My grandfather was born in Sicily in 1944. Him and his family worked on a farm, for the
farm owners where they made some of the profit from the crops to earn money. In
1952 my grandpa’s father came to America with his daughter, their oldest child.
They came to America to earn money and make a better life for themselves and
the rest of their family, leaving behind the rest of their family. They moved
into a one-room apartment, and got jobs in a factory. Three years later they
earned enough money and sent it to their family back in Italy. My grandpa, age
11, and 3 of his brothers and his mother paid for the cheapest ship they could
afford to get them to America and be able to reconnect to their family. The trip took them two weeks on a ship that
was tightly packed with people and sickness and disease spread quickly. My
grandpa got very sick, as well as his 5-year old brother and were forced to
wait until they arrived for any sort of medical treatment. When they arrived
and recovered from the trip they went through Ellis Island with everyone else
who had just arrived. Together they
moved into an apartment on Elizabeth Street and all the children were sent to
work in factories. Until age 16, my grandfather mainly worked in a factory
making stuffed toys and then when he was old enough my grandpa started working
in a candy store that his father owned.
There he met my grandma and lived the rest of his life here in New York.
