LA COLONIA ITALIANA D'ALBUQUERQUE

Albuquerque businessmen and politicians, c. 1930

LA COLONIA ITALIANA D'ALBUQUERQUE

by: f. g. lopriato y lopez

(Please Note: Indians-in this article refers to Native Americans)
To Albuquerque, the 1930's should be a very special decade. The railroad shops were going strong. New businesses were starting up and long established companies, such as Sears, Montgomery Ward, Kress, J. C. Penny were expanding and hiring workers. Bars, theaters and restaurants were opening up, and general stores were selling everything from animal feed to clothing, hardware, seed, meats, and even livestock. Oh, Yes! Right smack in the middle of the great depression...

At the top of the local business ladder, were Italian, Jewish, Greek, Armenian, and Lebanese businessmen. They hired family first and locals next. Albuquerqueans were helped to make the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society by those immigrants who had already experienced the difference in the their old home countries. Most immigrants had come here to escape poverty and understood the plight of the people.

Bars, general stores, and wholesale liquors were the owner by Italians while prepared food businesses were mostly Greek owned. The Lebanese liked marketing almost everything you can dream up. Jewish businessmen tended to go with the new market, created by the Fred Harvey chain. Indians; Indian Lore and Indian Crafts.

It was mainly the Harvey chain that sold tourists the idea to take bus tours out to the pueblos and reservations to see Indians in their natural habitat, and consequently, gave value to Indian jewelry, blankets, even the way Indians dressed and interest in Indian art; sand paintings, their dances and their pottery.

New Mexico was also very culture friendly, because of the Archaeology school at UNM. Grade School teachers who attended UNM (University of New Mexico) made their students aware of Indian culture and their rightful place in New Mexican society long before it became popular to be Indian friendly elsewhere. Jewish merchants established trading Posts that bought and sold Indian craftsmanship and hired Indians to works in their shops and homes. They moved into Indian country to be closer to the source of their income and were so accepted by the frienmdly culture that one Jewish man became the chief of a tribe. Another became governor of New Mexico.

The Italians reigned in the business district of Albuquerque though. Their children went to UNM and became business, social and political leaders, teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, etc. All immigrants were welcomed with open arms by the people. The same people who became the consumers and a labor force.

Ideas were exchanged between the immigrants and the populace except for a few individuals in other immigrant groups. It was only the Italians who spoke the language of the state fluently, and could also do business in several dialects spoken by the tribes. Jewish businessmen had the Indian trades in silver and artifacts but more than that they prided themselves in mastering Native American languages.

One Lebanese man ran a grocery store in Isleta Pueblo. He married an Isleta Indian and fathered two beautiful daughters that made quite a name for themselves later in life.

All in all, you could say that Albuquerque survived the 1930's by scratching each others back. Unfortunately others, (non immigrants) did not come here to be part of the town. They came like an occupying army, to change, to take over and be in charge, and by the 1940's Albuquerque was beginning to change. They played the game of "divide and conquer." ////fglyl

Champion Grocery, operated by Alessandro and Amadeo Matteucci and located on the corner of Seventh Street and Tijeras avenue, was one of the largest Italian-owned grocery stores in Albuquerque.


Jubilee Parade. Horsemen passing down Central Ave., near Second St. as crowds look on; business enterprises visible at left; ca. 1930.



Unidefied mem Albue's Italian-American community posing for a photograph on a hunting trip south e city
falo dancers, Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico


UNM Footbal Team, Albuquerque, NM 1930

Union Bakery and Saloon, Albuquerque New Mexico,

Courtesy of Zimmerman Library, UNM

Surviving the 1930's in Old Albuquerque

by: f. g. lopriato y lopez
Chapter Four - Union Bakery

I close my eyes and visualize the Union Bakery on South First Street... I smell the sweet yeasty perfume, its freshly baked bread and taste that special mixture of vanilla, lemon, and cinnamon on the giant rolls and hear the echo of Italian voices, happily singing, joking, and planning their week-end and conversing in the most poetic language this side of heaven, Italian, as they end another work week.
Not everyone has a safe, secure place to which they can retreat when life gets as hectic as it is today. The lucky few that do will not go mad with worry over the economy, the political mess, and a million other things that are really beyond our control.
My safe place is an island in time. The l930's, right in the middle of that churning, angry ocean of despair, the Great Depression. It was the worst of times for the rest of the country, including many parts of our state, but for Old Towners, and Albuquerque, as a whole, it was a time of real hope, and they were better off than they had ever been. The city was growing. Grocery stores began popping up in almost every neighborhood, and in the business sector, General Stores, that carried every type of merchandise you can imagine, dry goods, feed, groceries meats, and poultry products, wholesale and retail.
On the 300 block of North First alone, from Tijeras to Marquette street, Franchini and sons, Dino Bonaguidi, M. Vaio and Sons, the Tartaglias, the Masaglias, and The Bachechi's had large general stores but throughout the entire town, Italian names were prominent in businesses ranging from Ferraro's cigar store, to Bachechi's Paris Shoe Store. Bars, Pool halls, Service Stations, Garages, hotels, bars repair shops, and more were all owned and managed by Italians, and staffed by their families, who advertised in Spanish to attract a Hispanic clientele, whom they served in the Spanish language.
If Albuquerque had changed it's nickname from "The Duke City " to "La Piccola Italia," in the 1930"'s no one would have objected. It was an Italian Town. The Priests were Italian, teachers were Italian, Politicians were Italian, businessmen were Italian, Nurses were Italian and Italians began to come here as patients because of the high and dry climate.

A more complete history of the Italian Community is forthcoming when we get to the series dealing with La Colonia Italiana di Albuquerque, right now, the important point we want to make is that both Albuquerque and New Mexico survived the great depression without too much permanent damage by cooperating with the immigrant populations. The Italians were not the only first generation of immigrants to New Mexico, there were others, but not as numerous and not as motivated as the Italians.

The Jewish community, who also had a dog in the fight, because of the Jewish roots in the Spanish community, for instance, and it's difficult to tell about the Greeks, Lebanese, etc., but this writer is more familiar with the Italians than any of the rest. Jewish immigrants also fared better in Albuquerque, and, like the Italians treated the Natives and the Hispanic Communities differently, partly because of the already established Spanish-Jews, and Jewish owned trading posts, and pawn shops catered to "Indians" both on and off the reservation and bought from or hired Indians as their silver smiths and to do various other jobs. One full-blooded Jew even became a tribal chief. Pawn Shops and Indians had a different kind of business going for them, Silversmiths would pawn their work to a shop, who would store it and, with the craftsman's permission sell whatever would sell at a commission. The craftsman would pay interest on the pawn but could use it for special rites and return it, secure in the fact the jewelry he left at the pawn shop would not be stolen but it was, it was insured. Costs that the average craftsman cannot afford.
The Town and the Town in Old Town grew closer and closer, now there was not only a linguistic and cultural tie to the Italian Priests but a genealogical relationship developed. Families that been assumed to be Spanish or Mexican were traced back to Italian origins. Italian priests and monks who became extra curricular MENTORS and advisors of boys who actively sought out their and companionship in hopes of some day becoming priests or monks themselves also helped them to find not only themselves., but long forgotten family roots that led them to Sicily and other Italian cities and towns. Many of these young Old Towners grew up and served in the armed forces during World War Two, and found information about Italian history after the fall of Rome, the Unification, Geribaldi, and Southern Italy, useful to both their own interests and those of the United States.
Because of its isolation New Mexico was the last of former Holy Roman Empirical bastions to fall, and since Spain owed both it's rise and fall to Catabolism, the l930's saw the last desperate struggle of Bishop Lamy's struggle to maintain Roman Catholicism in the center of everything in New Mexico. The railroad had come in, and with it Protestantism had invaded Catholic territory, New Mexicans who had existed for centuries without the need of money and luxuries now had need of both. ////fglyl



Above: Alvarado Station, Albuquerque, NM c. 1930 Below: Italian American Shopkeepers, Albuq., NM c. 1930



Above: Paris Shoe Store Interior, Albuquerque, NM c. 1930 Below: Super Service Station, Albuquerque, NM c. 1930


Historic Photos Courtesy of Zimmermann Library, UNM Albuquerque, New Mexico