CHAPTER ONE

ItalianRoots

Some people are born into a life of privilege in a safe community with good schools and hope for the future. Others are born into the crucible—a hot mess of historical circumstance, poverty, suspicious cops, and miseducation—while facing a strong headwind of injustice and discrimination. Although Carmen Porco was born into America’s dark crucible, his family’s roots began earlier—in the oldcountry.

His father, Carmine Porco, was born in Belmonte Calabro, Italy, in 1905. The Porcos farmed, far from Rome or any other large metropolitan area. The political chaos of World War I and the threat of anarchist bomb attacks brought the fascist movement right to the doorsteps of rural Italy aswell.

In 1922, Carmine was away from home studying to become a priest when the fascists marched in Rome to take control of the country. They also raided the countryside, with fascists loyal to Mussolini taking over city councils and other local governments throughout Italy—killing many of the local leaders who opposed them. This change in government found the Porcos on the losing side of politics. Everything fell apart the weekend that Carmine went home to make sure his family was safe. Like so many other Italians, Carmine, along with his father and brothers, was forced toflee.

Although Carmine and his brothers successfully escaped, they didn’t escape tragedy along the way, and the event shaped Carmine’s view, and mistrust of, government power and authority for the rest of his life. Years later, Carmine was always quick to remind people that the government was not to be trusted, no matter how democratic it looked. As the Porco boys ran from their homestead in Belmonte Calabro toward the port city of Naples, they watched their father die from wounds he had suffered during one of the fascistraids.

The brothers’ last act together as a family was to bury him in a ditch. Then, they ran separate ways. Three of the brothers went to South America, while Carmine and his two brothers Frank and Joe stowed away on theS.S.Providence bound for New York, often hiding in containers and cargo holds or anywhere else they wouldn’t befound.

They arrived at Ellis Island on a cold November day in 1922. Carmine Porco was only 17 years old. This was the first time he had been someplace where the temperature got below freezing. Like the millions of immigrants before him, he sought a better life in America. Unlike the whi