Frank Stagliano, 69, keeps his roots close. The storefront at the ground level of his apartment building has two display windows. Red, white and green curtains—the colors of the Italian flag—hang from the inside.
Stagliano and his wife, Carmela, live on Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City, just two floors above the meeting place for the Society of Saint Amato. The society is a 112-year-old community exclusive to Italian-Americans with roots in Nusco, a southern Italian village in the province of Avellino. Members must be connected to Nusco by birth, ancestry or marriage. Stagliano is from further south, in Calabria. He entered by marrying his wife, who was born in Nusco.
Stagliano says that the organization is more than just a relic of the past; it’s also a reminder of America’s connection to the immigrant experience—as critical today as it was 100 years ago. He cites the refugee crisis in Europe as an example of why people shouldn’t forget their pasts. “You do not understand why we should welcome those people if you don’t realize what happened to your ancestors when they went here,” he said. “So it’s important to keep this [Society] …not something that happened in the past, but as a pulse of history.”
But keeping that pulse beating requires dedication. Once a hub for many Italian immigrants, Long Island City’s Italian community has shrunk into two local societies: the Society of St. Amato and the Lady of Sorrows Society. The two groups maintain the traditions of their respective home villages by carrying out the annual religious processions that were the foundations of village customs. As newer generations grow further removed from the past, these societies are often the only things keeping the traditions alive.
At one point, Long Island City was the first stop for immigrants from Nusco, Stagliano said. Between 1855 and 1900, an estimated 517 immigrants came from Nusco to America and approximately 311 listed “New York” as their destination, according to records in Ellis Island databases. In the years leading to the club’s formation, 1900 to 1903, there was an influx of 527 Nuscani immigrants into Ellis Island. It is unclear from these records exactly how many settled in Long Island City. According to the society’s records, however, there were 51 founding members in 1904 when the group became incorporated. Today, Stagliano estimates there are around 200 members. Most are descendants of Nuscani who arrived after World War II.
In the beginning, the Society of Saint Amato was a “society of mutual aid” for the earliest immigrants, Stagliano says, providing resources like employment aid, insurance and medical care. “It was like a bridge between the old world and the new,” Stagliano said.
Since then, the society’s purpose has become more nostalgic. “It had to evolve,” Stagliano said. “The mutual aid, it has changed, in the sense that everybody’s got insurance, everybody’s got work, everybody’s got a doctor. So it’s more on the moral support or getting together and keeping the roots alive.”
The Society of St. Amato is the oldest Italian-American heritage society in America, according to its president, Joe D’Amato, who believes that the society’s success shows its members’ collective resilience. “They went through a World War I, they went through a depression, they went through a World War II,” he said. Other immigrant organizations, D’Amato says, went through periods of hiatus that proved disastrous. St. Amato never stopped. “If you got something and you gonna let it go, it’s gonna finish,” D’Amato said. “You gotta keep working on it.”
The society remains in touch with Nusco, organizing charity events for the needy, helping members talk to family still in Nusco, and funding community projects there. Most recently, the society sent $5,000 from fundraising events to help renovate a statue built in 1200. But the biggest annual event is the procession of St. Amato in September, when members of the society carry the statue of St. Amato, Nusco’s patron saint, through Long Island City. The procession is a Nusco tradition.
The Lady of Sorrows Society has a similar story. Pignateresi, natives of the village of Pignataro Interamna, were also drawn to Long Island City. Unlike the St. Amato society, the Lady of Sorrows is not exclusive to members of its home village. Italian-Americans from all over Italy can join. And while it was founded in 1907, its history is not as stable. For the past 10 years, Emilia Chimienti, the group’s president, has been reviving the society from dormancy, bringing it from 10 members to 40.
“I just want my daughter to remember something, from not just me, from my mother, but the ancestors,” Chimienti said of her adult daughter. “I don’t believe it should be forgotten.”
Tony D’Urso is an Italian member of Lady of Sorrows who came to America in 1955. He believes that the society is an important way of balancing cultural identities. “We have two houses, one tradition. Italian, American, and one tradition,” D’Urso said.
The Lady of Sorrows held its procession at the beginning of September, carrying a statue of the Lady of Sorrows—in Christian teaching, Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ—through the streets of Long Island City. “It was a beautiful day,” Chimienti said. “She [the statue of Mary] looked beautiful when they held her up into the sky against all those tall buildings.”
The procession of St. Amato this year was on Sept. 27. The statue of St. Amato, which normally resides in the clubhouse, was carried on wooden planks resting on the shoulders of four men. Members of the society followed behind. A band of trumpeters and drummers marched in front playing Italian songs, occasionally blasting “God Bless America.”
After the Mass at St. Mary’s, the local church involved with both processions, members reflected on the day. “It’s our tradition,” said member Tony Biancaniello. “In Nusco, it was such a big event.” Biancaniello, who came to America in 1955 when he was 11, remembers the processions in Nusco. “They were sometimes a hardship,” he said. “You walked a long distance. It was like a pilgrimage.”
Annette Rando, president of the women’s auxiliary society to St. Amato called the society “the rock of Long Island City” because of its stability. But she also voiced concern about the procession’s declining attendance. Member Eleanor Di Sunno echoed her concerns, citing a lack of younger people. “I’m worried that we’re gonna lose this tradition,” she said. “But how are we gonna get them to come?”
“You got the younger guys which come and go, single guys, then they get married, they get kids,” Stagliano said. “The club is not a major priority.”
D’Urso, of Lady of Sorrows, believes that there is enough dedication to adapt to these new challenges. “The fact that we have two surviving Italian-American organizations,” he said, “that tells you how much tenacity is behind this mission. Otherwise, we could have fallen off the wayside like so many other societies. Only two survived.”
Stagliano, for instance, is meticulous in his dedication. As secretary, he keeps track of club records. These date back to the Society’s foundation and are all handwritten, even now. They are scribbled in books kept inside the clubhouse two floors below his apartment. Even that process is a mix of old and new. “I do them on the computer,” he said. “And then I copy them here.”
