said she sometimes thinks the group would be better off selling the building and just renting space for monthly meetings.

The Sons of Italy, it seems, perhaps like a one-room schoolhouse, has served its purpose.

The great-grandchildren of Italian immigrants who met in lodges can speak English now, and have earned good educations and moved out of the ethnic neighborhoods.

"I think we are fighting a losing battle," Cerone said.