Specials

Vincent Impellitteri is an Italian of America, known for being one of the “Italian” mayors of the largest city in the United States. He was born in Isnello, a small village in the Madonie mountains, and brought in America when he was just a baby.

In 1901, his father, a cobbler, emigrated there with his whole family in hope of finding a better life than the miserable one he used to live in the land of origin.

The Impellitteris soon moved to Ansonia in Connecticut, where they established, putting to use in another place the same family dynamics they had in the culture of their native country. The small town remained in fact the new home of the Impellitteris for life. Even the brothers of Vincent did not move from that place. The only one to make exception was the future mayor of New York.

Vincent completed his studies regularly at the state schools, despite the considerable economic difficulties which affected the Impellitteri family especially in the early days. It would have been an ordinary life if it had not intervened the Great War to which he took part as radio operator on board of a destroyer. During the war, in fact, he had the opportunity to visit countries such as England and Ireland which, especially the latter, struck him so much that he felt the need for a change. At the end of the war, Vincent decided not to remain in the small village of Connecticut preferring to move to New York where it would find greater opportunities.

Another boost toward a new destiny was given by attending the Fordham Law School. Here, he came into contact with the scions of many families of the American establishment of that time, in particular those families of democratic environment. The urban reality of New York City at that time saw an excessive power of the Irish ethnic component within the ruling class of the Democratic Party. Vincent grew up politically in that atmosphere, gradually integrating and showing himself as a young man who expressed new requests coming from the most recent and substantial migratory flows, the Jewish and Italian ones.

The peculiarity of the election to Mayor of Vincent Impellitteri consisted in the competitive frame that surrounded him. To fight for that chair were four but the inconsistency of the fourth and the “Italianity” of the first three helped to remember it as the "Italian" electoral competition. Two of the three contenders came from Sicily albeit with different histories and pedigrees. The third was also a southerner from the deep south of Italy.

* This text is the abstract of the paper presented by prof. Giampiero Finocchiaro to the conference "Memories of the Future" (Palermo, 28-29 November 2008)