15 Rules Every Italian Son Had to Follow. But His Sister Didn’t

Why did an Italian son get the draft notice, the trade, the high school diploma, and the father's chair, while his sister got the factory floor, the chaperone, and the unopened pay envelope? Drawing on oral histories from Reading, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and on the household studies of Louise Odencrantz, George Pozzetta, Kathy Peiss, and Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, this one walks through fifteen rules Italian American sons carried in the tenement years that their sisters never had to. You'll hear Rosa DaDamio on crossing from Palmoli in 1920, Joseph DeMasi on his father's six voyages and his own jump into Sicily with the 505th Parachute Infantry, and the numbers behind who really kept the household running when the father brought in nothing. It's not a story of villains, just a ledger of who paid what, in church, in the café, in the mill, and in the kitchen. Expect names, dates, wages, and the quiet arithmetic of an old house rule finally added up. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:36 The Draft 1:43 Go First Keep Going 3:16 Factory Work Rules 5:55 Education and Trade 7:26 Church and Leisure 9:49 Saints and Marriage 18:16 Money and Authority TAGS italian american history, italian immigrants, little italy history, old italian family rules, italian american family, nonna's kitchen stories, ellis island immigrants, italian american sons and daughters, italian american oral history, sicily immigration to america, italian tenement life, italian american traditions, italian american documentary, italian neighborhood new york, italian american nostalgia, padrone system italian immigrants, italian american world war 2, immigrant family history