Author Archives: John Cutrone

Jun 17 2016
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Juneteenth

Juneteenth

Juneteenth

Juneteenth is not ’til Sunday, but I’m writing this and sending it out to the world a couple of days early, for here where we live, our Juneteenth celebration is happening a bit early, as well: It’s tomorrow, Saturday June 18, at Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray Beach. The name Juneteenth, which is such a wonderful word, is a portmanteau (itself a wonderful word) of the words June and nineteenth. The day is also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, and it goes back 151 years to 1865: The Emancipation Proclamation may have been issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, and the Civil War may have ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomatox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9, 1865… but enforcement of that emancipation took some time. Juneteenth is a celebration born in Galveston, Texas, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived on Galveston Island on June 18, 1865 with 2,000 Union troops. Granger arrived with the formal announcement of the end of slavery, which he read the following day, June 19, from a Galveston balcony:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

Newly emancipated slaves rejoiced right there in the streets of Galveston. It took a few years before that proclamation made its way across the vast State of Texas, and, as you can imagine, the news was not always welcome: newly freed slaves were often the targets of violence. Still, by the year that followed that original proclamation in Galveston, Juneteenth celebrations were sprouting up all over Texas and continued spreading, mostly among African American communities, throughout the country. As the years went on, and with the new challenges of Jim Crow and segregation, Juneteenth became a day to gather family, to reassure each other against adversity and challenge. In fact, Emancipation Park in Houston is a fine example of Juneteenth spirit challenging Jim Crow laws: When whites kept blacks from using public spaces, those who wanted to celebrate Juneteenth properly gathered the money necessary to purchase a site of their own, and Emancipation Park is one such site. It is the first public park in the State of Texas. The Juneteenth celebration has been going on there for a week now!

Folks early on wore their finest clothes for Juneteenth parades and gathered to eat good food, barbecue especially. Nowadays the dress is less formal but the celebration endures, showcasing the importance of the contributions of black Americans and African American culture. But even now––or maybe especially now––even after 151 years, Juneteenth is a day to celebrate hard-earned freedoms. We should never become complacent about these things. This year’s Juneteenth celebration at Emancipation Park has been going on for about the same length of time that our nation has had to mourn the tragedy that took place in Orlando. By now, the response to that tragedy has devolved into our usual bickering. We never see things eye to eye here, and this is what makes America what it is. However, it does get disheartening to see such division where one would hope to find common sense, and it is disturbing to see some so willing to trample on the rights of others based on who they are. I’ll leave it at that; I am tired of the bickering and the division, and I don’t wish to be part of it. I’m just here to remind you that portmanteau is a lovely word, that Juneteenth should not be forgotten, and that the freedoms we all enjoy as citizens of this country have been, for some of us, attained only through great toil and hardship.

 

Image: A photograph of an early Juneteenth celebration in Austin, Texas.

 

Jun 16 2016
Bloomsday

Bloomsday

James_Joyce_by_Alex_Ehrenzweig, _1915

English majors, rejoice! Or, re-Joyce… for it is Bloomsday, the annual celebration of the James Joyce novel Ulysses, a large book whose narrative covers but one day: June 16, 1904, in Dublin, Ireland. Each 16th of June, folks all over the world (but especially in Dublin) follow the footsteps of Leopold Bloom, the main character in Ulysses. Bloomsday has become a journey and a literary celebration (and some cause for drinking, but this is nothing new amongst bookish types).

Joyce chose the date with purpose. June 16 was the date he first went out with the love of his life, Nora Barnacle. (Perhaps he was enthralled as much with the name Nora Barnacle as with the woman herself; what a lovely name, no?) Nora eventually became his wife.

But on his June 16, Leopold Bloom walked through Dublin, making his rounds… and each year, folks dress in Edwardian garb and follow his route, stopping at the same stops, making the same purchases, reliving the character’s journey through the city. Outside of Dublin, Bloomsday is more a day to remember and honor the great author who wrote the book, so don’t be surprised to see the visage of James Joyce today, especially if you are near a tavern or a bookstore. It could be his ghost, but more likely it is one of my kind, English majors, no doubt awkward and painfully shy, slipping behind the mask of someone we hope to emulate.

 

Image: James Joyce by Alex Ehrenzweig. Photographic print, 1915 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons. Source: Beinecke Library, Yale University.

 

Jun 13 2016
18 Comments
San Antonio, St. Anthony's Day

Tony Tony Come Around

SaintAnthony

I was just a kid when my family moved from New York to Florida. There are lots of things we left behind that, to this day, my mom laments. The square redwood picnic table in the patio. The midcentury modern backlit frieze of a dancing couple on the living room wall. The statue of St. Anthony in the backyard.

Each June, Grandma would spend a good part of each day sitting on an upright beach chair in front of that statue, saying her novena to St. Anthony, for June is his month, and today, the 13th, is his day. In old family photos, from before my time, the statue of St. Anthony is white, but at some point my dad painted it in full color. He painstakingly chose the colors and painted the statue with small brushes, down to the tiniest details, including facial expressions on St. Anthony and the Baby Jesus in his arms and the pistils and stamens of the flowers. Dad also painted St. Anthony’s hair and the top of his head all the same color brown, even though he is always depicted with a tonsure haircut, where the crown of the head is shaved bare. So our St. Anthony had a cap on his head. Dad also painted the little enclave in which the statue resided; it was pale blue, and I’m pretty sure he blew gold dust onto the wet paint behind the statue, so that there was some lovely golden illumination behind him, too. This is the St. Anthony I remember in our yard, and I remember thinking that I liked ours better than any other St. Anthony statue I had seen, and I had seen a lot of them, for Tony is a big deal amongst my people. He makes his appearance in the yards of many Italian American families, along with the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph. Perhaps it goes back to our Roman roots: we like our statues.

And so when we moved away, that statue of St. Anthony stayed behind. Chances are good he’s still there in the backyard on Victor Street; my dad and grandfather built that home, and my folks sold it to the son of another Italian friend who helped build it (a paisano, as we say). Now the house belongs to that man’s son and his family. That’s a long line of Italians, and I like to think that Grandma’s statue of St. Anthony has been watching over all of us the whole time.

For years we had no statue of St. Anthony at our new home in Florida. But one Christmas we had a brilliant idea: We would get Grandma a St. Anthony statue for her Christmas present. And so that year her present could not go under the tree (it was too heavy) and when it came time for her to open that present, we led her outside with her eyes closed and told her to open them at just the right time. As I recall, it was one of the best gifts we had given her (better than all those slippers she usually got). She was a little Italian woman with dark olive skin who didn’t care for much besides her family, what was for dinner, her stories (Another World was her favorite), and her saints, St. Joseph and St. Anthony especially. And for the rest of her life, she was able to sit in that upright lawn chair and say her novena to St. Anthony each June. Novena as in “nine,” nine days of prayers to St. Anthony, with her prayer books and rosary. She muttered the prayers under her breath, eyes fixed lovingly on St. Anthony in his little house. Grandpa would sit with her sometimes, and earlier on, again before my time, so would her best friend, Cummara Filomena. Filomena couldn’t read, so Grandma would read the novena aloud, and Filomena provided the “pray for us” response at the appropriate time.

As for St. Anthony himself, he was born in Lisbon in the late 12th century, but he spent most of his life in Italy. He was an early follower of St. Francis, and as a Franciscan, he wore the iconic brown cowled habit with that tonsured haircut that left the crown of his head bare, a clear portal, perhaps, from head to heaven. He is a populist saint, and is called upon for many reasons, but he is best known as the saint who helps you find lost articles. And so when we misplace our glasses or our keys, we say Tony Tony come around, something’s lost and must be found, an old children’s rhyme. And more often than not, it works. Perhaps because he is here, a presence we Italians like to talk to, like an old paisano.

 

Image: Detail of the St. Anthony statue we gave to Grandma for Christmas years ago. Dad eventually painted this one, too, though perhaps with not quite the attention to detail as the one that was left behind on Victor Street. You’ll notice that Tony is still wearing a cap on his head. Some things never change.

 

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