Growing Up - excerpted from the Caravan of Dreams

I must preface this piece with the reality that I do not consider myself to be a spiritual person – I am not even sure what this is supposed to mean. I am an empiricist and, as such, do not consider myself to have a soul; however, I do possess a human brain that is the organ that adequately and necessarily defines my personhood. As a consequence, I do not consider this to be a spiritually-minded conversation, but rather a thoroughly human one.

I grew up in the Bronx, New York during the 40s and 50s. I was born at the tail-end of that horrific conflagration referred to as World War II. Both my parents came from Southern Italy during the diaspora of the early twentieth century. They came through Ellis Island held in steerage in rather inhumane conditions. They eventually moved to the Upper Westside of Manhattan in an area called Morningside Heights (near Columbia University). This was a tough neighborhood that perpetually tested all who grew up there. It was there that my parents met and would eventually marry.

In regard to the issue of race, young Italian males – although Caucasian – were treated very much like the Black males of today. They were disparagingly regarded as Degos and felt the full weight of prejudice and distrust. The New York City police department of those days would not allow young Italians to congregate – the use of the “billy” was often used and without hesitation. My father and his family and my mother and her family were thrust into the barely contained chaos and madness of New York urban life from agrarian communities in Reggio Calabria (across from Sicily) and the Puglia Peninsula on the Adriatic Coast.

My parents were shaped by the severe economic depression of 1929 – 1938 and their unavoidable exposure to blatant and corrosive prejudice that was the hallmark of that era. As for myself, I grew up in tenement in a literal sea of tenements in the Bronx. The neighborhood was mixed beyond any attempt at a brief description. The five-story walkup tenement could be likened to a landed ship filled with passengers from around the globe – there were representatives from Germany, Ireland, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Italy, Poland, Armenia, Greece, South and Central America, Puerto Rico and China. We had representatives of the major world religions including Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Blacks were everywhere in evidence despite failed attempts of landlords to block their access to their buildings. Kid Gavilan – the  Welterweight boxing champion of the early 1950s - lived on our block (179th St and Bathgate Avenue).

My father grew up tough – he was a seasoned street fighter and even made an attempt to become a professional boxer. He was a strong-willed character with a sheer and unshakeable determination to survive. He had a well-defined prejudicial viewpoint. However, I never faulted him for that – we just argued extensively about most things. His views did not shape my own simply because the environment I grew up in was extremely diverse. In this way, I was thoroughly inoculated with an extreme dose of reality in all its wondrous manifestations.