Required Reading for Italian-Americans...

Sicilian Culture: News & Views

The Survival of the Sicilian Dialect of Tampa, Florida
By Susan M. Taylor, University of Tampa

The title of this study, “The Survival of the Sicilian Dialect of Tampa, Florida,” suggests at least three meanings of the word survival. The first stems from the fact that a Sicilian dialect is still spoken by third-generation Italians. The second concerns its future survival. The third has to do with the nature of the dialect itself, which despite some lexical and grammatical interference, remains similar to the dialect spoken by the original immigrants. In this study I will address the question of language loyalty and maintenance by describing the circumstances which brought about and fostered the continued use of Sicilian in Tampa. I will include one representative text that gives an idea of the character of the dialect itself.

Discussions of language loyalty and maintenance point to the importance of a number of interrelated factors. Among those mentioned by Fishman and Glazer are time of immigration, area and settlement patterns, social and cultural relationships, schools, the influence of mass culture, attitudes, and degrees of bilingualism. A consideration of these factors provides an approach to the examination of a particular case.

What circumstances have fostered the continued use of Sicilian in Tampa? In the discussion that follows, I will attempt to answer this question, keeping the above-mentioned factors in mind as I describe the particular situation of the Tampa Sicilian community. I will contend that the most important reason that Sicilian has survived is because people continue to use it .

A convergence of various historical factors in the latter part of the 19th century led to the arrival of the first Italians in Tampa, Florida.[1] It was a period of difficult economic conditions in Italy and those who left were attracted by the promise of finding work in the Americas. The overwhelming majority of Italians who immigrated to Tampa came from Santo Stefano Quisquina, Alessandria della Rocca, and a few other neighboring villages in the Val di Magazzolo, an area in southwestern Sicily (see Appendix I—Map 1) in the province of Agrigento.[2] Prior to immigration they had shared a long history of contact and interaction (Mormino and Pozzetta 17). This was also the period of the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain. The tensions resulting from the political upheaval convinced some of the Spaniards that maintaining their interests in the cigar industry in Cuba was no longer desirable. Among the many Spaniards who decided to move their cigar factories from Cuba to Key West was a certain Vincente Martínez Ybor. But, unhappy with the labor unrest that he also encountered in Key West, Mr. Martínez Ybor and three partners sought a more hospitable location (Pizzo 127). For a number of reasons, they decided to move their business to Tampa, where they founded Ybor City.

The growing cigar industry offered the possibility of work that Italians and other immigrants sought. The last decade of the 19th century witnessed an influx of immigrants, the majority of whom gathered in Ybor City and West Tampa (see Appendix I—Map 2), where they formed a multiethnic community of Spaniards born mainly in Asturias and Galicia, Cubans, Afro-Cubans and Italians.[3] Its members came to be known as Tampa Latins.[4] The hostility of the Anglos may have initially united a somewhat insular Latin community (Mormino and Pozzetta 91–92), but as second- and third-generation Latins went to school and learned English, they were able to function in the Anglo world. A particular culture grew out of the contact within this multiethnic group where Spanish became the lingua franca and speaking a language other than English was not stigmatized. In a description of one of the cultural centers Massari writes: “All languages were freely blended. English, Spanish and Italian were common, but Spanish was more or less the official language, and we all understood each other quite well” (107). One of the informants for this study remarked: “We kids used to play together. We would speak to each other in Spanish, Italian or English. We thought everyone did. For us it was normal” (Informant #7). Ybor City was a thriving community until the Depression, when people began to move away. After the Depression it was economic prosperity that led others to change their residence, thus beginning a trend that continued until the 1960s, when in the guise of “urban renewal,” most of the dwellings were torn down and never replaced.[5] Today Ybor City is beginning to experience a cultural revival, but most of the Latins live elsewhere (many in West Tampa).

Many authors have commented on the close-knit nature of Italian-American communities and Tampa is no different. Although dispersed throughout the city, the Italian community is sizable.[6] Many members of the older generation, and some of the younger, continue to communicate among themselves in Sicilian.

What circumstances have fostered this continued use of the dialect? Fishman writes: “Language maintenance may be vigorous and central whether or not it is ideologically elaborated. Certainly, the traditional ethnic community was a staunch fortress of language maintenance without any ideological-symbolic commitment, indeed even without language consciousness per se” (170). As Informant #7 remarked above: “We thought it was normal (to speak three languages).” It is my contention that this is as good an explanation as any, but I will qualify what I mean by “normal.” Many of the informants commented that Sicilian had been their first language and that they learned English when they went to school. Others also learned Spanish, if it was necessary. Fishman speaks of the “pragmatic utility of bilingualism” (30). Among Tampa Sicilians, one could speak of the pragmatic utility of trilingualism that has grown out of particular circumstances. The early Italian immigrants learned Spanish in order to work in the cigar factories, to carry on business with Spanish speakers or, simply, to communicate with their neighbors. The Italians may have tended initially to marry within their own group, but today many of them have Spanish (and “American”) surnames. When I asked informants how they had learned Spanish, a surprising number of them had studied it in high school, where they had a choice of studying Spanish, French or Latin, but not Italian. But, regardless of the path taken to becoming trilingual, these polyglots are one example of what is meant by the term Tampa Latin. They are likely to use all three languages on a daily basis.

I believe that it is precisely the use of the languages that has fostered their survival. Thus Sicilian in Tampa has survived because people continue to use it. Among the factors that contribute to the continued use of the dialect are the number of first- and second-generation Italians who are still alive; the contact that has been maintained with Sicily; the existence of clubs; the social interaction that takes place within families and among friends; and, finally, the relative uniformity of the dialect spoken in Tampa due to the geographic proximity of the birthplaces of the original immigrants.

The following information is based on 37 responses to an informal survey I conducted. Although the survey was limited and not scientific, it suggested to me that the questions of generation and continued contact with Sicily are pertinent ones. The purpose of the survey was to find linguistic informants but it also furnished interesting information.[7] Among the respondents are seven who were born in either Santo Stefano or Alessandria della Rocca; 28 who were born in Tampa; two who were born elsewhere in the United States but have parents or grandparents from Santo Stefano and Alessandria della Rocca. Of the first seven, only two are more that 90 years old; the others have come to Tampa since the 1960s, but all had relatives living in Tampa with whom they had remained in contact over the years. Of the 28 born in Tampa, 22 are second generation and five are third generation (information incomplete for 1 respondent). Of the two born elsewhere in the United States, one is second generation and the other is third. All members of the first and second generations speak Sicilian (most of them also speak Spanish). Of the third generation, four speak Sicilian and the remaining two do not speak it with any fluency but do understand it.

The arrival of more recent immigrants is testimony to the continued contact that has been maintained with Sicily. I was shown letters that had been received as long ago as 70 years and as recently as last month. When I conducted the tape-recorded interviews I always asked if the informant had ever visited Sicily and discovered that many either had, or had plans to visit in the near future. Those who had visited Sicily liked it, and almost all of them related a story of the reaction to their version of the Sicilian dialect. One respondent to the survey, describing his own personal experience, sent me a four-page letter from which I quote the following:

In 1977 and again in 1985, I had occasion to visit Italy, and Sicily in particular. In that span of 8 years I found the Sicilian dialect to have eroded to a mere nothing. The conversations we engaged in were pri­marily in the pure Italian language. . . . To my sur­prise, I spoke far more in the Sicilian dialect than my relatives; in fact some words and phrases I used had to be translated into the pure Italian for me to be under­stood.

I was also told some amusing stories of these visits to Sicily, mainly from mature, married women who were surprised when they were not allowed out of the house by themselves. Other less amusing stories told of ill treatment received outside of Sicily when the traveler tried to communicate using Sicilian.

One other contact worth mentioning is the recent establishment of a sister city relationship between Tampa and Agrigento. Cultural exchanges have already taken place and a folkloric group visited Tampa for the second time this past summer. A trip to Sicily to attend the Santa Rosalia celebration is planned for next summer. This effort to maintain contact with Sicily has been enthusiastically supported by younger Tampa Italians, signaling a continued interest in their cultural heritage.

L’Unione Italiana (The Italian Club) of Tampa will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 1994, and a fund raising campaign has been undertaken to restore the building located in Ybor City. A number of activities are planned for the entire year. The club tradition in Tampa grew out of the various mutual aid societies that were formed in the early years to serve the needs of the immigrant community. Although those needs were long ago superseded, the Italians continue to belong to a number of clubs such as the three lodges of the Sons of Italy, the Italian Cultural Center, and the Circulo italiano at a local university.[8]The clubs’ activities, which may consist of an organized meal, dancing, or a bocce tournament, take place throughout the year and provide occasions for speaking Sicilian. Many of the older men even continue to gather in the clubs, sometimes on a daily basis......

THE SURVIVAL OF THE SICILIAN DIALECT OF TAMPA, FLORIDA tell.fll.purdue.edu/RLA-Archive/1993/Italian-html/Taylor,Susan.htm

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