An Immigrant Story - Nick de Vincenzo

A Soy/Somos Conversation

This interview continues my Soy/Somos conversations with immigrants and first-generation Americans with their feet planted in two or more cultures. Aquí estoy. This is who I am.

Nick de Vincenzo

I met Nick de Vincenzo through his son Mark who cuts my hair. Every now and then Mark, who knew I was writing, would tell me a story he'd heard from his dad. I finally got to meet and talk with Nick at the salon. Mostly I listened.

Nick's story is one of heartache, hard work, and family in a big way, with heaping servings of joy.

Nick, thank you for the privilege of hearing about your life. Can you take us back to Italy where you were born?

I'm from a town in the province of Benevento. The town is called San Bartolomeo in Galdo. It's about an hour from Naples. I came to the United States in 1957 when I was 19. It was Thanksgiving Day.

Mark told me that your dad died in Italy just after World War II. Maybe we should begin here.

There were eight of us kids when my father died. It was 1949.  Six girls, two boys. My mother was 37. My brother was a year and a half. I was 11.

To help my mother, the priest of the town found room for me in an orphanage with the Salesian Brothers in Bari. One of my sisters was also sent to an orphanage.

There was nothing in Italy after the war. Italy started to bloom in the 60s. But from 45 to 60, things were very, very hard. My sisters would tell me some nights, go to sleep early because there is nothing to eat. We were lucky that we had an aunt next door who had a wooden oven and baked bread for people. People didn't have to pay so much for the baking, but everybody had to give a little piece of dough at the door. My aunt would gather all the pieces of dough together and make one bread for us.

When you tried to grab it, it was different colors. We got along with that, and my mother got a little job cleaning the post office. But there was really nothing.

My second sister had gone to Argentina at 16 with my cousins' wife. The intention was that if everything was all right over there, we would follow. That's why my father allowed her to go. And then she married over there.

Family picture in Italy 1942. Nick de Vincenzo is boy on the right.

But then my father died, and we didn't know what to do. Until my uncle came from America, we were thinking we would go to Argentina. My uncle said no, no. You have to come to the United States.

At the orphanage were you able to see your family?

Not really, not for nine months. I had never been away from the big family. I used to cry every night: "I miss my family. I miss my family."  We were about 350 orphans.

Over time you get used to it a little bit and you make friends. You mark the calendar every day until you are ready to go home. I went home on June 29. Every year the same, and then we returned to the orphanage on September 4th. 

What was life like at the orphanage?

For breakfast at 7 they gave us coffee and 250 grams of bread. At lunch time we had the main meal, soup, pasta. sometimes meat. It was horse meat then. At night they gave us 250 grams of bread again and a formagina triangle or a chocolate. Every time they gave me chocolate, I would save it in a shoe box under my bed. When I went home, I brought the shoebox full of those chocolates for my family.

At the orphanage in 1951, going to school and learning a trade. Nick is the boy on upper left clutching a shoe to his chest.

In the end the orphanage is what made me. We'd start the morning at 6:30, church first, breakfast, a break for 15 minutes, then two hours of school and two hours of work. After lunch, we'd do two hours of school and two hours of work again. That's where I studied to be a shoe designer.

How long did you stay?

Four years. I was supposed to do five, but my mother really needed help after my sister got married and went to Venezuela with her husband. I was 15. I finished the fourth year and went to Venezuela to get work. We were in Guanare in the middle of Venezuela. Very, very hot. Temperatures reached 135 degrees in the afternoon.

 I learned the trade— il mestiere—working with my brother-in-law, making shoes. He had learned il mestiere from my father.

How did you get here to the United States?

My uncle, my mother's brother-in-law, was living in the United States, He visited Italy in 1952 and stayed with us. He saw that my mother couldn't survive in Italy with six kids at home. When he returned to the United States, he sent his wife to school to get her citizenship papers. Then she was able to call for his sister. My uncle had to put a bond at the bank to get my mother to come over because the children were all girls. You know, somebody that would pay for their upkeep.

They had to wait for four years under the quota system before they could come in 1956. I had to follow a year later when I was 19.  I'd been in Venezuela four years.

It's Thanksgiving Day in 1957. Did someone pick you up?

My family were living in an apartment in the Bronx, on Bethgate Avenue. My cousin picked me up at Kennedy Airport.  Everybody was at the house--my uncle with his family, four of my sisters, my brother.

I didn't know the language. I knew Spanish and Italian, but it was hard for me to start. My sister and a friend she met in night school, a nice Italian fellow, they took me to work on the following Monday at a big shoe factory in Brooklyn with about 400 people working there.

I think it would be interesting to people to know what you could earn then.

I worked for a dollar an hour. $34 clean a week after the $6 tax. I gave the money to my mother. I was working seven days a week—but three different jobs. I was a waiter, too. Then I started beauty school. But the beauty school came after.

My friend said, I just signed up for beauty school. Would you go with me? Actually, I had a little training in Italy. On weekends I helped a friend of mine. I did the same thing in Venezuela, helping a barber on Sundays.

So I said OK. We went from Brooklyn to the Marinello Beauty School on 43rd and Broadway. We knew we were going to do better than with shoe making. My friends who came from Italy all decided to change trades. One was a tailor, one was a carpenter, one a cabinetmaker. We all wanted beauty school because there was money.

After one year at the shoe factory, I became top foreman. I did all the patterning for them. I went from $40 to $125 a week. The boss used to curse at me all the time because, he said, I never saw anything like this! I used to ask for a raise every week, so he gave me more work. I loved all the machines. I was 19, but I was good. There were mostly Jewish, Italian, and Hispanic workers. I could communicate with everybody.

How long did it take you to get in the beauty business?

Two years, because I had to work during the day. As a foreman I was supposed to work 5 1/2 days, but when I got my license, I told my boss I needed Saturdays. After spending so much money, I want to start work at the salon.

When I started at the salon, I really liked it. I said, Oh my God, and they pay me for it!!!   On days I wasn't there, so many people were asking for me. I was very up to date with things. I was really good in those days.

I am guessing that you brought something from Italy.

I was good with my hands, and the most important thing—we had manners. That's at the base of everything. Being nice to people. It makes you a gentleman. In the orphanage they taught us this every day. We read Galateo, the book of polite behavior, ten minutes at the lunch table. The teacher would walk by and teach you how to sit, how to eat, how to behave. For example, when you walk with a person older than you, you walk on the outside of the road, never on the inside.  People can teach you, but you also have to feel it.

The salon was called Pace Cut and Curl. I worked there for six months. There were six Pace salons in the Bronx.  This was about 1960 when people didn't know what cut and blowdry meant, and we were already doing that. We were also using the curling iron.

Even when I started to work full time as a hairdresser, I worked at a restaurant on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. I was a busboy at first because I couldn't speak English. They would make me work at parties so I didn't have to take any orders, because I never went to school in this country.

When I got here there were three of us working. What we did was give all the money to my mother.  My mother would take what she needed for shopping, and every Friday she would go to the bank and do the Christmas club. She would put aside $5 for the people who worked. We would get about $300 at the end of the year. We always thought about saving for better things. At the end of the year, my mother would put any money left over in a savings account. 

When I stopped working at the factory, I asked her if I could buy a car, and she allowed it. It was a 1961 Ford Galaxy.

What happened after Pace?

A neighbor called me and said that her bosses had opened this new place in Bronxville. It will be a good opportunity for you, she said. I came to see it, and I took the job.

Was it this salon?

Yes. I worked here for 10 years, from 1961 to 1971. At the beginning I had a hard time because the work here was different than what I was used to. But once I got to know it, I was booked for the year, standing appointments, anywhere from 20 to 40 customers a day. We did everything ourselves. The shampoo. The color. Everything.

What was the look for women in 1961, and after?

The bouffant, Jackie Kennedy style. The roller had come in.

1962 “The Artichoke.” From the archives of Continental 109.

Then we had the Italian top. Four rollers back and two on the side. I have a lady who is 101, and she still asks for that. There was a time when curly hair was in, and we did a lot of perms. Then hairpieces and wigs. Cut and blowdry went big in the late 70s.

My bosses and I became partners after ten years. At one point we had two salons. In 1981 we split the business, and this place became mine alone.

I came to work one day, and nobody showed up. The third partner had taken all my clients, because we bought him out. Oh my God, yes, I went crazy. It was just me. You know, I was so hurt by what they did to me. I kept praying. I kept praying to St. Anthony.  It wasn't easy to build that up.

The big thing was when I turned 65 and thought I was going to retire. My son said I'll come to help you out. Mark had a very good job in Manhattan but arranged to work here two days a week. Everything changed. The whole business changed.

Nick outside his salon, saying hello to friends.

We've come full circle, Nick. Can I ask you one last question? Mark told me his mother had also worked as a hairdresser. Can you tell me about her?

My wife’s name is Antoinette. We met at a wedding in the Bronx. When Mark started kindergarten, she went to beauty school. She got a job at The Snippery at Saks Fifth Avenue in White Plains cutting children's hair. She got so busy with the parents' hair, they moved her into the main salon. This really helped us a lot.

My wife came to work with me for a few years before Mark came. She is a great colorist. Clients still ask about her. She got sick, and that's when she quit. She is well now.

How many children did you have?

Four. One died ten years ago. He was hit by a drunk driver when he was 16, and he never recovered. Mark you know is a great hairdresser, and he is the kindest man in the world. Another son is a lawyer. Our daughter went to Harvard. She did medical school in U Conn and her internship and residency at Yale.

At my daughter's graduation we had two doctors in the family. My brother, who came here when he was 9, is a doctor, too. He's a retired Pulmonologist now.

The American dream came true for me and my family. We came over, six people, seven with my mother. Now we are one hundred.