K.M: So, to start I want to ask, why did you leave Italy?

Carm Squeo: Well my parents… I came young, of course. My parents came for a better life really. My father went up north in the gold mine. So, we lived there for about a couple of years and then we came to Brantford.

K.M: Where about up north?

C.S: Mackenzie Island it was called. On the border of Winnipeg and Northern Ontario.

K.M: How old were you?

C.S: I was seven. My dad came first, and he was there for a year and then my mother, myself and my sister came a year later. It wasn’t easy. Even at 7 years old it wasn’t easy.

K.M: Did your family know anybody else who was already living here before you came to Canada?

C.S: Yeah, my uncle was here first. You have to do papers of course, you can’t just come. They had to kind of sponsor you. So, my uncle sponsored my father and then he brought us over, sponsored us. You have to have someone sponsor you. You have to be responsible for that person. And he was there up north at the time too.

K.M: Why did you eventually come to Brantford?

C.S: My mother didn’t like it up there. Hated it! (Laughing)

Tony Squeo: Too cold!

C.S: She hated it. I really don’t know because I was very young. I’m just assuming after a while… Well while we were there, we had misfortune, our house burnt down. We lived in an apartment building and it burnt down, and it really bothered my mother. It was isolated, so she didn’t like that. I don’t know if that’s the reason we came here, or after a couple years the job was done. I’m not sure. 

C.S: When we came to Brantford from up north, it was hard for us too to find an apartment for us to live, because at the time if you had children, nobody would rent you a house or an apartment for some reason. So, we had to go live with my friend, a distance relation really, it’s Steve’s godmother actually. We had to go live with them for six months. So, they were nice enough, that’s how close we all were. You know in that town, is that they provided us their house, food and everything for six months, almost as if they were sponsoring us, even though we had only come from up north. Until we bought a house, because nobody would rent us a house because my parents had two small children and I guess nobody wanted children! (Laughing) I don’t know why. Maybe they thought they would destroy the place. 

K.M: I know the town you came from in Italy, there is quite a few people from there now living in Brantford.

C.S: Yes, there is quite a few.

K.M: I was wondering if any of you knew each other coming over at the same time?

T.S: Yes, we know those people in Italy, the ones in Brantford, we have a lot of community in Brantford. From the same village we come.

C.S: Yeah, we knew them all. Its such a small town that everybody knows everybody.

Amy Squeo: So, who came to Brantford first?

C.S: My uncle. So, he came here on his own, they were young, but my father was married with children. But him and my other uncle, Luigi, they were single. So, they came here, so that’s when they sponsored my father too. He did, the one. And then it was my father who sponsored me. And the other brother. See you just sponsor, and you bring your whole family one at a time. We were the first ones to come from Celle in our family, but there were other people before then that came from the same town.

T.S: Four young people they come from Celle. And then they sponsor their families. And now we are quite a few in Brantford from the same town.

K.M: Was it difficult to sponsor people. Or was it a straight forward process?

C.S: No, it’s just a lot of paper work. Of course, you have to be responsible for that person, because they couldn’t find a job right away, they had to life with you. You had to feed them.

T.S: Like when I came here, my brother sponsored me. So, if I no find a job, or don’t work, my brother had to look after me. Give me some money, give me some food, a house to stay in and things like that. It’s a guarantee.

K.M: The area where Celle is, they have a specific dialect. Do either of you speak it?

C.S: Both of us speak it. My parents, that’s what they spoke to me growing up.

K.M: Do you speak standard Italian as well?

C.S: Well I don’t speak it, but I understand it. Tony does, because he went to school in Italy. He came here when he was 18. So, he had all his schooling in Italy, he didn’t go to school here. He speaks well Italian because of that.

K.M: So, when you came here Carm, you learned in English at school? Was that difficult?

C.S: Yes. Well, I guess when you’re a child it’s not as difficult. Because, um, well I guess it was. When I came here, I had already completed grade one. I was in grade two. So, when I went up there, it was only one school. I had to start all over, like they put me back in grade one. And of course, it was Christmas by the time we got here, so half the year was gone, so they kept me another year in grade one. I was now two years behind in school all along. It was difficult, but being the oldest, I guess… My sister had it a little bit easier because she was only two years old. I had to learn because my parents didn’t speak, so I had to learn and help them a lot.

K.M: Did you have any obstacles when you were travelling here?

C.S: Personally, I came by boat. I landed in Nova Scotia. It took us a whole week to get there. It was a big boat, you know a ship. As soon as my mother went on the boat, she was sick, always sea sick. My sister and I were running around the boat on our own! (Laughing) a seven and a two-year-old! Thank goodness we had a friend that was coming with us, travelling with us to Canada too from the same town and she kind of kept an eye on us. I only remember one thing. I remember choking on a bone, you know for the fish? That’s all I remember about that trip. I nearly died! So, that’s it. My mother didn’t enjoy it, because she was in bed the whole time.

K.M: So, from Halifax, did you take a train over?

C.S: We took a train, yes. we took a train all the way up here. I think it took us three days and two nights. From there to up north there, yeah it was a long time.

K.M: Tony, you said you came when you were older right?

T.S: Yeah, I was 18. Sono venuto qui in Canada quando avevo dicotto anni. Sono arrivato in pieno inverno, facevo freddo enorme. Io non era abituato al freddo. Piaciuto moltissimo in Canada, e ancore oggi sono fiero di essere italiano e canadese. I’m very proud to be Italian and Canadian.

C.S: When he came, he came in March so a lot of snow here at the time. He wasn’t used to that!

T.S: I was worse because I come from south Italy and it’s much, much warmer there.

K.M: Did you live anywhere else before you came to Branford?

T.S: No, no I lived in Brantford all my life. And I love Brantford, I really do. We got a little community here. We come from Celle and it’s like a little community. We have a party every year, we have a Christmas party for the kids, sing to people all the time.

C.S: It’s like the village moved to Brantford.

T.S: We are more from Celle in Brantford, than people in Celle!

K.M: When you came, were your parents with you?

T.S: No. I came over here, because my brother was here in Canada. The same time, my mother, my father, and my sister, they went to Columbus, Ohio. My uncle, he sponsored them. He sponsored the whole family there, me included. So, I had my chance to go in Ohio when my mother and father went there, but that time it was the Vietnam War. So automatically, if I was going to the United States, I could be American citizen and the could have sent me to the army. So, I said to my uncle, my mother and my father, “no, I prefer to stay in Canada”. And After I met my wife, and we got married and had three children, three boys. Happy family! Let's put it that way. And I enjoy my family every time we stay together.

K.M: So, you were older before you came. Where you working in Italy?

T.S: Yes, I was working. In Foggia. But I only worked about four years there. And after I come in Canada. I was tolonidine maker, it was a trade, I worked in a garage for that. It was difficult to come here, because of my language and because the measurements were all different. And I went to work in construction all my life, here in Canada.

K.M: Did you know any English before coming here.

T.S: No, no English at all. It was very hard for me because of my age, when I came there, I went to work and that’s it.

K.M: Did you come over by boat as well?

T.S: No, I come by plane. Roma to Toronto and somebody picked me up in Toronto, a friend of my brother and I went to Brantford.

K.M: So, when did you two actually meet?

C.S: When he came to Canada yeah. Well see his brother married my aunt. That’s how we got to know him. When he came to Canada, his brother and my aunt used to live upstairs from us. We had a duplex when we bought our house, and we used to live downstairs and they lived upstairs. But we must have known each other in Italy because I was seven and he’s three years older than me, so neither one of us knew.

T.S: It was a tough life, no language, you go look for job and the first thing they ask, “you speak English?”. “No, I don’t speak English.” “you know the measurements?” “No, I know the Italian measurements, not the English measurements.” Now it would be nice to come, because they changed it. But it was tough live before. Hard to find work when we came over, its not like now because there is a lot of work here and there. I put a lot of applications to factories, but no luck. So, I had to work in construction, which I had never done in Italy.

K.M: Coming to Canada, it’s a new country, new people. Was there anyway you kept your Italian culture alive in your daily lives?

T.S: Yes, especially me, pure Italian. I love Italy, I love the Italian language, I love Italian food. We keep all the traditions. We keep all the traditions of the food we used to make in Italy. We still make wine, we make sauce, so we keep all the Italian traditions from the little village we come from.

C.S: We still make our own sausage, and you know that type of stuff because we used to do that there, well our parents did. And I learned through my parents. And then I married a pure Italian. Probably if I hadn’t married him, I wouldn’t be doing all these traditions. No, I don’t think so. And he’s so old fashion that he likes to keep the traditions, we kept them up. Probably if I had married a Canadian, I would not have kept them.

C.S: the Italians that came here in Canada, they kept their traditions. They stayed old fashioned, but they don’t do those things anymore. If you go to Celle, they don’t do those things. Nobody makes sausage, nobody slaughters a pig or kills a lamb, nothing! They don’t make their own sauce, they don’t do anything.

T.S: Even the language. We speak our dialect here. Now you go in Celle, they don’t speak our dialect like we used to speak there. They’ve changed all the things.

C.S: They changed. We came to a new country, you’d think that we would change, but we didn’t. It didn’t happen that way. We stayed, kept all our traditions and still think the old way, whereas in Italy they all changed. There’s no tradition with them anymore.

Steve Squeo: Where did the dialect come from?

T.S: From France. They call it, in Italian they call it Francoprovinzale. But back to tradition, we still make cookies, we still do all those things here. Like in Italy, they don’t do them no more, the young generation, but we still do it here.

C.S: Even our age, they don’t do it anymore. They buy everything.

K.M: Have you been back to visit your town in Italy?

C.S: We’ve been about four times?

T.S: Yeah about three or four.

K.M: How was it to go back?

T.S: Beautiful! I love it.

C.S: He has all his friends there. I don’t see him when we go over there! (laughing) He takes off with his friends.

A.S: While we sit and cook all day.

C.S: Another tradition we brought over here! (laughing) We went back on our honeymoon, that’s the first time we went back. And I didn’t know those people, I didn’t remember any of them, and we were only there two weeks in Celle. When we left, I started to cry, I couldn’t stop.

T.S: And the first time we went there for our honey moon, we travelled all by train. We travelled all up and down Italy all by train. We had a special ticket so we could go everywhere. It was cheaper and faster, and we could stop wherever we want.

C.S: I don’t know if they do that now, that was in 1972. We went back for my cousins wedding also, and they do weddings a little different than ours. We got used to how they do weddings here. So, when we went there for the wedding it was kind of funny. No bridesmaids, you know they just had a best man, well not even a best man, it was her sister standing up for her. This is it, he was just in an ordinary suit and they got married just the two and then we went to eat and that was it. Six o’clock and we were home! What kind of wedding is this? That’s how they do their weddings there.

T.S: An Italian wedding in Brantford, you come home around two o’clock in the morning!

C.S: Well they used to do that in Italy. They used to have dances and everything. You know when my mother got married, but now it’s all changed. It’s not the way it used to be. We were so far away from home, you kept the traditions. It’s like bringing home here.