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2Transcript: hi this is the third interview of the problems Italian American history initiative I'm dr. Mark Jason I'm here with dr. Kathleen and the great Bronx African-Americans history project student research team and were interviewing Susan who's um administrative assistant in the Fordham College Dean's office actually really brought yeah okay so um Susan we always start by asking people tell us about your family and how they came to the Bronx um my father is from Italy and he came here in search of work and he came here when he was 17 he lived in poverty and he was just trying to find a better way and his father was actually here so he was trying to find his father so he came here at 17 on a boat knowing no English and um soon after that he
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4Transcript: in the war Korean war in order to get his citizenship status so he went to war for a couple years came out and met my mother my mother was born here she's also from Italian Heritage and uh she didn't know English until she was five when she went to school so she was teased like all the other students who don't know English and uh she and my father fell in love I guess because later on it turned into a disaster but at the time they fell in love and they got married and um they lived in the author Avenue section and that's where I grew up on Prospect Avenue off of 187th Street had at what was the building he grew up here um it was a fifth-floor walk-up um it was on a block with other buildings like that there were some private houses but basically it was just a lot of people and houses and tenement building and what year were you born 1965
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6Transcript: and um what is your first memory of the neighborhood when I think about the neighborhood it's always summer and there's always lots of people out on the street playing hopscotch jump rope Double Dutch scalzi I don't know if you remember LZ and the street because they weren't a lot of cars back then so people would stay in the street and play and which walk you would make us Kelsey court and take off the top of a bottle by rubbing it against a um manhole cover and you get a nice little I don't know to call it something that you hit I I don't know what you call it let's go be cap and um they would open the pumps and you would hollow out a can you would take off the top of a can and the bottom of a cannon use that to project water from the hydrant I don't know if you have that as well and you a little bit um those are my memories those are happy memories when I was younger and then
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8Transcript: reality sets in as you get older you start seeing things that you don't want to say right how many siblings did you have I had two brothers and one sister um but was the where did you fit in well I'm second to the youngest and we lived in a two-bedroom apartment so there was a four of us Kramden one bedroom before siblings in one bed before siblings in one bedroom yeah it was tight language was spoken in jest English my father did not want to teach us anything other than that he felt that it would interfere now studies I don't know why um was so you're on Prospect Avenue um around 187th Street was the neighborhood predominantly Italian it was predominantly Italian yes we did have other races moving in uh when I was about ten my one of my best friend's was black and she moved into one of the um smaller buildings it was like a little
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10Transcript: townhouse up the block from me and uh we started to get a little more diverse as I got a little older did you go to uh a public school Catholic school I went to public school mainly I went to Catholic school for a few years but it just got too too expensive and my parents pulled me out and put me into public and uh I stayed in public high school and went to Bronx Science and then I came here to Fordham um was racist subject in your home not in my home no it wasn't it was never a subject it was it's funny because one of my um family members came from Naples to to visit and when we went out walking they saw a black girl and they pointed and laughed and I said why are they doing that and my mom said they have never seen a black girl before
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12Transcript: I just thought that was insane so it was never talked about we didn't talk about race an outhouse it was always you have to do the right thing for everybody was academics emphasize yeah absolutely we grew up very poor all we had was this so academics was really important oh extremely Americans or more one than the other I would say my father was not active in bringing us up it was more my mother you knew that if you brought home a 99 she was going to say why did you get a point off what's this about what did you miss how much how much schooling had she had she graduated high school I was at at that time I think that was what was expected of the women I think men were encouraged to go on further matter fact Fordham was all male at that time right she was going up so um what your was your mother born
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14Transcript: 1933 in your father 29 and your mother was born in states that she was born here in New York right down the block from where I lived they didn't go far oh what kind of work did your father do my father didn't have much confidence since he didn't speak English well so this day you can't understand what he's saying and it's amazing because he came here so young and you still don't understand his accent so thick so he never really tried to get a good job and he would just do a nun's jobs and he used to cut hair but it was off the books so money was always a problem my house he didn't come from Italy with the skills that he is now okay now he always wanted to do something but he never actually did it and my mother kept having kids so she was never able to go back into the workforce so that's problem yeah well so it sounds like money was really tiny was extremely tight
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16Transcript: and when we had food on the table that's all you had if I ask for more whatever it was on my plate she would say I'm sorry there's not any and I know that must have really hurt yeah wow he is where I might get emotional so no I mean I'm emotional yeah it's because you know there were very few people in my neighborhood who I mean we didn't have much but we had you know food for seconds no we never had food seconds my father one time treated us to a Chinese dinner that was meant for one person and we all got a little portion of it and I remember feeling so special that I was able to eat Chinese food because we had never had that so it's nice in a way because you really appreciate what you have when you come from nothing so I don't regret that at all everyone end up being academically successful everybody was academically successful that was
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18Transcript: Paramount in my house you needed to excel because that was the way it would get you out of poverty did you live how long did your family live on Prospect Avenue um I left home when I was 16 and I went on my own believe it or not and they remained on Prospect Avenue until my mother got sick and she eventually died of breast cancer okay so that was back in 2000 and well you know she left home at 16 at 16 and that's something I can't talk about maybe what was your school experience like um you're talkin about college Yeah Yeah from the beginning um I went to Catholic school for a while and you've watched people get paddled all the time and it was just fear-mongering so
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20Transcript: was this map caramel st. more and more tours yeah say Martin of Tours and the sisters there were terrifying so scary it was an old girls school it was Noah's next and um I stayed there for a while for four years and then it got money was too tight my mother had an agreement with the principle that I could go to the school because I would give the school such good grades and she guaranteed her and this and the principal gave her a discount and we would have to bring in a an envelope with the money in it and my mother would always say don't show anyone around elope because she was so embarrassed that we paid so little so um so she has that arrangement for all for all four of us well she didn't do it for my younger brother I was the last one okay to go to school there yeah but all of us excelled we had to there was no choice you had to excel that was a must um
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22Transcript: or any of the nuns compassionate no want to say yes no I mean that's that's over the question I mean so they had this common Persona do you think him was they were ordering think it was an idea was have to be this way I think it's be I think they had to be this way because I met one of the sisters not too long ago I'd say within the past 10 years she was a completely different person I couldn't believe it that I was speaking to well I don't know if I should mention her name and so sister Nora she was scary and when I met her outside of the school she was wonderful did she explain why I didn't bring It Up Ring clear that there was always a ruler involved and no yeah did your parents have a strong self
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24Transcript: identification as Italian-American um culturally um you're saying like food-wise I'm just saying is did was it emphasized you're in your upbringing Italian you know you should be proud of this now or I don't think so I don't I don't recall anything like that it wasn't until I married into my husband's family that I saw that cultural um significance and they were proud of who they were as Italians but my family no I think we were more proud to be New Yorkers Americans he said your mother's family did they were they from Naples they were from NATO father's more groups yeah and um what do you know the reason why they settled on Prospect Avenue when they when they came you know why your father uh
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26Transcript: connection I think the story is that he had someone who was willing to give him shelter when he came to New York and he lived with them for a while so when that was in the area actually it's like right outside of Campus oh yeah by faculty oh great yeah definitely yeah so um he stayed with some people there first okay and I think he just stayed in the neighborhood just was he the only member of his family to come over he had an older brother who was here as well who had never married he spoke English well and I don't know what story I know that he was mentally ill okay and he didn't come over much were you friends your family friendly with other families in the neighborhood now my mother stuck to herself she didn't walk me telling her business she didn't want people coming over she was ashamed of the house that we was so cramped
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28Transcript: and there was stuff everywhere all the time you know but there was six of us in this tiny apartment so I think she was really hard on herself and we also had an insect problem we are goats everywhere oh I mean which is when you pour just cereal in the morning sorry Annie cereal in the morning they would come out of this area on my mother would say stop being a baby pour the milk in their cereal because I would not want to eat it anymore she says stop being a baby we can't waste this we don't have much and when you turned on the light at night it was something else it was crazy and at the time you think it's only your your place it's only your house but I'm sure the whole neighborhood yeah it must have been a problem everywhere especially in my building so but you don't think that way when you're young you think oh God this is just me were you embarrassed by that or did you sense your mother's I was embarrassed by it because
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30Transcript: friend from college wanted to come and see my family's home and I kept trying to change the subject and she didn't want to take no for an answer she wanted to come and visit and she came over at night and the first thing you do at night is turned on the lights and she screamed that was mortified yeah I was mortified but I tried to get out of it so did you grow up with fear of being evicted or coming with the lights cut off so no never that because we had such a low electrical bill that they would send people to our house all the time to check on the meter we had to not turn on the lights unless it was absolutely necessary so my mother knew how to say the dime she knew she knew how to survive and she instilled that in me and I could say I could Stretch A Penny till it's leaving know you had mentioned
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32Transcript: there was tension between your mother and father always when you perceive that it was always that way and um it's funny because I don't remember them ever sitting down and having a conversation it was always yelling that was that was how they would Converse so it's like growing up in a war zone you don't know which side to go on and if you were nice to one side the other side would say let's say what your mother since you're being so nice so then I would go with my father and my mother would say well you seem to like it father so much why don't you go and say what your father so it was kind of better to stay in the middle and you you learn how to adapt so you know what to do to appease both sides so it's actually a skill did you bond with your siblings over that at all or was that devices it seems like we were all loners because of that we all learn to be our own Island you have to survive so I'm close with my
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34Transcript: mr. now very close but it's funny because my younger brother has such anger still always and my older brother doesn't want to know any of us anymore so I think it's because he doesn't want to be reminded of that it was painful so and there was this way wow so is this way your entire time in the house it never got better it never got better and I remember thinking if one of them would just go but they had this idea that they needed to stay together because it would be embarrassing if they left and I just remembered thinking I grandparents and my brother sorry I never heard him say a kind word for one another it's amazing how do you live like that anyway but um you mentioned that you went to Catholic School yes and was religion present in your family life was it part of the reason you think why your parents stayed married
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36Transcript: this into sort of the social pressures of it or I'm not sure about that I remember going to church did you have we had to go to church when we went to school but it seemed once I got out of school the church stopped okay so I don't think that was important what age you said you would Catholic school for four years yeah and that 910 your first communion right around that yes second grade was first communion back end so confirmation would have been V right left right before kind of nation now when did you sort of become at what age conscious of your neighborhood as a unique sort of place with its own way of governing itself and okay I was about ten because that's about the time that my mom let me Venture off of the block and go around the neighborhood and I would like
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38Transcript: go to the playground there over on author Avenue dungeon 88th Street so I'm walking by with my friends and there are two black boys walking by and chasing them with bats are two white boys and they hit them both in the head one went down one got grazed and kept running one went down got up and ran and I was just in this is your first maybe not the first time but it reminds me of being the first time I don't know it was one of the first times and I talked to a man that I saw I said help them and he said this is how it is this is how the neighborhood stays nice so I went home and I said to my mother mommy this is what happened and she said well he got up and ran away so they mustn't have hit him so hard I said but they did I saw his face so I don't know if her saying that
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40Transcript: was a way to make me sleep at night or she really believed that they hadn't gotten hit that hard I don't know to this day what that was about but this is the mid-70s this is I'd say yes 75 about 75 and this happened time and time again and the men who were on the park benches watching this what laughing did you see that happen this was the most um like that has most impact did you see it happen over and over and happened to her number again and actually they actually stored chains and bats in the Park House on on the author Avenue I don't know if you know the playground a little Park I know very well okay well okay they actually store chains and bats in there and then they have to get them out for some reason I don't know then they were storming them in manhole covers
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42Transcript: the manhole covers and when they would see a black boy going by it was strictly now wasn't female when they would see a black wig on they would open up the manhole covers in take it out and chase them just for being in the neighborhood just for being in the neighborhood they didn't even have to really do anything other than be present it was not they weren't doing anything they just had to be present hey rerouted buses from the South Bronx so they didn't go through that neighborhood because I believe it old people kids out of the buses and beat them up yeah and this is and they called it the sculling because what it was where they were taking it back to the skull so they called it the names and you want to know something nobody talks about it why nobody talks about it to this day I don't understand did they see this as being acceptable do you know when it stopped they were you that did you live I don't know when it stopped when I was there it was going on right
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44Transcript: that was common practice it was about before him it was known that it was not safe for black students to go into the author and I was matter fact around with him up there around the same time so late seventies early eighties no early seven seven I had a friend that I would walk to school with when I was in 45 which is right on the Fordham Road okay and she was black and we I would walk to school with her go up 187th Street and I said let's cut through the park she said I can't cut through that Park said why there's no one here I was so insensitive not to even think that she knew that this was a bad place for her and I'm thinking why not let's just cut through the park will get to school quicker so this was well known and she lived down on 183rd and Fatone around they're going huh going everybody knows about it who lived in that neighborhood
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46Transcript: nobody talks about it you ever hear your parents use that term now never for your siblings no no I heard about it when I was 10 years old that's when I was introduced other children in your public school talk about this I don't remember it being spoken about at school it was known in the area on the Block in the park especially but that was our only Park so you keep going you know you keep going there to play you have to see this and nobody had a problem with it everybody I mean I think nobody had a problem with it or someone would have stopped it that's how we keep the neighborhood nice well what's known as something which people who were connected did in other words if you were going to try to stop it would you fear that you were going up against some powerful and dangerous
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48Transcript: you know that's probably it I never thought about that and that's probably where it stems from I wouldn't doubt it I wouldn't doubt that these kids were being groomed to take care of the neighborhood I don't doubt that given what I told told you about exactly and that has oh yeah that has existed for years um wow what did you ever uh hear anyone outside of your home talkin about black people in another way other than sculling was there like conversation that right other than that act was their conversation that characterized black people in a specific way that kind of a lot online yeah I mean in your home neighborhood felt that they didn't want blacks around they would say
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50Transcript: the neighborhood's changing what does that mean changing that now Latinos and blacks put together he has another thing there was a Latino boy who would stay at the park and he took part in this sculling and that was his way of being accepted yes so what the terms that were used for black people that what we're suffering you know the sum of the terms that were which they didn't use like Italian terms like Melanie only say that all the time would it be more the n-word ammonia at that time with kids it was the n-word always was that term around the public schools a lot or where was there a balance my public school was mixed so we didn't do that in the public school I went to uh
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52Transcript: go to any school where racial epithets when used no not the schools that I went to I was lucky it was just that neighborhood and and I love the neighborhood culturally it's wonderful I mean you I don't want to say it's all bad because when you walk into the stores they know you and it's a sense of family when you go through the community it's just where there any black families which were accepted within the neighborhood well my one of my friends who moved on to prospect was black and I was over our house all the time and I tried to bring her into the park thinking she's with me and someone came up to me and said you need to go you can't bring her in here wow so and she was crushed for her you know I didn't care about me it's awful so the years this is the 70s
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54Transcript: for the 80s would you say these are early eighties yeah and then the certain point then I guess I left the neighborhood I moved to pound Parkway so when I was 16 so I'm not too sure how long were you uncomfortable just for a year and then I came to Fordham on mostly scholarship and I lived here and um I didn't really bother with the neighborhood anymore as far as the park goes or anything like that I stayed on campus but I don't doubt that it continued to some degree through the 80s and then I think there was too much diversity for them to continue the way it just changed it became dangerous to do that right because now you're going up against lots of people yeah um was there a sense that you had that there were certain connected people who ran what was going on yes and I was that knowledge convey to you
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56Transcript: you just knew it you knew that there were certain things that were going on that were beyond your control and this is how it is and there wasn't much of a police presence in that neighborhood there really wasn't yeah well I was were handled yeah well I I've had conversations about this yeah you know the police they out of here they know we take care of the people and that's what happens they will you did you ever have a sit-down or somebody explain to you this is the what's what you picked it up for mentally I was never out of sit down where someone explained it to me but I was friends with people who knew the powers that be that explain things to me that you can't do this as a matter fact there's a funny story I won't use names but some older guys in my neighborhood broke into a furniture store at the end of author Avenue
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58Transcript: and they took all the furniture back to their club and uh one of the powers that be came into the club smacked around these guys and he says don't you know you go outside the neighborhood for this not it's wrong don't do this you go inside the neighborhood for this so you know and people didn't want to go against these guys so you know you tend to to listen did you ever get involved in like things like numbers or any underground activity I didn't but I did have family members who were bookies took numbers did things like that yeah my big events was the neighborhood book He's Bar Mitzvah I could say that was that was not particular to the neighborhood right it was practice what she's talking about is also my if you've seen the movie Goodfellas yeah so
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60Transcript: that's you think it's just it's it's true it's true so did you have a sense that you wanted to leave this or did you feel I didn't think I could leave it I never had a sense of confidence so I felt like I needed some marry into what didn't need to be explained I don't know if that makes sense but I come from a background where my husband came from as well it was just understood I never had to explain what happened who I am what we had it was so much easier to just do that she never had any desire to go to town and hang out on the beach was always a dream but I knew I couldn't I don't know why I should be
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62Transcript: able to but I knew I just couldn't do it did you ever move back into the neighborhood after being at Fordham yes I moved to Keith Towers which was right on the corner Southern Boulevard and um Fordham Road lived there for many years and he was born there and then we moved to pound Parkway big jump over the poem yeah and we're still there and that's where you grew up yes we would come into the neighborhood to see when I say the neighborhood I mean over here are the revenue we would come in because all of our families still live so we would do weekend visits with Andy's grandma Yeah and we had a business there as well we had a friendship there so a lot of our lives were still ingrained in that area but it was it was different now it's no longer hanging out with these people it's more working with them now in terms of music what kind of music we exposed to Growing Up um
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64Transcript: I come from a family that we like a lot of different types of music so um of course Led Zeppelin The Beatles high on my list the Beatles were top Stevie Wonder was also big in my family um it was it was diverse when I'm out we were listening to that have a sense like there was not an Italian musical yeah it was all my mother had a record you know the song we would play that in laughs but it was playing it because we liked it now you're riding the generation with the early days of hip-hop did you go to any hip-hop James I was Kurtis Blow was here the boredom and we went here and nobody would just like maybe ten Fordham students what's wrong with these people so Kurtis Blow actually performed in here and I was right up they were Kurtis Blow look at him this must have been the early
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66Transcript: good thing you came yes it was about 82 I would guess see the scary thing is none of us in this department knew that this was important and we you know we didn't realize that hip-hop was going to become this big Global phenomenon right Jones was here Kurtis Blow all these people yeah yeah so wow yeah great stuff whether any neighborhood like jams that you went to or they would have block parties where you know people would sing like Elvis or try to act like Kiss You know he's will locate what was that like when you went outside of your neighborhood what I you there's kind of what was the tone was it pretty like intermixed was it um diverse what was it just a matter of not coming to Arthur Avenue for black people or was did kind of when you've been outside of the neighborhood people behave differently felt like outside of the neighborhood but I didn't really get to know the neighborhood
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68Transcript: when I went outside of the neighborhood I didn't really stay in one place long enough outside of this area okay to find out about that but I felt like it was specific to talk about new but I'm sure it wasn't I'm sure you know racism exists everywhere you go yeah I mean I I you know I've never heard the term sculling oh yes and I actually Googled it to see if anyone's talkin about no one's talking about it where's that I mean you know again uh you know I dealt with racial tensions in Brooklyn neighborhoods never quite heard that term so this was a very specific pattern in this very specific context yes wow did you ever encounter like if he went out of the neighborhood did you encounter racism against you with that against who knew you were from the Arthur Avenue neighborhood and you were outside of your that's a good question but no I never encountered that but I could see how
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70Transcript: that would be ya know just when my friends tried to walk through when I tried to get her to walk through the park she just said no and that was the first time that I realized oh yeah it was different for her for her I'm thinking you know we're both the same we're just going to walk through the park to go to school and tonight when we deal with pillow Avenue we're going to see something very similar I'm sure um that was another small smaller uncle but this racial policing of Italian American neighborhoods was it was a standard pattern I mean look what that's what happened and Howard Beach with the you know and in Bensonhurst uh so you know it just has very specific way it happened there is different than anything I've ever heard well don't be it may not be just that I don't know I didn't get inside the structure dumb now
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72Transcript: um people didn't talk about race in the normal discussion or was it was there a whole discourse about the Bronx and race and blacks that you that became part of like they were a family gathering well I don't know if I should talk about this but I don't know um I am I'm going to talk about it and maybe you can edit it out later if I feel uncomfortable with it my sister wound up marrying a guy who looked black although he was Hispanic and she brought him home and my father went nuts and my father sat outside and wouldn't come back in the house until he left and my mother didn't want to have any part of it my mother got on the phone with people at church to please convince her to stop seeing him
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74Transcript: she marrying him and had a baby and I didn't realize that racism was had existed in my family up until that point because why were they having such a hard time with us and my mother would say it's not because he looks black it's because of the children and I would say there are no children at that point she hadn't married him yet so I don't I think she was embarrassed I don't know what the problem was she never said what about this pattern I've come across in many Italian-American families were so one of the children marry somebody black yeah the father's have more trouble with it Mother's my father wouldn't come in the house the for people who might my daughter grew up playing tennis with but from a family with a black father Italian-American mother and the father never reconciled to the children
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76Transcript: in 35 years and these were two of me so it's I think this is unfortunately not the only uncommon uncommon yeah yeah oh did you wonder things lots of times what I hear is that we just didn't talk about it it's the way it was and we knew it did you ever wonder and ask your parents about things and they we were on our own and family talkin wasn't big I would talk to my friends about whatever was bothering me my friend sort of shared the same type of ideology that I shared so we were one but as far as asking anyone intergenerational talkin or telling stories no weeps handled it on our own I find that this generation now my daughter will ask questions thank God she's able to you know
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78Transcript: I like that but I think back then my friends as well we didn't talk to her parents we just didn't we talked to each other Jesus I mean this is rough stuff yeah it is but it's funny because you think oh I'm top I could handle it but if I think of my child going through it that's heartbreaking but for me going through it it's not a big deal so it's interesting you know and I was young going through a lot but I don't see it that way I see it well it's something that I had to go through and I'm stronger because of it maybe a little messed up on the inside to do you find friends who thought the same way you did about the world fairly early age yeah I have a friend Nancy who is still one of my best friends and she shares the same types of ideas that I do yeah do you have many non-italian close friends yes I do and did you
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80Transcript: acquire them before you went to college or after after after before College it was hard because you know you can't really bring anyone into the neighborhood that's the way I saw it I couldn't bring them to the park where I stayed so they had to be Italian I had a great friend who lived down in the projects like I said but she didn't want to come stay with me it was too hard to have that friendship so you know we would just see each other during school and hang out at lunchtime would each other I mean this is sort of the counterpart to A Bronx Tale the other part of it look from a woman's one yeah did you have any questions you want to ask thinking I think it's important to distinguish because he has you had four siblings but talk about the age range like oh it's a
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82Transcript: my brother is nine years older than me my sister's four years older than me and my brother my younger brother is seven years younger than wow from my brother to my my older brother is 16 years so my mother kept having kids here and there and it's interesting because we didn't have money so why would you just keep having his in had a I never spoke to each other and we wondered that how did this happen you all do you almost didn't happen Irish mailman or anything you know my younger brother looks the most like someone else the three older kids all look alike my sister and I could be twins my brother looks a lot like I spend my younger brother and my father would say that's not my son oh my God so I don't know do you ever hear them say a kind word to each
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84Transcript: other no never my mother and father you talkin yeah never a kind word to each other Mary they say they stayed married and so he left in the late 80s he finally locked and I said to my younger brother who was the only one home at the time I said Thank God and my brother didn't see it that way he was very upset at that time he was about he was a young teenager okay I'm question um no no go ahead um so you were kind of saying that um you and all of your friends you guys didn't really have parents to talk to not much um not much or guidance know that way you guys had each other so you guys this neighborhood was very uh different racial tension there's a lot of poverty how did you as teenagers as children um him adults how did you guys kind of deal with whatever you were going through or how
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86Transcript: not deal with it manifest question now we would just talk to each other but we felt helpless did you find books which help you make sense of your life well I found books as an escape oh I didn't have to think about my life if I was involved in this book I was living this book so I never looked for like self-help books but I did get into therapy later on and my therapist said to me you lived in a war zone how did you come out of this and I that's the first time I ever thought wow did I I thought everybody went through this but I guess not some of us did okay yeah just you you know it sounds like your friends were your coping mechanism they were they would definitely my friend Nancy was like my sister yeah
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88Transcript: and we would just tell each other everything and I think that should that's really powerful thing yeah then she was living through similar things in her home um her parents were different but they weren't the ideal parent either the mother didn't stay in the same bedroom as a father but they stayed married so it was a little different and she's the one that I went to live with when I left my house so Nancy was was my she was my heart I loved her still wow um what kinds of things do you define yourself today as Italian-American what types of things alive you know I think you know we make pizza all the time the special Italian cookies as far as culturally like the Feast of The Seven Fishes I don't do that I don't do any of that but
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90Transcript: to cook Italian so that's the way I keep your mother cook Italian or she couldn't because there was no money she didn't yeah there was no money we had I remember always the carrots were burning in the pot I don't know why I remember the carrots burning in the time she had kids all these different age ranges helping us with the homework and the character was burning I remember when you celebrate holidays and your house and um we would you go to my house and my aunt house invariably left us all crying and that was another your at left you crying because she insulted you oh ways there was always an insult she told my sister one time that I was prettier than she was why would you say that just it was kind of like a pitting each other against you I don't know I don't know why you would do that but it wasn't nurturing that's the point I'm trying to get across it was not nurturing did you have nurturing from anybody know
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92Transcript: my friends that's it I didn't have nurturing and it's funny because I always would dream about finding someone who would love me and I did my kids my kids and I told them you saved me Jesus I I you know funny this is personal because I have no nurturing so you understand I understand I was lucky enough to find love in college but I mean you grow up without nurturing yeah and it's possible yeah yeah it's not fun right you always looking for something you actually were looking to see I was I was looking you never wanted to be loved I yeah I am I am that way because I want to give what I didn't get so my kids they grew up my kiss them to this day I'll grab him
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94Transcript: that's just how I am because that's what I've been looking for my whole life what was it about that the parents generation was available I don't know my parents went through such shit as kids you know they was so poor they didn't have much left yeah that's probably the same my mother grew up sleeping's five in a bed you know right so I think it's kind of the same thing that happened with me I don't recall my mother ever hugging me or telling me that she loves me and it was just that was the way I don't recall my friends parents doing that either so it wasn't like I was different this was just how it was yeah it's so funny because I mean when I met my wife you know I said you're the first person I've ever met who actually really likes their parents
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96Transcript: hope you like it so I mean I'm identifying with this you know and then yeah so personal level yeah uh but the racism is I mean there was just some Fierce and upfront and cruncher this I don't know if this actually happens I only want to talk about things that I know happened like what I told you about this going but they said that a black man was hung from the from the basketball hoop that's what I heard when I came to Florida okay somebody was actually hung in the neighborhood so I don't know if that happened I didn't see it so I don't know but it's common knowledge that it might be hungering yeah them to create that sense of fear that you wouldn't want to come in there and there was one other incident that about racism that I need to talk about um when we were able to venture off of the block a bit and
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98Transcript: we would go down to Prospect Avenue and turn the corner and that's all that we could do because we was still very young there was a guy there named Earl who was obviously mentally challenged and he would wear one of those snorkel coats you know the snorkels they have the fur around the collar that kind of shiny you would wear it zipped all the way up so only a bit of his face was showing and as you pass these say don't look at me don't look at me and when you're young you think it's funny why is he saying that to us he was a black man I don't know if I mentioned that we find out later this guy was beaten he was fine he was beaten because he was looking at somebody the wrong way they beat him mentally I mean never the same never the same again you know when you're young you think it's funny why is he wearing a coat in the summit so how can you see the reality the ends of the Innocents that's what that was so how did you
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100Transcript: learn to cook Italian never let a silent moment when I went to live with my friend Nancy I picked up a couple of things from her and then when I got married my husband family I would watch and I learned how to cook well yeah family friend how did the neighborhood is sort of you remember it as being Italian American but Italians are like there's this thing called company of these Mo which is why the neighborhood probably formed the way I don't know what that is and you belong to my bell tower is like this notion that the only people who are really part of your town are they you go to the same church you're part of the parish so to speak in terms of the neighborhood and so actually Italians are kind of divisive within each other because it's like
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102Transcript: I'm from Florence and I'm from fears away oh yeah definitely ocean and so the name of the neighborhood it sounds like it has this cohesive Italian identity it did a question is are there different or are there different kinds of parts of Italy that articulate themselves in the neighborhood that you know about or in the time that you lived there I know that Sicilians weren't looked at to fondly in the neighborhood they were seen as not Italian but they live it with some did okay it was basically the same background that I had which yeah so it was basically that but um I know it was divisive as far as which part of Italy you came from if you were by Design or not that's pick up in these yeah okay yeah yeah yeah what what's there more than one family that ran the neighborhood yes few a few I'd say three yeah I can't talk about
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104Transcript: you said you business in the neighborhood and so in the course of growing up to owning the business how did you see things change the neighborhood um there was diversity when I own the business all of a sudden you know there were different types of restaurants opening up and clothing stores owned by different ethnic backgrounds so it was much different years ago you couldn't do that yeah it had to be a that diversity where people generally open to it at the time that happening I was happy but I don't um that brings me to the albanians did the Albanian start to become a presence in author am I saying good 10 years ago maybe 15 and now it seems that they're more of a presence in the neighborhood than the Italians I think they are guitar
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106Transcript: and they cook Italian well yeah Michelangelo yeah yeah yeah oh they also can take care of themselves really okay I've gotten that from the other side I thank you yeah I mean okay I can't tell I can say right recording um but yeah I mean you would not want to mess with it but continue to they don't claim to be this they don't necessarily claim to be Albanian and their businesses like Nicole Angeles is an Italian restaurant it's Italian but you know that there's an Albanian cock everyone just knows that I don't know how I know it but someone told me maybe it's not true but yeah then change it to all be increasing their Captain it's Italian cuisine and I have a friend whose brother makes pizza and he's out of it and he makes great pizza so
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108Transcript: I mean it's not that far it's right across the Adriatic oh yeah and in fact there's a historical relationship there yeah that's where they're now but a number of the albanians are also Muslim right so that was there ever tension surrounding an Islamic presence well we have a mosque done 189th and Belmont and I remember when they were building that a lot of people were upset I mean I don't deal with enough neighborhood people to know the extent of how upset they were but I know they weren't happy about that being built when was that oh gosh 20 years ago I'd say my God I won't be YouTube being from the Bronx and then being in a classroom 7 in classrooms where people talk badly about the Bronx and I'm not from the Bronx but you know I
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110Transcript: here a certain similar cultural background the people here so I end up speaking for the Bronx thank you Brooklyn and Boston that I am Bronx but still but how is that because maybe people may not people may assume that maybe I'm from the Bronx people aren't necessarily Afrocentric here but more than fresh because I'm Jamaican descent but maybe not you so you're in a room when you're hearing things here's all the time crazy things that people are saying about people from the Bronx or like I'm from the Bronx what are you talkin about when they say locals it's just not nice yeah the locals did this what does that mean I just don't like it I lived over this um like my sophomore year and like I chose live on campus I was like I'm going for them I got to get out of the house I lived on campus and people assume that you're not from the Bronx field on campus um so I was going to the zoo one day with my roommate and then two other guys who are in our friend group and we passed by keep Plaza
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112Transcript: where I live where I was born and had cousins there my grandma lived there like everyone lived there um so I spent like most of my life there and as we were walking by um my roommate said oh and used to live there and one of them just turned around and went and like was like huh then she was like no no she lived there Isn't that cool and he just looked at me and was like you live there and it was like the face says it all yeah I'm just kind of just kind of stop talkin about it and moved on but in in my uh in the dorms everywhere like conflict heard local dis local that parties people are like oh my God no it was a local in here like things like that like really annoying we actually tried to open a bar for a while um this is going back to and mm maybe that was it was a while ago and he was really little and we would have Fordham students come in
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114Transcript: a lot of locals would come into so there was always fighting and the last thing that happened was a stabbing wear a black on almost lost his life so we close the barn we just got rid of it we didn't sell it we got rid of it because it's not worth it it's not worth having someone's life be taken from them we thought it was a good business move but no are you optimistic about these generation and race uh yeah there's so much more accepting and I see everyone's sticking up for each other and protesting and she's always protesting going down there and having the bejesus out of me every time she goes there and starts Marching for any rights it doesn't matter what it is if she feels that she's going there and she's launching so yeah it's great we're only getting better that's
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116Transcript: the way I see it I feel like we lived in the Primitive times you know my generation now we're seeing the light the Age of Enlightenment and and he's in it and I'm so happy for her what about the relationship between Fordham as an institution and the Belmont neighborhood you know I see them trying I see that they were Fordham trying to well any try to watch The Gap with her art show this art show where she invited people on campus who will locals she's a very talented artist by the way and um you know she's trying and I see Fordham is happy about that and uh I think they would like to bridge that Gap and try to have a better relationship because I know before this it wasn't so great we were seen as like another world here and people outside of Campus weren't
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118Transcript: hold on and that's really it was when you grew up to yeah you couldn't get on campus right yeah you couldn't get him campus oh the principal Luis Torres and one of our events were four people in the Bronx dorf affordable is the Forbidden City yeah you know I could see that so it was a lot of so I know that the Administration has tried the faculty and administration are trying what about the students what do you see with the students you guys can the students can talk about those actually like any or what he see anything in terms of how the students are changing because you so you talked about how like going to a party and talkin about local that's just maybe three years ago right and that yeah well I graduated this past August so um I know there are a lot of at least for the radical groups on campus um Administration is not happy with it they don't welcome it that's very hard to organize a protester
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120Transcript: um or just sit down with Administration they made it difficult but something that makes me really proud is that a lot of foreign students are at least in the uh the groups that I was involved with um they're very outspoken and they won't remain silence which is something I'm really proud of so um there are people on campus who really care and are deeply committed to um speaking of for whom I see that too and even if further that um I think I was talkin about this in the last interview that we had but just easier I see more and more foreign students game going into the neighborhood and and uh you know I think that that helps in in terms of you know there's a Bridging the Gap because um you know it's one thing to like hear about it was another thing to like see it yeah once you see that have an intention to see that people are people you know the day like that helps kind of break down some of those barriers because I think there's even when I was like coming in
121Confidence: 0.9218997955322266
122Transcript: and there's like is built up that this was another that outside the gates was another world you know that was kind of that was was that built up because even by orientation leader group yeah I toured which is yeah which comes down even from like Administration you know I mean it's like a comes out like that but I think that you know each year I see more and more students in the neighborhood and uh I think that's a good thing yeah I think so I didn't actually have shared that their parents are very concerned about it because of the reputation with the Bronx has outside right of the Bronx yeah especially in the tri-state area I mean I came from Arizona well the rest is pretty notorious yeah I mean if you say you're from the Bronx people said if he'd been stabbed recently Double Take yeah used to be that way for Brooklyn before Brooklyn Chic you know now Brooklyn
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124Transcript: um are you scared about that justification I see it happening right now across from Tino's they made these luxury apartments and he said what's that about and at first I said oh how nice and then when she said that I said all right it was gonna live here like the from the parking lot behind I think it's endo's building a building a new really nice luxury apartment building I see my partner I live on the third have and I can see that my window I don't know about that it is in the neighborhood uh longtime friend that I that I've known and known their parents I'm that used to own the business before Peach Wave and then rough rent is high that's the idea you know the business rents go up the apartment rents go up yeah so then when their business because mph wait a minute just like kind of stone um because like I had a personal tie to that business but also
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126Transcript: frozen yogurt what is that I'm sure I'll like it I think about all this artisanal food that tastes good so first section is going on in the neighborhood as a local business owners benefiting at all from it is that like is the neighborhood only by what when you were growing up there with the people who had businesses in the building's the owners of this building so where they renting from an external like was it they were similarly sort of yeah they were owners at the time and now it's not that way they're renting and I know one particular business he says he needs to make $3,000 per week to pay the rent but he's in a prime spot on author Avenue and 187th Street
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128Transcript: and it's um the most of the people you know from growing up in that neighborhood did they move out of the ground yeah everybody's gone everybody and it's so funny because they have this one festival called once a year I guess any Yes No it should be there but they have it in September every single thing like that yeah so they come back and all they say is the neighborhood changed oh you here it's over it and I got it change it take what you wanted exactly the same why what's the fun in that to see the same thing over and over again why is that fun I don't understand it what's all interesting they so are these great movies that are set in the neighborhood Marty yes for also the Raging Bull The Wanderers I don't know if you saw The Wanderers that was also in the neighborhood French Connection it was even filmed their couple of films do well are there any more questions
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130Transcript: guys all right you have anything I don't think was really interesting here and yeah I can I can kind of see like the flavor saying badly like coming in and having like a an idea of the Bronx I cross but it's refreshing to go out to the community and hear your perspective yeah I have one sorry to put you off no how was it because I know that you didn't really interact with neighborhood after you were at Fordham but um how was it I guess my question really was like how was it being able to Fordham student being from the Bronx and kind of like what we already said um but coming home to your friends did you bring your hang out with your friends on campus and you kind of stray from forward and go they saw me differently at that point because they didn't know how to interact with me anymore only Nancy
131Confidence: 0.9229052066802979
132Transcript: my friend we went through but the other friends kind of shied away from me they saw me as being different all of a sudden that you know they couldn't talk to me but that that's not the case was it was it rare that you grew up in the neighborhood and then when before nobody did that okay yeah nobody did that so you were really none of my friends went to college yeah everyone was just High School some didn't even make it through high school so that was a rarity still yeah you think so I you know missed most of I don't have that many students from the Bronx really that's a shame a number of them by the way are Albanian the ones who are from the more I actually have an opinion a lot of students in my classes and they're very good at the Italian uh yes that's a whole other story you think it's because intuitions I don't understand why people from the Bronx aren't coming here and I wonder where that the
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134Transcript: question related is related to tuition and also SAT scores so okay on their options here you have the you have the see another one that people feel may be more comfortable I have better connections with here bro also like VCC I think provides Fordham is more traditional in it's like course structure but I know like colleague Todd DC and they were she was teaching at 7 a.m. or she was teaching at seven PM because her students were all managing full-time jobs and so I think they was college has kind of render themselves available to yeah I mean I don't think Florida makes recruiting students for the Bronx that priority because well I think well I I would love to see more students from the Bronx but I'm one voice that we get more voices that's all
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136Transcript: now the time baby steps okay okay thank you for listening we got to get a photo of everybody and you camera I do okay so actually I'll take a picture of all of you so old
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