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Category: Interviews »

Subject: Cultural Studies »

Concetta Benn on Italian families of pre-war Australia

Concetta Benn.

Concetta Benn discusses the Italian families of pre-war Australia

Created:

unknown

Date Added:

27 March 2009

Source:

source not available

Format:

mov (Quicktime);

File size:

4.9 MB

Length:

01min52sec

Transcript

Benn:

00:06

It’s quite interesting the way Italian families cluster, is the best way I can put it, that when I was young and growing up, the only Italians I ever saw were family, or related, or in some way related. For instance: my mother grew up with the woman who was the wife of Masoni (sp?) the big restaurateur and that gave us a whole different connection because we had her family as part of our family sort of thing. So we didn’t see many Italians who weren’t part of our immediate family or related to us and I think that’s so, in many Italian families so that when I got to CO.AS.IT, I was expected to know half the people who were there, who were all people round the Carlton area and of course, I didn’t, I didn’t know – I knew all their names and if I thought long enough I could try and I was related to half of them.

01:20

You know, we tended to – see even holidays, picnics and things I could remember enormous picnics by the seaside but it was mostly family, our family, or the family from Masoni’s and their family’s family, that sort of thing. So outside that grouping, I didn’t know a lot of Italians until I joined, CO.AS.IT.

01:52

End transcript