Italian Voices: Making Minnesota Our Home

Foreword

Foreword Rudolph J. Vecoli A cornucopia of a book! Open its pages and you will be immersed in an untold richness of human experience. With candor and insight, these Italian immigrants and their children share their life stories with us. Modern American culture seems to label persons such as these—hard-working, normal people—as “inarticulate.” Inarticulate, my foot! We just have not been listening. Octogenarians and ninety year olds, many of them, they share strikingly vivid and insightful memories. Memories almost a century old, which transport the reader to a Minnesota that is no more. Some would say, “and a good thing.” Yet in the midst of our affluence and anxieties, it is good to be reminded that not long ago, life was an everyday struggle for survival. In the mines, on the railroads, in the boardinghouses, death and tragedies were constant companions. You will meet examples of incredible fortitude, courage, endurance (but not necessarily of decorum or prudishness; they after all were Italians, not Victorians). These stories nonetheless exude a joi di vivre. The old timers knew how to party. Homemade wine, even in hard times, in abundance, and delectable food (typical of the various regions of origin in Italy). Music, music, music. Singing at work, a musician in every family; folk melodies, yes, but also operatic arias of Donizetti, Rossini, and, of course, Verdi. What did they do on long winter evenings? With dramatic flair, they told stories from a vast repertoire of folk tales. We are privileged to hear these voices because a daughter of the Iron Range recorded and nurtured them with loving care for us. Mary Ellen Mancina-Batinich invested some twenty years, countless ix hours, and thousands of miles of travel, in this work of empathy and dedication. An accomplished pianist, aspiring poet and painter, fine teacher, and respected educational administrator, she was by nature and nurture a historian. Born in 1923 in Eveleth, on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, Mary Ellen absorbed the dramatic and often tragic history of that region and especially of its Italians as she was growing up; like so many young people who left for the “big city,” she remained a “Ranger” at heart and often returned to the red ironrich soil of her youth. Her parents, Vincenzo Mancina, an immigrant from San Giovanni in Fiore, Calabria, Italy, and Mary Noldin Mancina, who was born in Iron Belt, Michigan, after her family immigrated from the Alpine region of Tyrol, provided a loving, nurturing home for their three children. Mary Ellen, the second born and the only daughter, Foreword x Mary Ellen Mancina-Batinich, about 1950 was an able student who excelled in her studies in Eveleth’s fine schools. At a young age, she was recognized as a promising pianist. Following two years at Eveleth Junior College, Mary Ellen studied piano at St. Scholastica in Duluth. She discovered, however, that her true vocation was to teach; she acquired a second master’s degree and, somewhat later, a doctorate in English, both from Northwestern University. A long and successful career as a teacher and principal in the Chicago public schools followed, and she also became a recognized authority in the field of reading. Meanwhile, Mary Ellen was deeply involved in the activities of the Italian communities in Chicago and Minnesota. She brought intense energy and initiative to her work with numerous Italian American organizations, often serving in leadership positions. As chairperson of the Columbus Day Parade Costume Committee and as a stickler for authenticity, Mary Ellen undertook the thorough study and replication of traditional Italian regional dress. Mary Ellen’s lifelong passion for all things Italian and Italian American appears to have been instilled by her father, himself a leader of the Italians on the Iron Range. In 1912, thirteen-year-old Vincenzo emigrated with his mother from their home in Calabria to join his father in Eveleth. The Mancina family, certainly not among the poorest in San Giovanni in Fiore, was drawn with other paesani (compatriots) to the Iron Range by the lure of ready wages. Although his father was a miner, Vincenzo, who later chose James as his Americanized name, was able to escape this hard and dangerous occupation by securing a job as a messenger boy with the Duluth, Mesaba, and Iron Range Railroad. In time, he became a grocer, then a storekeeper and musician, and he was able to provide a comfortable...