950 49th
Street, Brooklyn, New York
Having read 950 49th Street, Brooklyn, New York, I now find I have a new understanding of what it must be like for those coming to America for the first time and trying to find their way in a country such as ours.
Claudia Marinelli, her husband, Umberto, and their children, Anna Marie, Nazario, and Noemi (who wouldn't be born for a few months yet) moved to New York from Italy in the summer of 1986. The decision for such a drastic move came when they found that the Residency opportunities were greater here in America than in Italy at that time. Imagine moving from another country--the only life you have ever known--to a country about which you know very little. A country where you know not a soul and the language is one of the most difficult there is to learn. On top of that, you've another beautiful child on the way, and two already here that must be looked after. How do you deal with that?
If you're Claudia Marinelli, you do it wonderfully, if with some difficulty. In 950 49th Street, Brooklyn, New York, Claudia tells a story of a family surviving for eight years in the tiny apartments assigned to the hospital Residents, dealing with lax landlords, and cockroaches from Hell, somehow finding humor in it all. She quickly finds that the wives of the other Residents in house are close friends and eager to pull her into their fold. They help her to find her way around the burroughs of New York, find schools for the children, and in one case, give her an old washing machine that makes for a pretty funny story. These same friends take care of Anna Marie and Nazario--Claudia's children--when she goes through several bouts of illness that require hospital visits, and are the first to offer help when she returns home with the new addition to the Marinelli family, Noemi.
It's not until you've read a book like 950 49th Street, Brooklyn, New York that you truly realize what someone from another country goes through when coming here for the first time. It's not a book comparing one country to another, saying one is better than another: Instead, it's a book about how people grow close when thrown together under similar circumstances. How you find friends all around you even in a foreign land. And how those friendships stay with you no matter where life takes you.