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THE
EMIGRANTS OF S.GREGORIO MATESE
The
Volturno Association (Buenos Aires)
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| Emigrants
waiting on the dock |
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San Gregorio Matese |
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Buenos Aires in the beginning of XX Century. |
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| Italian
Emigrants in Buenos Aires |
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| The
standard of the old "Associazione
Volturno" in Buenos Aires |
What
happened to the people of San Gregorio when they disembarked
in the port of Buenos Aires? It was hardest for first arrivals,
they did not even know how to orientate themselves. It became
easier for the people who followed, to find a fellow townsman
to serve as a guide.
There were 169 people in the first big migratory wave that left
from San Gregorio who disembarked in Argentina. Evidently they
succeeded in adjusting well to the life style, and many of them
soon became the reason for the departure of numerous migratory
chains of relatives and friends from San Gregorio.
Their social and working roots was an articulated process, a
continuous adaptation to new cultures, a new language, and a
new currency that inevitably gave them a nostalgic desire to
return
home, the recall of the blood that pushed the
Italians to be with other Italians.
But it was also the requirement of a mutual aid in the foreign
land and the often parental connection that joined Italians
between them. This pushed them towards an associational shape
that grew quickly in Buenos Aires, and in all of Argentina,
in the last thirty years of the XIX Century.
Therefore the Societies of Mutual Aid were born. These
social societies were places where the people were helped economically,
where jobs for new arrivals were found, where the community
faced their medical expenses and where periodically they gathered
to strengthen their patriotic feeling.
The San Gregorian put down roots and they attempted new trades.
In this context persons coming from the towns of Matese, evidently
remained tied between those living nearby in the Little Italies
that had formed in the city, they decided to promote a new Society
of Mutual Aid.
The Italian Association of the Volturno was born in Buenos
Aires with a group of 49 Italians, of which 35
came from Piedimonte, Castello and San Gregorio Matese. On May
7, 1893 the first assembly gathered. They voted for election
of the Directive Council. They elected president Vincent Scala,
deputy president Gonzales, accountant Ragucci and secretary
Nicholas Antonio Di Lullo. It strongly dealt with a small Society
of Mutual Help and Education connoted from the data of the geographical
origin of the first associates. But this was not a selective
criterion of admission.
The Association had a recognized legal personality. It granted
economic aid and it faced the eventual sanitary expenses. It
also supplied a pension to the widows and the orphans of the
deceased associates, for which it shouldered the funeral expenses.
The associative life of the Volturno was continue for a period
of twenty-two years, acquiring an enrolled total of 2693 coming
from Abruzzo, Calabria, Veneto and the Lombardy.
This is a data peculiar of the Volturno Association, that in
one time delivers the association from a conservative connotation
berthed in the religion of a distant land; it also frees the
Society from the risk of becoming a melancholic meeting place
of nostalgic sons of their mother homeland. Moreover the diversified
geographic origin of its base allowed a social rootage in different
clusters of emigrants. It favors the economic exchange and the
interaction with new
trades and new occasions of contacts and, therefore,
a better performance of the statutory addresses.
and new occasions of contacts and, therefore, a better performance
of the statutory addresses.
The families, when there were, were in a secluted place, by
towing that migratory chain which the relatives who had remained
in the country attached themselves. The reconstructed public
square was in the reserved meeting place for fellow countrymen
and in the entwining of relationships that served to keep the
endogamia awakened. The marriage between countrymen was the
only taboo that emigrant seemed do not want to renounce. And
in fact the studies on the agglomeration models of the Italian
immigrants indicate that, in Buenos Aires, most of those natives
of the same country lived together in the same district. The
first center of the Volturno Association was in Calle Corrientes
3423, in district n°9 of the city, one of those of higher
concentration of Italians. But the economic consistency evidently
increased with the passing of time, because about ten years
after it moved to Calle Paso 528, some blocks towards the center.
It turned out to be owner of the building in which the social
center was, beyond that of furnished assets and pieces of real
estate for a value of approximately 30.000 Italian lira in 1904.
There, in the meeting room, was the rich standard
of the Association. It made a beautiful
show for itself, embroidered in gold on a red background, with
the inscription "Associazione Italiana del Volturno 7 Maggio
1893 Buenos Aires". In the first decade of the twentieth
century the inclined conscribes that promoted the many Italian
societies in Buenos Aires, brought the merger of a group of
associations together of which one was the Volturno. In February
1915 its activity stopped and it entered in that trust of societies
that conglomerated around the Associazione Unione e Benevolenza
and that, in the time of one year, they gave life to the Italian
Association of Mutuality and Education (AIMI). All of this actually
happened while the mother country was dragged into the devastating
world conflict.
In the AIMI associates centralized themselves and the patrimony
of the 19 societies of mutual aid. In 1917 the new Association
was legally recognized by decree from the Argentina Government.
Still today the AIMI is a vital point of reference for the Italians
of Argentina. It continues to always develop the social and
cultural functions in its historical center in the heart of
Buenos Aires where, between the banners of the founding associations,
it also guards the historical flag that waved in 1848 on the
barricades during the five days of Milan.
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The Bojanos
