One
Immigrant’s Legacy
By Carmela Cattuti, author of Between the Cracks
Growing up in a small city along the Hudson River gave me
easy access to New York culture. The hour’s train ride to Grand Central Station
gave me ample time to plot my day’s activity. My uncle lived on east 57th
St., between Lexington and 3rd Avenue, a stone’s throw from
Bloomingdale’s Department Store. He had an elegant abode with a signed Picasso
print and a plethora of other modern art that hung in traditional New York
style from the bottom to the top of the wall in his fabulous Manhattan
apartment. I spent a significant amount of time there during the 1960s, and was
inundated with emerging New York gay culture.
Being gay then meant you hid your sexual preference from your
family, but he and my mother became life- long friends. My uncle often told the
story about the first time he met my mother. My father brought her to New York
to meet his brother. She stood behind my father until she was introduced then
stepped out and my uncle said he fell hopelessly in love. They were both filled
with vitality, extremely opinionated, with a love of the extraordinary. They
were kindred spirits and I think he felt she could be the link he needed to the
family. From what I observed he didn’t hide his life style from her, in fact,
she quite enjoyed our visits with him. His partner was always included in the
conversation and my mother kept him up on family drama. She invited him to all
the family gatherings and encouraged him to participate whenever possible.
My parents married before
my uncle lead a trendy New York life-style and when my mother found out that he
could not travel to Boston for their wedding due to his financial
circumstances, she sent him money for the train ride. She wanted him there and
that created an unbroken bond between them. As I grew up I noticed that I had a
sensibility similar to my uncle’s. I have to admit I was more comfortable in an
upscale Manhattan apartment surrounded by art than I was hanging out with my
friends. As soon as I was able to travel independently, I took every
opportunity to go into New York and connect with the city’s vitality. I became a visual artist partly because of the
paintings that hung on my uncle’s wall and because of my great aunt Angela’s influence
on my life.
My great aunt, Angela
Barone (heroine in Between the Cracks),
raised both me and my uncle. My paternal grandmother died an early tragic
death. After this happened my uncle said his family fell apart; my great aunt
was the solidifying element in the family. She not only raised me, my father,
and my uncle, she partly raised my grandmother. When Angela arrived in this
country from Sicily my grandmother was nine years old and in desperate need of
attention. She injected three generations with her artistic and creative
sensibility, European manners, love of good design, and fierce self-expression.
Angela made manifestation of creative vision look easy. She was a superb
seamstress and made all my clothes. In fact, I did not completely buy off racks
until I was thirty years old.
Angela’s contribution to her family and community was far
reaching. She was well-respected among her peers and was a driving force in the
Italian American community in our small city. Angela was a survivor of the 1908
earthquake in Messina, Sicily. Before the earthquake Messina was a city of
about 150,000, sadly, after the earthquake 100s were left. She was the only one
in her circle of Italian friends who had experienced this tragedy. Her need to
tell her story was dire so she chose me as a repository for her story’s safe
keeping. This was her gift to me. I wrote Between
the Cracks to not only share her story and honor her history, but to
demonstrate the magic of determination, persistence, and vulnerability in the
face of insurmountable odds.
