A STARS AND
STRIPES CAMPODOLCINO  CAMPODOLCINO |
There is a city on the other
side the ocean, that is an exact
photocopy of Campodolcino. Its inhabitants have names
like Gianoli,
Buzzetti, Guanella, and so forth, just like the
originals. The town is
Genoa and you'll find it in the American state of
Wisconsin. Here, about
a century and a half ago, many emigrants arrived, having
left the Valle
Spluga in search of fortune. Entire families, out
of necessity, were
required to leave everything to re-start from zero in a
foreign land. From Genoa - which the people in "stars and stripes" pronounce "ginoa" - the people of the "Valley of the Just" have, little by little, moved into other regions of the United States. [Note: the pronunciation comment by the writer is there because in Italian, Genoa is pronounced as if it were written "JEN-oh-wa", but in this town in Wisconsin,they pronounce it "JIN-oh-wa".] Since 1996, the descendents of those Campodolcinian emigrants have begun to reunite in a three-day meeting, to remember their origins and their roots. The latest convening of this biannual reunion concluded yesterday in Bloomington, Minnesota. Paolo Via, a retired professor who lives in Chiavenna, has been conducting research for many years on those first pioneers. "The presence of the Campodolcinians in the United States has a wholly particular history," he recalls, "and it has become significant in recent years thanks to the Internet. The principal American references with whom we have established a significant collaboration are Tony Buzzetti and Jim Venner," also descendents of Liro. Collaborating with the professor on this program are Luigi Fanetti, who takes care of the institutional aspects, Dino Buzzetti, an expert in geneaology, and Valentina Via, for linguistic advice. "Genoa in Wisconsin," continued Via, "is found in the region of the high Mississippi. It was the point of departure of the emigrants coming from the Valle Spluga. Here, around the middle of the 19th century, the first colony of Campodolcinians was established. The progenitor was Francesco Giuseppe Zaboglio, married to Mary Ann Buzzetti. After him, many others arrived. Over the course of the years, then, the descendents moved elsewhere. Thanks to the work carried out by the Valchiavennan web site and by the American contacts, it was possible to reunite about a hundred people, all interested in rediscovering their own roots. The meetings, like the one that just concluded in Bloomington, take place periodically in America and are the most living expression of a great desire for a historical-geographic anchorage. A book by Jim Venner, "From Campodolcino to Genoa: The Descendents of Francesco Zaboglio," is significant in this matter. It reports the stories of around 1700 people. Already some of them, in recent years, have arrived in Valchiavenna to visit the native places of the founders. They went to Vho, in the community of San Giacomo Filippo. It was incredible to see the emotion on their faces, as their hands touched the walls of those old houses left behind a century and a half ago by their ancestors. In the meantime, the research continues, to the point that now there is a heavy correspondence between the students of Chiavenna and the Americans. Who knows, maybe one day, the people of Campodolcino will take into consideration the possibility of twinning their own community with that of Genoa. by Gian Luca Papa La Provincia di Sondrio - ottobre 2000 |