Oral History Interview with Carmela Cergua

Oral History Interview with Carmela Cergua

Boston (Mass.). Office of the Mayor

1975-1976

Interview of Carmela Cergua. Conducted by an unknown interviewer. Cergua discusses her parents' financial struggles before and after immigrating to America. She recalls arriving in America and her family’s first apartment in the North End. Cergua describes how her family’s poverty affected her education, home life, and work experience. Cergua then talks about meeting her husband and her father’s attitude to the relationship. Cergua discusses making liquor during prohibition and her reaction to the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. She concludes by talking about the Great Depression’s impact on her family. Other topics mentioned include Governor’s Island, Hanover Court, making homemade clothes, crochet, Cushing School, sweatshops, Lewis Street, butcher shop, bootleggers, President Herbert Hoover, President Richard Nixon, President Franklin Roosevelt, New Deal, Works Progress Administration (WPA).

North End (Boston, Mass.)

Working class Italian Americans

Emigration and immigration

Sacco-Vanzetti Trial, Dedham, Mass., 1921

Digital Commonwealth

text

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