Italians Becoming Americans: Clam Seller, Mulberry Street, NY

When my father was a young immigrant man in Hoboken, NJ, he and his brother pooled their meager resources and bought what Dad called their "three legged horse" and cart. Because the horse was lame in one leg, they got a great deal on him. Apparently, the cart wasn't in great shape, either. But this allowed them the opportunity to take their cart down to the docks and sell fruit and vegetables to the sailors coming off the many ships docking in Hoboken at the time. They didn't make a lot of money, but it helped them survive...

In the same way many immigrant men started their own small street vendor businesses, that in many cases eventually evolved into brick and mortar shops where their entire family worked, or they would hire compatriots as they also emigrated from their home villages in Italy.  Eventually these clusters of vendors, shops and tenements became the Little Italys of America, merging Italians into becoming true Americans. Italians didn't arrive with much money, but they did come with many varied skills: tailors, cheese makers, butchers, bakers, carpenters, masons and much, much more...

--Jerry Finzi