Public Employee Press

Italian Heritage
A proud history in labor

As District Council 37 commemorated its 65th anniversary in October, the union’s Italian Heritage Committee celebrated a full 65 years of Italian-American activism in DC 37.

Committee Chair Michael DeMarco kicked off the annual dinner-dance Oct. 17 with a salute to the hundreds of participants from dozens of union locals and thanks to his committee for their work in organizing the event.

Executive Director Lillian Roberts addressed the group about the central role Italian-American organizers, activists and rank-and-filers played in building DC 37.

“From our very beginning in 1944, it was the Blue Collar Division — which then included thousands of Italian-American workers — that got this union going and fought for bargaining rights for all of us. Ever since then, whenever there has been a crisis, they have answered the union’s call,” she said. “I hope we always continue to live up to the magnificent heritage they created.”

Marylou Romano and the Coro d’Italia folkloric dance ensemble — the oldest of its kind in the United States — provided lively ethnic entertainment from the cultural tradition that a huge wave of Italian immigrants brought to the United States from 1880 to 1920.

People of every ethnic background should, “Love your heritage. Know your roots,” said Romano.

The costumed dancers presented different versions of the tarantella, the national dance of Italy, which may represent the wild exercise that farmers centuries ago believed would sweat off the poison of a spider bite. In the Sicilian tarantella, dancers carry tambourines and move very fast, while the Neapolitan is more of a courtship dance and the “pizzica” comes from Salento, the “high heel” of the Italian boot.

Discussing the prejudice and cruel working conditions the immigrants faced, Romano spoke of Pietro di Donato’s 1939 novel, “Christ in Concrete.” The semi-autobiographical saga tells of the life, work, religion and communities of working-class Italian-Americans in the 1920s. In the powerful story, when a gruesome accident on the job kills his father, a construction worker, 12-year-old Paul braves the danger and the low pay and picks up his father’s tools to support the family of eight. “We need each other more than ever, before we die crushed,” Paul tells his mother as he becomes a union activist — just as so many Italian Americans did at the time when DC 37 was founded.

— Bill Schleicher