Immigrant Secrets: The Search for My Grandparents - 4280

IMMIGRANT SECRETS is the story of how I unravelled a family history mystery. My father had no “backstory.” My father never mentioned his family. Never. The only thing my father ever said about his Italian immigrant family was that his parents died in the 1930s, shortly after arriving at Ellis Island. Except they didn't. Once I began the search for my grandparents, I mostly ran into dead-ends. Until the 1940 Census. My grandparents magically appear, but as inmates at the Rockland Insane Asylum. What happened? Why all the secrecy? And how did I use genealogy to unravel the mystery? And therein are the seeds of my quest to unravel our family history mystery. In a pair of ship manifests, I discovered my father's parents, a pair of Italian immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in the early 1920s, intent on grabbing their share of the American dream. In the 1930 Census, I found a family of four – my grandparents, my father and his brother -- with a tenuous foothold on that dream, operating a small fruit stand in Manhattan. After that, I had mostly frustrating dead-ends -- until the release of the 1940 Census. My grandparents magically reappeared in the Census – but as “inmates” at the Rockland Insane Asylum, never to reemerge. And through my entire lifetime until my father's death, there was no mention that he had an extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins, all living within driving distance. What happened? Who were these people? How did their lives go so awry? This is a story about my efforts to use genealogy to discover the truth about our family and a reflection on the impact of secrets on our lives. It is also the story of what it means to be an immigrant – and the impact that “otherness” and mental illness can have on the vulnerable. And lastly, it is my attempt to think through the "why" and "how" of my father, 34 years after his death. It's a genealogy tale, with a bit of historical fiction -- I prefer to call it "historical reconstruction" -- thrown in.
ASIN: B0B45GTTPP
VSKU: BVV.B0B45GTTPP.VG
Condition: Very Good
Author/Artist:Mancini, John
Binding: Paperback