The Experience of an Italian Sephardic Jew in Los Angeles, 1940. By Kaeli Leoni.
The first thing I did was interview my grandfather, an 88-year-old second generation immigrant (2). I started off by asking what his family's experiences were in Rhodes. "It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful," he said, "I can remember my parents telling me stories of beautiful oceans. [It was] the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. They wanted to stay by the ocean if they could, which is one of the reasons they moved to Los Angeles when getting to the US." If it was so beautiful, why would they want to leave? I asked my grandfather this, and he responded, "Well, the Italians took over." In 1912, the island of Rhodes was seized by Italy from Turkey during the Italo-Turkish War (4). During the time, Italians were very strictly Catholic. This was a problem for my grandpa. A little background information - my grandfather is a Sephardic Jew. The island of Rhodes had a very large population of Jews. Those two religions have historically not lined up. So, my family left Rhodes between 1912 and 1920 in hopes of finding a better and more accepting place to live. This ended up being a good decision, as not more than 30 years later did Italy join the Axis alongside Germany during WWII.
While both of his parents left Rhodes separately, they found themselves immigrating to the same city, Los Angeles, California, where many Sephardic and other secs of Jewish people ended up during that time. I asked my grandpa about what that was like. "Everyone was so close. It was such a close community. We all grew up together, went to school together, got married to one another, we were family. To this day, once a year our old high school hosts a luncheon where all of us who are still kicking head over and catch up. It's just amazing. Love them all." I have always lived within a close proximity to my grandfather, and when that luncheon comes around it is all anyone hears about. I think it is so extraordinary that a group of 80+-year-olds come together and talk about their lives growing up. Coming from a small community like that just sounds amazing to me. Although my grandpa has lived in San Diego for the past 30 or so years, he still makes the trip all the way up to Los Angeles to meet up with his old friends. I would love to have something like that.
But, of course, growing up during the 1930s and '40s must not have always been easy. My grandpa was also Italian, and if I have taken one thing out of this class it is that Italians were not seen as equals for a very long time. So, I asked him. "Well, to be completely honest, being Italian was what saved me from a lot more discrimination growing up than I should have gotten. When I was very little, before I moved to the Jewish community, I was ashamed to be Jewish. Jewish people were treated so badly where I grew up. My last name sounds Italian, so no one was really able to find out my whole heritage. I'm ashamed of that now - I wish I had been honest. I never faced hardships because I was Italian, only because I was Jewish." My grandpa has always shared a lot about his past with me and his children and grandchildren. I have to say that I was pretty surprised when he said he had never been treated poorly because he was Italian. Considering all of the books we have read this semester that said otherwise, namely Ask the Dust, I was expecting to hear of some stories where he had been discriminated against during the time. As we saw in that story, Bandini felt like his heritage was baggage he did not want to carry. It caused others in the Los Angeles area to shame and judge him before they knew anything else and weighed heavily on Bandini's conscious and how he constructed his identity (1). But, of course, every person has their own story.
Interviewing my grandfather gave me an idea for another part of my project. I knew I wanted to paint, however I was not really sure of what. When I looked back over the interview, I came up with the idea to paint a scene from a beach at Rhodes. The picture I chose to recreate is one of a beach named St. Paul Bay Beach in Lindos, Rhodes (3). After a few days of working on my painting, I was able to finish it. I am by no means an experienced painter, hence why it took so long to finish. My grandpa, however, really appreciated the effort, and that is all that really matters, right?
This entire process has been very eye-opening for me. I have heard a lot about my grandpa's experience living in Los Angeles growing up, but it was not until this class that I realized he may have faced prejudice because he was Italian as well. Luckily my grandfather did not have to face those hardships, however, his experience added a new lens we had not heard of during this class, that is being Jewish-Italian. Since he is getting older, I am really glad that I got to collect some more information about his past and his family. I will make sure to remember his stories as I grow older and this goal is one of the main reasons I chose this route for my project. Painting again was also a lot of fun for me too. It is something I do not get to do very often, so having an excuse to practice was really exciting. I tried to paint in a different style than I normally do, which pushed me creatively to play around and create something I am really proud of.
Works Cited:
(1) Fante, John. Ask the Dust. Stackpole Sons, 1939.
(2) Leoni, Kaeli, and David Capelouto. “Interview of David Capelouto.” 1 Dec. 2018.
(3) “Lindos Beach, Limanaki Agios Pavlos.” Greek Vacations, greekvacations.eu/beach/lindos-beach-limanaki-agios-pavlos/.
(4) “Rhodes.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes#Modern_history.
