The news reached the Sielis through the San Francisco Chronicle:“President Benjamin Harrison Declares National Holiday to Honor Columbus.”
It was 1892, and America was still young enough to crave its heroes—and frightened enough to look for scapegoats.
My blog "The Soil Remembers: The Saga of the Sieli Family" continued: The Sieli Chronicles: The Soil Remembers: The Saga of the Sieli Family
Community (and the Lack of It)
The town took note of them as one takes note of a fencepost: useful if it holds, in the way if it does not. Some Anglos waved. Many did not. A man named Ezekiel Crowe—tall, tight, with a beard like a brush dipped in bitterness—set himself up as the voice of the valley’s conscience and told anyone who would listen that papists were building a secret kingdom one rosary at a time.
“They worship statues,” he said on a corner one afternoon as the Sieli wagon went by with barrels for water. “They will bring the Pope’s law over the mountains on their beads.”
Ciao amici! 🇮🇹🍷
I’ve started writing a serialized blog about an Italian American family that owns a vineyard in California. Through their story, you’ll follow them across the decades and generations, experiencing California’s history from 1850 to the present day — from the Gold Rush to the modern era.
Below is a brief summary and the opening chapter of the saga. You can read the rest here: The Sieli Chronicles: The Soil Remembers: The Saga of the Sieli Family
In “The Soil Remembers,” the first chapter of The Sieli Chronicles, the author introduces a fictional Italian-American family whose vineyard in California’s San Joaquin Valley becomes a living archive of migration, prejudice, and memory. The story opens in 2025 with brothers Michael and Dominic standing among the vines with their niece Sofia, clashing over identity and how history should be remembered. Then the narrative sweeps back to the 1850s, when brothers Giuseppe and Antonio Sieli leave Liguria…
After viewing the YouTube video posted on OAHIC this Holy Week, March 10-15, 2023,
of the elaborate hand-crafted dried palm weaving, it was reminiscent of how My Mother
use to weave the crosses with her group from St. Joseph's of Cupertino Catholic Church.
The group was YLI Young Ladies Institute, and for a time my mother, Jacqueline Apa Federico,
was the YLI President. We also would see those palm crosses attached to pictures of Christ, Holy Mary,
and a Saint or two.
Both of my grandmothers made small, simple palm crosses and placed them on a wall in each room of the house. My maternal grandmother placed them next to the light switches.
Thank you! It is a serialized blog I am going to self-publish as a book to. It is very long with lots of "episodes," spanning 1850 to today. And beyond. Here is the link again, I'd welcome any feedback: The Sieli Chronicles: The Soil Remembers: The Saga of the Sieli Family