Cefalu: A neighbor of Baltimore and a genial one, tourists find
by Albert K. Weinberg
THE BALTIMORE SUN
19 FEB 1928
The Baltimorean’s adventure begins when he subscribes to his city of origin in the register of the would-be albergo. There is a delighted exclamation from the innkeeper - “Signore e di Baltimore!” Then in brave, broken English: “You know Petro - Francesco - Arturo? Francesco and Petro my cousins, Arturo my uncle - all in Baltimore."
This may seem somewhat casual, but the real mystery appears when the Baltimorean starts going around the town and strikes up conversations for the practice of his little Italian. Every time he happens to mention his origin people will get excited in the same Italian way. Like the man in the hotel, they will ask if he knows this Baltimorean or that of this or that crazily pronounced address. By evening the Baltimorean will not be going out after conversation, but will see it pursuing him. His presence in the town will have been passed around and the natives will be coming up to him, all asking after relatives in Baltimore. By the end of the day, the Baltimore tourist will wonder whether the whole town has relatives in Baltimore.
This, as a matter of fact, is about the truth; almost the whole town, from Mayor to the poorest fisherman, has relatives in the Italian colony of Baltimore. For of Baltimore’s odd 50,000 Italian population almost fifty percent trace their ancestry back to the town of Cefalu.
One who does not believe this need not travel to the three-cornered Italian island, but may go down to the Italian section of Baltimore and start asking Italians where they came from. Expecting to hear mostly Naples, Genoa, Rome, etc., one will hear five times out of ten Cefalu (pronounced Chafa-loo). It is as if an Italian should begin investigating the American colony of Rome and should discover that half its population came from Frederick (Maryland).
Many an Italian, speaking on impression, will say that nearly all Baltimore’s Italians come from Cefalu. But this is an exaggeration, arising out of a tremendous preponderance of Cefalu Baltimoreans over Italians from any other city. An informed Baltimore Italian of some conservative estimates that 20,000 might be the approximate census of the Italians who, one or two generations ago, hailed from this little Sicilian town.
The whole emigration from Cefalu to Baltimore reached its amazing total in a period of less than fifty years. In all the statistics of American immigration one will scarcely come upon a more amazing instance of the movement of people in great herds.
One can speak of the herd instinct’s greater operation in small towns, yet the thing is still far from explained. Many a small Italian town sent over one of its sons to Baltimore, but no such army followed in his footsteps. Thus the story of the Cefalu immigration must be told for itself and with a view to its own peculiar details.
In the first place, the story identifies itself largely with one Baltimore Italian family, the Demarcos. We have heard this name many times, whether through the late Tony Dimarco, dramatic leader of Baltimore Italy’s hectic politics, or some other outstanding member of the family. We have doubtless wondered at the frequency of the name, the best-known Italian name in Baltimore, and at the patriarchal largeness of the Demarco family. [The spelling varies slightly.]
Just about fifty years ago Francesco Demarco, fisherman of Cefalu, set sail from Sicily on a voyage of almost two months in a primitive ocean vessel. He was tired of the hard life in the Old World and yet had gained a sufficient hardihood from it to risk alone the most venturesome of changes. America was the land of opportunity, though why he should have turned up in just this city no one knows. Whatever be the reason he came here, Francesco’s entrance into Baltimore is an important date in Baltimore Italy’s history, for he was the father of the great Cefalu colony.
After a few brave makeshifts, Francesco was able to go into a small confectionery business; things came quickly under hand for him and he was able to write back of his success. When he did so he spoke also the praise of a city which seems easily to appeal to Italians. Is it because of the Italian softness of much of our weather, the familiar sea tang of our harbor air, or a certain hominess about our manners and life reassuring to the small-town soul?
Now, Francesco Demarco was not the kind of seaman to save himself and leave his relatives to suffer precariously. Almost unasked he sent one after another the $50 which was the cost of passage - a sum of money not inconsiderable in those days for the owner of a small confectionery.
With a few more Demarcos also here and established, the speed of the action began to grow apace. Not only Francesco, but all the other Demarcos here were now sending over loans of $50 to eager relatives in Cefalu. Underlying this family immigration were two factors, one to be considered with respect to those in the Old World and the other with respect to those in the New. Those in Sicily, in the first place, wanted and needed to come. The whole Demarco family were fisherman, and to be a Sicilian fisherman meant to be leading a life of constant hardship and peril to the end of one’s profitless days. In the second place, those Demarcos who first came over had even more of their share of the Italian’s native whole-souled generosity.
Soon other names than Demarco were figuring in the immigration. It was extending itself to families throughout the town, for a large family in a small town there are not many spans of cousinship or nephewhood from one family to any other family. The essential thing is that in both Baltimore and Cefalu a custom has established itself on the one hand of giving and on the other hand of accepting. Those in Baltimore who had been helped over took it as a point of decency not only to pay back their debt itself but to pay the lender themselves as soon as they were able. Those in Cefalu came to identify the possession of any initiative with leaving behind an eked-out existence for the abundant opportunity in America.
One must think of the quick compoundings of an endless chain to realize the rate of augmentation of this movement to Baltimore. Only thus can one understand how so many thousands arrived here in not much more than forty years - simply as the result of the settlement of one man. Eventually hundreds were arriving every year, involving every family name in Cefalu.
Of course, there are two things which might have easily broken this endless chain, but in point of fact did not happen. The first would have been non-payment of debts of even a few. But debts were quickly paid back in spite of the fact that no notes were held, not even a scribbled acknowledgement. In the second place, if many of those who came over had not succeeded Cefalu itself would have become wary. But they seemed to succeed consistently - partly out of their own initiative and partly because there was a solidarity among the Cefalu Italians in helping newcomers to get on their feet.
Interesting in this immigration is the basis of solidarity of which we have spoken. It lay in the fact that the Cefalu people did not intermarry with Italians from other places, but clung to their own and preserved through the years an unadulterated and unified group. Undoubtedly this also assisted immigration, for the newcomers did not feel themselves among strange people, but came into another Cefalu across the seas - full of familiar faces and helping hands.
It is fantastic to speculate on how wildly large a proportion of Baltimore’s population Cefalu would have formed if it had gone on at its cumulative rate of speed. But suddenly it was stopped in a totally unexpected way. There were passed the new immigration laws, limiting immigration and discriminating sharply against the people of Southern Europe.
True, Italy still had its quota. But, according to the principles of this quota, which divided among all the Italian towns according to their population, a little town like Cefalu had only a negligible representation.
Cefalu had practically to stop sending us its sons, many of whom had felt
themselves just on the threshold of a great opportunity. Today its people are as eager as ever to come, but they are up against something which even the generosity of their relatives there is powerless to overcome.
But though the tide of immigration has been stopped, Baltimore still fills a large place in the thoughts of these people. They correspond with Baltimore, talk about Baltimore, wonder about Baltimore. It is the place where their frustrated ambitions have been given a vicarious realization, where numbers of their relatives and friends have become successful and even important people.
19 FEB 1928
The Baltimorean’s adventure begins when he subscribes to his city of origin in the register of the would-be albergo. There is a delighted exclamation from the innkeeper - “Signore e di Baltimore!” Then in brave, broken English: “You know Petro - Francesco - Arturo? Francesco and Petro my cousins, Arturo my uncle - all in Baltimore."
This may seem somewhat casual, but the real mystery appears when the Baltimorean starts going around the town and strikes up conversations for the practice of his little Italian. Every time he happens to mention his origin people will get excited in the same Italian way. Like the man in the hotel, they will ask if he knows this Baltimorean or that of this or that crazily pronounced address. By evening the Baltimorean will not be going out after conversation, but will see it pursuing him. His presence in the town will have been passed around and the natives will be coming up to him, all asking after relatives in Baltimore. By the end of the day, the Baltimore tourist will wonder whether the whole town has relatives in Baltimore.
This, as a matter of fact, is about the truth; almost the whole town, from Mayor to the poorest fisherman, has relatives in the Italian colony of Baltimore. For of Baltimore’s odd 50,000 Italian population almost fifty percent trace their ancestry back to the town of Cefalu.
One who does not believe this need not travel to the three-cornered Italian island, but may go down to the Italian section of Baltimore and start asking Italians where they came from. Expecting to hear mostly Naples, Genoa, Rome, etc., one will hear five times out of ten Cefalu (pronounced Chafa-loo). It is as if an Italian should begin investigating the American colony of Rome and should discover that half its population came from Frederick (Maryland).
Many an Italian, speaking on impression, will say that nearly all Baltimore’s Italians come from Cefalu. But this is an exaggeration, arising out of a tremendous preponderance of Cefalu Baltimoreans over Italians from any other city. An informed Baltimore Italian of some conservative estimates that 20,000 might be the approximate census of the Italians who, one or two generations ago, hailed from this little Sicilian town.
The whole emigration from Cefalu to Baltimore reached its amazing total in a period of less than fifty years. In all the statistics of American immigration one will scarcely come upon a more amazing instance of the movement of people in great herds.
One can speak of the herd instinct’s greater operation in small towns, yet the thing is still far from explained. Many a small Italian town sent over one of its sons to Baltimore, but no such army followed in his footsteps. Thus the story of the Cefalu immigration must be told for itself and with a view to its own peculiar details.
In the first place, the story identifies itself largely with one Baltimore Italian family, the Demarcos. We have heard this name many times, whether through the late Tony Dimarco, dramatic leader of Baltimore Italy’s hectic politics, or some other outstanding member of the family. We have doubtless wondered at the frequency of the name, the best-known Italian name in Baltimore, and at the patriarchal largeness of the Demarco family. [The spelling varies slightly.]
Just about fifty years ago Francesco Demarco, fisherman of Cefalu, set sail from Sicily on a voyage of almost two months in a primitive ocean vessel. He was tired of the hard life in the Old World and yet had gained a sufficient hardihood from it to risk alone the most venturesome of changes. America was the land of opportunity, though why he should have turned up in just this city no one knows. Whatever be the reason he came here, Francesco’s entrance into Baltimore is an important date in Baltimore Italy’s history, for he was the father of the great Cefalu colony.
After a few brave makeshifts, Francesco was able to go into a small confectionery business; things came quickly under hand for him and he was able to write back of his success. When he did so he spoke also the praise of a city which seems easily to appeal to Italians. Is it because of the Italian softness of much of our weather, the familiar sea tang of our harbor air, or a certain hominess about our manners and life reassuring to the small-town soul?
Now, Francesco Demarco was not the kind of seaman to save himself and leave his relatives to suffer precariously. Almost unasked he sent one after another the $50 which was the cost of passage - a sum of money not inconsiderable in those days for the owner of a small confectionery.
With a few more Demarcos also here and established, the speed of the action began to grow apace. Not only Francesco, but all the other Demarcos here were now sending over loans of $50 to eager relatives in Cefalu. Underlying this family immigration were two factors, one to be considered with respect to those in the Old World and the other with respect to those in the New. Those in Sicily, in the first place, wanted and needed to come. The whole Demarco family were fisherman, and to be a Sicilian fisherman meant to be leading a life of constant hardship and peril to the end of one’s profitless days. In the second place, those Demarcos who first came over had even more of their share of the Italian’s native whole-souled generosity.
Soon other names than Demarco were figuring in the immigration. It was extending itself to families throughout the town, for a large family in a small town there are not many spans of cousinship or nephewhood from one family to any other family. The essential thing is that in both Baltimore and Cefalu a custom has established itself on the one hand of giving and on the other hand of accepting. Those in Baltimore who had been helped over took it as a point of decency not only to pay back their debt itself but to pay the lender themselves as soon as they were able. Those in Cefalu came to identify the possession of any initiative with leaving behind an eked-out existence for the abundant opportunity in America.
One must think of the quick compoundings of an endless chain to realize the rate of augmentation of this movement to Baltimore. Only thus can one understand how so many thousands arrived here in not much more than forty years - simply as the result of the settlement of one man. Eventually hundreds were arriving every year, involving every family name in Cefalu.
Of course, there are two things which might have easily broken this endless chain, but in point of fact did not happen. The first would have been non-payment of debts of even a few. But debts were quickly paid back in spite of the fact that no notes were held, not even a scribbled acknowledgement. In the second place, if many of those who came over had not succeeded Cefalu itself would have become wary. But they seemed to succeed consistently - partly out of their own initiative and partly because there was a solidarity among the Cefalu Italians in helping newcomers to get on their feet.
Interesting in this immigration is the basis of solidarity of which we have spoken. It lay in the fact that the Cefalu people did not intermarry with Italians from other places, but clung to their own and preserved through the years an unadulterated and unified group. Undoubtedly this also assisted immigration, for the newcomers did not feel themselves among strange people, but came into another Cefalu across the seas - full of familiar faces and helping hands.
It is fantastic to speculate on how wildly large a proportion of Baltimore’s population Cefalu would have formed if it had gone on at its cumulative rate of speed. But suddenly it was stopped in a totally unexpected way. There were passed the new immigration laws, limiting immigration and discriminating sharply against the people of Southern Europe.
True, Italy still had its quota. But, according to the principles of this quota, which divided among all the Italian towns according to their population, a little town like Cefalu had only a negligible representation.
Cefalu had practically to stop sending us its sons, many of whom had felt
themselves just on the threshold of a great opportunity. Today its people are as eager as ever to come, but they are up against something which even the generosity of their relatives there is powerless to overcome.
But though the tide of immigration has been stopped, Baltimore still fills a large place in the thoughts of these people. They correspond with Baltimore, talk about Baltimore, wonder about Baltimore. It is the place where their frustrated ambitions have been given a vicarious realization, where numbers of their relatives and friends have become successful and even important people.