From Sicily to Argentina:Mary´s story!
- katharinaaronis
- Oct 19
- 8 min read
“Li ciuri su beddi” – Mary greets me in Sicilian dialect!
It’s a sunny autumn day in Buenos Aires, and Mary is in her garden waiting for my call from Germany. I want to interview her about her family’s history, who emigrated from Sicily to Argentina.
“The flowers are beautiful,” she explains in Spanish, and you can tell the ties with Sicily remain strong. We have known each other for ten years, since I was studying in Buenos Aires, and I’m very happy she is sharing her personal experience with me.
Mary was born in Palermo, Sicily, and when she was only five years old, her family left Italy. Like many Sicilian and Italian families, the Lombardo Agliano family emigrated after World War II in search of a new and prosperous life abroad.
In Argentina, an Italian community had already formed since the first wave of migration at the end of the 19th century, making it a highly desired country for many Italians.
As Mary will tell us, her family’s fate—like so many Italians—was marked by the prospect of starting a new life, the pain of family separation, and the deep hope of someday returning to their homeland.
EMIGRATING....
Thank you, Mary, for taking the time to talk with me about your personal story. Tell me a bit, how did your family come to Argentina?
Mary:Thank you, Katha. I’m glad you called me to learn more about my story. When you asked if I wanted to talk about it, I thought about it and said yes because it’s nice for me to relive all these memories as well. My dad was in the army when World War II began, so he had to serve throughout the war. I was born on September 10, 1943, right in the middle of the war. When it ended, there was talk about a Third World War, which scared my dad a lot. Also, since we already had relatives in Argentina, my parents decided to leave Sicily. At first, my dad went alone to Tucumán, where we already knew some people, worked for two years, saved money, and then brought my mom and me. Tucumán was a very rich province at the time because of sugar cane farming, attracting many outsiders looking for work. You know that if you worked then, you could have your own house, your own life. With this optimism, many people left Italy, and that’s how I remember that time.
How was the farewell from Sicily and the journey to Argentina?
Mary:For my mom, leaving Sicily was very painful. When you left your country, you didn’t know if you would return, where you would be, or what you would find there.
I don’t remember much about the farewell, but I do remember not wanting to leave my grandfather because I loved him very much. Sadly, he died three months after we emigrated, from sadness.
My mom and I took the ship from Palermo, where we lived, to Naples and then to Genoa. Genoa and Naples were the main ports from which emigrant ships left. From Genoa, we departed Italy for Buenos Aires. The journey lasted 18 days at sea, plus one day at each stopover. We stopped in Las Palmas, Rio de Janeiro, Santos in Brazil, and then Montevideo before arriving in Buenos Aires on September 29, 1948.
I can tell you the trip was not very pleasant. For example, we traveled third class, slept in cabins with bunk beds. I had to sleep on the top bunk—luckily—because when the weather was bad, people vomited. We traveled on a ship made for transporting cargo and people, called Paolo Toscanelli. In fact, my husband searched for it online one day during the interview, and we saw that I traveled on the ship’s first trip to Buenos Aires and that it was dismantled in 1973.
A nice memory I have is that when we arrived in Las Palmas, my mom bought me a doll that looked like porcelain. So when I arrived in Tucumán, I had a very envied doll (you know how kids can be—laughs).
Is it true that your name was “Argentinized” when you arrived in Argentina?
Mary:Yes! My name is María Concetta, but everyone calls me Mary. When we arrived in Argentina, they gave me the Spanish version of Concetta, which is Concepción. You don’t know how much I hated that name. Concetta is a very common name in Sicily, but Concepción was not used in Argentina, so it felt a bit strange to me.
BUILDING A NEW LIFE IN ARGENTINA
Once in Tucumán, how did life develop? What did your parents do?
Mary:Nowadays it might sound strange, but my father, when he arrived in Argentina, acted as a veterinarian. But he wasn’t one! I don’t know where he found veterinary books in Italy, but he brought them on the trip. He studied those books and then worked in the countryside with horses. Imagine that at that time there weren’t many things. Having a veterinarian or other services we are used to today was not common. So for a while, he did well; he worked two years, and with the money he saved, he brought my mom and me.
We traveled with my dad’s accordion, which was very special because it was a theater accordion. The theater in Tucumán was missing one, and so my dad sold it; with that money, he bought the land where they built our house.
After a while, my sister Rosa Ana was born, and my parents opened a haberdashery business. That did very well. People still knew how to sew.
But for my mom, adapting to the new life in Argentina was very difficult. She was used to the sea in Sicily. Here, she knew no one. She didn’t like the weather, the people, or the food much. At first, we didn’t even have flour. At that time, the Argentine government sent all the flour to Europe, so much that none was left for people in Argentina. So we had wheat husks, and with that, we made bread.
I’ll tell you an anecdote: when we arrived, there was a locust plague. They were everywhere. You couldn’t plant anything because they ate it. I remember the planes flying over to fumigate. Before understanding how big a problem the locust plague was, my mom told me: “It’s raining with sun.” But it wasn’t rain; they were locusts on the roof of the house. Imagine, my mom, who was not very happy at first, used to say “What a strange country.”
I think she never really got over saying goodbye to Sicily. But my mom managed to support the family by sewing. She worked for a wealthy Italian family who were wholesalers in the fruit market and sewed for them. So they always brought us boxes of vegetables and food.
How important was Italian kitchen?
Mary:
It was very important! My mom made pasta by hand (later she bought a pasta machine), sauces, and also panettone for Christmas, very important for Italians. Back then everyone made “schiacchiata,” a flattened dough on which you could put whatever you wanted; kind of like focaccia. It was baked in the oven and was very good.
At that time, we shopped at the neighborhood store. You bought only what you needed and in the quantities you required. The chicken seller passed by with live hens, and you chose the one you wanted. Obviously, it was not like today. Surely, in those days, the amount of waste we have now in our homes due to packaging didn’t exist.
I remember very well the taste of milk, which when you opened the glass bottle brought by the milkman, you found a bit of cream. Nothing like today’s taste.
But the nicest work for us young girls was helping mom make Christmas panettone. She gave little panettones she made herself to her friends as gifts.
Do you know how she did it? Back then, oil came in 5-liter tins. These tins were collected during the year, and at the end of the year, they were cut, and the base was used as a mold for the panettones. We greased the tin, put the flour, mom made the dough, and put dried fruits. We made about 40 panettones; it was a lot of work, but we loved helping mom, and it’s a memory I cherish.
When was the first time you went back to Italy?
Mary:When I was 18 years old. My parents wanted me to find a husband (laughs).
So you were with your family in Palermo?
Mary:No! I went to Lido di Jesolo and worked in a hotel. I made my own life (she says it with a big smile on her face). My relatives in Sicily were worried because they didn’t quite understand that I wanted to travel and work.
That time taught me a lot, especially to be independent and follow my own path.
My mom, although she wanted me to marry, wrote a letter to my family explaining that I was grown up, that I knew what I was doing, and that they shouldn’t worry.😊
So you didn’t find your husband in Italy?
Mary:No, I met him when I returned to Argentina after being two years in Italy. He was German, not Italian. I liked Italy, but I didn’t feel I had a future there. I didn’t feel in the right place.
So when I returned to Argentina for Christmas and New Year’s… shortly after, at a Carnival party, I met my husband.
How was living together between two families with different mentalities? You Sicilians and your husband’s German family.
Mary:Immagine that we were surrounded by Sicilians: the group of friends, the neighborhood… My husband came from a German-Austrian family. At home they spoke German, and he spoke only German until he started school. Even today, he speaks it better than Spanish.
But we didn’t have problems. I have been very lucky; I can’t complain (laughs).
SICILY REMAINED FOREVER IN HER HEART
Today your children are the third generation of Italians in Argentina. How do they feel, and how do you feel? Sicilian or Argentine?
Mary:My children, Ludovico and Leopoldo, feel Argentine; they were born here and don’t speak Italian but German. Did you see that I didn’t give them family names? Because I already am called Concetta, like my mom, and my sister is named Rosa Ana, like my grandmother and aunt.
But I always feel Sicilian. The land pulls you, and after all these years you adapt to the country where you are… but I, in my head and in my heart, am Sicilian.
I’ve had a good life in Argentina, despite the difficulties at the beginning, but I can tell you that I always felt the absence of Sicily as if something was always missing. I can’t explain it better. It’s a feeling my family always had… like a veil of sadness.
Did the ties to Sicily always remain strong?
Mary:ALWAYS! At first, obviously, letters were written to family back home. I have to see if I still have any and show them to you. It wasn’t easy to travel in those times like it is today. But we have strong ties. Even now I have cousins in Syracuse and others in Piacenza. When I go to Europe, they always come to pick me up and we spend some time together in Sicily. In my family the Sicilian dialect was also preserved. You, who have been in Calabria, surely understood “Li ciuri su beddi” — “The flowers are beautiful” (laughs).
Yes, I think I can understand some of the dialect. In Calabria, it depends where you are, but one might say something like “I iuri su beddri” — so very similar 😊 When was the last time you were in Sicily?
Mary:Unfortunately, this year I couldn’t go. At 82 years old it’s already a bit difficult for me to take a plane, but I hope to be able to travel next year.
Thank you so much, Mary, for your time and for being willing to share this story. I was deeply moved listening to it, writing it down, and also researching the emigration of Italians.
Thank you, Katha!My story is one of many but I hope by telling it I could help preserve the memory of so many people who emigrated! I hope that next time we’ll see each other in Sicily, Argentina, or Germany!
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