I Made It
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
In a simple memoir I recount the experiences of the early years I spent in Canada beginning in 1951 when at twenty-four years of age, I, Armando Viselli, was at the height of my faculties, both mental and physical. Vibrant with ambition and full of glorious dreams, I immigrated to Canada. Naturally, like everyone else that followed my example, from the first day I set foot on this land, I was confronted by a foreign environment offering strange new ways of life, language, food, customs and traditions. It was an enormous obstacle to overcome. I had left behind the great metropolis of Rome where I was accustomed to exquisite wonders only to find myself in a small town set in the vastness and the solitude of the northern Canadian landscape. As a young man, I believed it would have been impossible to live as a hermit completely isolated from the world I knew. This bleak prospect would have been more than sufficient to discourage anyone with any common sense from the outset. However, I had also left behind hunger, unemployment and despair which are more challenging than isolation and I had fought tooth and nail for the privilege to emigrate and create a future for myself, giving it up was unthinkable. At the time my story begins, the Canadian National Railway system was undergoing a process of renewal. I had been hired by a contracting company that was a supplier for the CNR. After the first three months in Canada I was sent to work as a timekeeper with one of the hundreds of Extra Gangs located along the Trans Canada Railway line. Most of the workers for this huge operation were immigrants who came from Calabria in the south of Italy. The one hundred and twenty men that were part of the gang I was assigned to were all Calabrese. They were good, honest, hard working people, but we found ourselves completely isolated from the rest of the world and were obliged to accept the conditions imposed upon us by our surroundings and our employers. Being the only person who knew a little bit of English, I was the only instrument of communication between the immigrant workers and their supervisors. Automatically I became the victim of circumstances, caught between two diverse mentalities: the Latin temperament and the Anglo-Saxon. The former was warm, sentimental yet fiery and impulsive while the latter appeared to me to be cold, calculating and reserved. I found myself between the anvil and the hammer. I had to rise above simply dealing with my own loneliness, the glacial cold and the cruelties raw nature imposed on me to deal with the vagaries of human nature. I had to become skilled in diplomacy, to keep everyone happy, and more importantly I had to keep them working. There is more to this story because this is not only my story but is the story of every Italian who had immigrated to Canada at a time when spaghetti and pizza were not as commonplace as they are today. It is true that over the last fifty years there has been a radical change in the way Canadians view Italians. When I arrived in Canada, Italians were unwanted foreigners and considered by many to be simple unskilled peasants who were lazy, jealous, and potentially vindictive. Behind this perception was the fact that Italy was on the losing side of World War II and the majority of Canadians distrusted them. The fact that Italian-Canadians, from many different walks of life, had been rounded up and placed in prison camps during the war; cannot be easily overlooked.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
As the ship moved out of Naples, a part of me was left behind, something very dear, very precious, the most enchanted land, with history, songs, and fascinating people, including my family. Would I ever see them again? Who knew what the future held? A long dream was becoming true; it was becoming my reality, and I was coming to Canada, to the land of opportunity and generous people waiting for me with open arms. Once there, a year later, I had almost everything that I wanted, yet something was missing; my heart was crying. I was missing my family, my friends, my jokes, my language, and even my food. The money and my job was not everything. How was I to face such a big dilemma? How could I fill all those empty spaces? Wouldn’t you like to know? Well, maybe the answer was beautiful ladies!
About the Author
Armando Viselli, born in Ceprano, Italy. From Arcangela and Sebastiano. So did Giuseppe, 1920; Carmine, 1924; and Maria, 1935. They all went to school in Rome and graduated. Armando came to Canada in 1951 and worked as a timekeeper for the Canadian National Railway, in Northern Ontario. In 1957, Armando could not handle the lonesomeness he was feeling in his heart, resulting into him bringing his entire family to Canada, a total of eight people, gladly supporting and boarding his family until they were able to make it on their own. In no time at all, Carmine, Armando’s older brother, opened up his own barber shop, which he named Roma Barbershop, and also became a wedding photographer during the weekend. From that first day, the two brothers felt the need to do something very important: keep alive the Italian tradition, culture, language, music, and art. They became freelancer for the Corrierer Canadese, and both became members of the Federazioner Mondialer Stampa Italiana all’ estero, Armando, as a reporter, and Carmine as a photographer. Capitalizing on this day, embarked on a multicultural frenzy that lasted for forty years. Armando began writing his first novel, The Grotto, the story about life in Rome, in 1943, during the German occupation of Rome. Carmine successfully completed his university courses in painting, and from that day on, his brushes were put to work for the rest of his life. He completed over fifty paintings, some he donated to foundations and friends; the rest stayed with him and his family. About twenty-five of his paintings remain in Armando’s possession. In 1974, the two brothers designed and built a top of-the-line studio in the back of Armando’s house and embarked on a great adventure. They had their own radio station that played live almost every evening for thirty minutes. Their radio station consisted of Italian music, sound effects, and a mini talk show with them and their family and friends, making newspaper headlines right away with their first play, La’ Passatella, of forty five minutes, all in rhyme, aired at the Italian station of the nation, WMZK Detroit. The brothers have forty hours of thirteen full-length productions to their credit. While Armando was a writer, narrator, and tape editor, Carmine was the mastermind of background, sound, and music to help the story come to life. When radio started to go down, the brothers built a soundproof studio in Carminer’s garage and produced short movies. For that they gradually created a group of children and senior choir of around sixty members. At the same time, they were asked to join the Caboto Club, where Armando soon became a member of the board of directors and gave them the first live theatrical presentation La’ Passatella—a ninety-minute comedy with the participant including every member of the Viselli family and the Polish dance group. Over six hundred people attended. The second great success came with Il Tricolore, in honor of our fallen soldiers. To this day, for the last twelve years, every year, on Remembrance Day, Cogeco Television Station aired the same ninety-minute production. After this, it was La classe dei cervelloni. The story of Giovanni Caboto, the discovery of Canada, which included the participation of the Canadian Windsor’s Scottish bagpipes regiment. They also produced two more ninety-minute plays live, The Monks and Nuns of Confucius and Varieta’ all’Italiana. For their superior voice qualities, they were asked to join the Ciociaro Club Senior Choir, where Armando was immediately chosen the group announcer. Soon after, they were asked to recreate something for Good Friday. While Armando prepared the script, Carmine designed and prepared the roman soldier uniforms and all the costumes for the actors. The procession of the Fourteen Station of the Cross was born. Since then it has been repeated every year with people coming from all over Canada. The last one and most important one was completed by Armando alone because brother Carmine passed away. Helped by his son Sebastiano, they prepared “Gloria” a new song for the Christmas play E’ nato Gesu, with the participation of a group of twenty-five new children. Besides a large selection of poems, short stories, and anecdotes, Armando wrote the “Carroccio and the Lega,” a story about the suppressed cities of north Italy, which around the year 2002 rebelled against the German emperor Frederic the Red Beard, and defeated him at the battle of Legnano. The next and last was “The Great Dream,” a story of Armando coming to Canada, which in 2008 received an award for one of the best books from the Fondazione Archivio Diaristico of Italy, and published in Milano, Italy, in 2011 (Bellezze Sto Arrivando). At eighty-five years old, Armando has officially retired from performing and writing but is still kicking despite undergoing dialysis treatment three times a week. He is currently living with his beautiful wife, Stefania, his daughter Angela, her husband, Frank, their twin girls, Maria and Stefania, and their youngest, Sebastiano. Again, Armando has his son Sebastiano, wife, Kelli, and their children, Armando and Vanessa, currently residing not too far away. They all love him very dearly and can’t get enough of their father and grandfather, and let’s not forget the two loving dogs, Zoe and Sofia.