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Italian-born Shire Councillor and later Shire President 1989-91and Mayor from 1998 to 1999. (Although Steve Raffo was aCouncillor earlier, he was Australian-born). Sam Danieli wasMayor from 1996 to 1998. The hard work of the first generationof immigrants has created the foundations from which theirchildren have been able to move into law, medicine,architecture, teaching, accountancy and many other fields.Despite struggles in the early years, Italians have been fairlyreadily accepted and integrated into northern beaches’ life,which can now scarcely be imagined without them. This isperhaps symbolized by The Strand at Dee Why, where the oldAussie beach life blends seamlessly into a new ambientecreated by the mostly Italian cafes and restaurants. bibliography and acknowledgmentsBurnley, I.H. "Italian settlement in Sydney, 1920-78", AustralianGeographical Studies, 19, 2 (1981), pp 177-194.Fig. 1 John Caputo, Mayor ofWarringah, 1998-1999. Imagecourtesy of Malcolm Prentis.As demonstrated, the Italian community of Warringah hassettled very successfully. It has maintained its solidarity andmutual support while also participating wholeheartedly in theShire’s life. Home links remain strong; Gizzeria and Brookvalebecame "sister cities" in 1982, and Antonio Caputo wasawarded the equivalent of a knighthood by the Italiangovernment in 1975 and the Medal of the Order of Australia in2009. Antonio’s son John was also later made a Cavaliere by theItalian government. Preservation of Italian language andcustoms has helped Warringah Italians feel at home andrelatively few have become re-emigrants (canguri) comparedwith the British and Dutch immigrants. In July and August 2005,an exhibition, Sempre Con Te (Always with you), was mountedat the artRoom Upstairs Gallery in Manly to celebrate the livesof Italian women on the northern beaches from 1920 to 1970. 11It was richly illustrated with text, images and artefacts of“separation and reunion”. The project has continued as part ofthe New South Wales Migration Heritage Centre of thePowerhouse Museum and in 2009 a book of the exhibition waspublished. 12Greco, J. “Bruzzano Pl Dee Why”, The Manly Daily, 13 February 2010,p. 39.Hutchinson, M. Pellegrini: an Italian protestant community in Sydney,1958-1998. Sydney: Australasian Pentecostal Studies Journal, 1999.MacRitchie, John, Gina Polito & Silvana Toia, Italians on the NorthernBeaches1920-70s,http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/sempreonte/italians-on-northern-beaches/ (accessed 5 February 2010).Pascoe, R. Buongiorno Australia. Melbourne: Greenhouse Publications,1987.Randazzo, N. & M. Cigler, The Italians in Australia. Melbourne: AEPress, 1987.Scarborough, P. Migration and Primary groups: a study of British, Dutchand Italian families in Manly-Warringah, NSW. unpublished M.A.Thesis, Macquarie University, 1978.Toia, Silvana et al., Sempre Con Te (Always with you). Sydney: NSWMigration Heritage Centre, Powerhouse Publishing, 2009.Many thanks to Mrs Connie Coniglio, Cr John Caputo and Fr AdrianPittarello for their help with the original research in 1987-88.Fig. 2 Cover of Sempre Con Teexhibition catalogue. Imagecourtesy of Malcolm Prentis.11 For press reports on the exhibition, see Sempre Con Te website,http://www.sempreconte.com/media.htm (accessed 6 April 2010).The project was partly sponsored by welfare organization, Co.As.It.,which had a long history of helping Italian settlers in the area.12 Silvana Toia et al., Sempre Con Te (Always with you) (Sydney: NSWMigration Heritage Centre, Powerhouse Publishing, 2009).18 | IHSJ ITALIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 18 2010
the things left behindthoughts on the passing ofmy italian migrant parentsby dorothy manieroDorothy Maniero was born in Sydney and studied archaeology and Italian at Sydney University inthe early 1990s. She worked as a graphic artist, editor and illustrator before returning to universityto study the visual arts. In 2005 she graduated from the Tasmanian School of Art, University ofTasmania with honours in printmaking. Dorothy currently lives in southern Tasmania where shecontinues to develop and expand her art practice and work out ways to get back to Italy.In February of 2008, I turned up at the offices of the ItalianHistorical Society in Melbourne with a nondescript box undermy arm. The box contained items from the estate of myparents which my sister and I had decided to donate to theSociety. I had made the trip up from southern Tasmania andwhen I boarded the ferry in Devonport, the machete which myfather had used to cut sugar cane in Queensland wasconfiscated as a dangerous weapon and locked up for theduration of the voyage. Years ago, the items in the box hadcrossed many seas, now they were crossing from the privateworld of one small family and into the public realm of history.It is a strange decision to make, relinquishing the possession ofhighly personal items into the hands of strangers. Indeed, whydo it at all? For me, the answer lies in a visit I made to theImmigration Museum in Melbourne, the week after the deathof my mum. Heavy with grief, I was looking for something,some kind of confirmation that my parents had made the rightchoice when they left Italy behind all those years ago. I went tothe Immigration Museum expecting to cry. Instead, I found asense of strength, a kind of awe at the resilience and courage ofall the hundreds of thousands of people who, for whateverreason, uprooted their lives, turned their backs on all that wasfamiliar and set out to start new lives in Australia. I was inspiredto ensure that something of my parents' story would be knownand hopefully preserved outside the circle of family and friends.I wanted to claim a place for them in history. In the ImmigrationMuseum that day, it was the mundane objects salvaged fromeveryday lives which spoke to me most poignantly about themigrant experience.How is it that a thing can 'speak'? There is the basic fact that ourpossessions last long after our physical bodies have vanished, athing left behind becomes the only proof that we ever were.The way an object has been worn down, stained, or eaten awayby moths and silverfish can suggest many stories, for examplethe way a tablecloth has been carefully washed and ironed untilsoft and faded. Something we might have touched often orvalued highly seems to absorb the attention we gave it in lifeand continues to contain our energy or even radiate it long afterits owner is gone. The French philosopher Roland Barthes (1915– 1980) was equally aware of these exact sentiments. Withspecific reference to old photographs, Barthes came to therealisation that an early photograph of his own mother was, "…the treasury of rays which emanated from [her] as a child, fromher hair, her skin, her dress, her gaze, on that day", thephotograph is thus an object which shows, "at once the pastand the real". 1The photograph is a particularly compelling category of object,especially now that digital technology has completely changedthe way we take photographs. Apart from the subject matter,old photos have a potent material quality, a fadedness, a curlingat the edges, a way of freezing the world that imparts animmense sense of distance and loss, encapsulating that onemoment which can never be lived again. This distance can onlybe measured from the point of the one who looks at thephotograph in the here and now. As Barthes states, "I am thereference of every photograph, and this is what generates myastonishment in addressing myself to the fundamentalquestion: why is it that I am alive here and now?" 2 In the novelUtz, Bruce Chatwin writes that, "Things, I reflected, are tougherthan people. Things are the changeless mirror in which wewatch ourselves disintegrate." 3 In regarding objects whichbelonged to people now dead, there is a deep and quiet senseof our own mortality.1 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, Reflections on Photography (NewYork: Hill and Wang, 1981), p. 82.2 Roland Barthes, p. 84.3 Bruce Chatwin, Utz (London: Picador, 1988), p. 113.IHSJ ITALIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 18 2010 | 19
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