On Hard Work, Ferragosto, and Labour Day
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Tutte a munne ne vè pe la fatìa,
vòria da vierne e grànera d’estate;
chi la recerca e chi la maledice,
chi ne tè troppa e chi la vularrìa.
E iè pesante sule a numenarla,
ma quande chiù te pesa
chiù te la puorte ‘n cuolle.
Chi sa dice nu “libbera nosdòmene”
pe lassarne li figlie alleggerite?
Déteme lla lanterna de magàre
ca vuoglie addeventà nu metetore
e mète la fatìa
p’ogne campe de munne
da cape a piede l’anne, senza suonne.
Trascenarmela può co nu strascine,
arrammucchiarla tutta ‘n copp’a' n’ara
e purtarmela appriesse quande i’ more.1
“La fatìa” (Hard Work) by Molisan poet Eufenio Cirese, 1948
I can’t remember the first time someone told me that if I worked hard, I would be rewarded. I just know I’ve been told over and over again. It’s a concept that’s part of who I am. It’s part of my family story. Hard work is in my bones and they’re breaking.
The labour involved in removing myself from this narrative is all-encompassing because hard work has always been the answer. Just work hard, I was taught, and no one can take anything away from you. Work hard and you’ll get what you deserve. When things fall apart, work harder. When all else fails, put your head down and work.
Growing up in a community whose identity often centres on histories and experiences of labour, anecdotes of my hardworking Italian family were told as frequently as fairy tales and fables. In many ways, they worked in similar ways: they sought to be aspirational, but also cautionary, in their lessons. They reminded me of the scarcity we come from, and the abundance and privilege we’ve arrived at through labour.
There is still so much to unpack around feelings of guilt and fear of sounding ungrateful, which I’m not. I don’t want to diminish these stories, as I hold them close to my heart. I know that my nonni, like many immigrants before and after them, worked their damn hardest with the thought of us in mind. My parents did the same. I have had a frought relationship with labour, not because I don’t want to work (the urge to justify myself is too hard to resist…), but due to incredible amounts of precarity in my (previously) chosen field.
In 2020, the first time I had to go on unemployment, my nonno couldn’t believe it. I had studied and excelled. I had a masters. I always worked hard in and out of school. I had a job and did it well. I was a college teacher. We need teachers. This wasn’t how the system was supposed to function.
The thing is, the system isn’t broken. It’s getting more efficient. Upholding the system has always had a human cost. When it feels most broken to us, it is thriving. In the system, your loyalty is obligatory. Yet you are constantly reminded that you are worth less, your time is cheap, and your hard work is expected and assumed, despite the constant insecurity and uncertainty. You’re lucky to be there, so be quiet, don’t complain, and work.
It’s interesting that we’ve cultivated this image of our community in contrast to the stereotype of the Italian dolce vita lifestyle: playing cards and drinking coffee in the bar all day; doing every job as slowly as possible; taking off for the entire month of August shouting “ciao poveri!!!” to the rest of the world. Immigrant life kicks you in the ass, I guess. We can’t putz around like they do in Italy! (I’m being very sarcastic, but people truly think and say these things.)
It is true, though, that in Italy, August means vacation, as people take their ferie (holidays) during this month. The idea behind the entire month of August in general, goes back to Ottaviano Augusto, the Roman emperor who ruled after Julius Caesar. Not only did he name the month after himself, but used it to “assert his religious authority.”2 Though he was ruling as an emperor, he was doing so behind the facade of a republic. Rather than gain authority and power through imperial means, he sought it through religious and divine imagination. Ferragosto, from the Latin feriae Augusti (holidays of Augustus), was part of that effort.
Celebrated at the end of the harvest, Ferragosto has roots in Consualia, an ancient pagan festival in honour of Consus, god of the harvest and stored grain, which is believed to go back to the Etruscans and Sabines, pre-Roman Italic tribes. Though the specific dates of celebration in ancient times vary based on the source, the entire month of August was one of rest, festivities, and giving thanks. As with many pagan feasts, Ferragosto was eventually given a Catholic story and significance. It’s known today as the feast of the Assumption of Mary and is celebrated on August 15. Many Italians spend the day with family and friends at the beach or an outdoor barbecue.
The origins of this scampagnata (short trip to the countryside) can be traced back to the 1920s and 30s and the fascist regime, in which Mussolini emphasized the importance of agriculture and “fresh air” for families, children, and the nation. His regime organized free or discounted trips to the countryside for the working class. We see similar efforts in North America, where structured leisure and outdoor play were understood as necessary aspects for kids’ development: by the 1930s, summer camps had become a true institution on the local, provincial, and national scales.
In both contexts, national image is linked to nature, meant to symbolize a return to the strength and masculinity tied to the physical and manual labour required for agricultural work, in a time when anti-modernist sentiments were brewing. Interestingly, Ferragosto is presently linked to industrial workers, as factories and industry shut down for two weeks, mid-August, every year. Much like our “construction holidays” in July.3
Though vacations, for many of us, represent small periods of freedom from responsibilities and work, the history of Ferragosto reminds us how authority, nationalism, and labour itself are inextricably tied to our time off.
In 1889, Montreal declared Labour Day a civic holiday, to be celebrated on the first Monday of September. It was also celebrated in other cities around the country, but only became a federal statutory holiday in 1894, both here and in the United States. Though, like Ferragosto, it has mainly become an opportunity to get away or celebrate with friends and family over the long weekend, Labour Day originates in… labour organizing, of course. Many trace it back to the 1872 Nine Hour Movement, an international fight for shorter working days, led by workers and unions. At a time when union activity and labour organizing was illegal in Canada. As rapid industrialization further cemented the capitalist status-quo, workers faced long work days and weeks, unsafe and unsanitary work conditions, and very little - if any - rights and influence in the workplace. Organizers and union leaders, as well as their supporters, could be jailed or face other serious consequences.
In the end, the Nine Hour Movement wasn’t successful in reducing the workday, but did encourage and lead to further organizing around workers’ rights and freedoms. And the parades held in support of the movement became annual events, which would eventually be held specifically on the first Monday of September. Though the political aspect of Labour Day has given way to a more leisure-focused celebration, other international holidays, like May Day, include militant organizing and parading, as was traditional for Labour Days of the past.
Historically, labour organizers and union memberships have been largely male and white. Particularly pre-WWII, “the Canadian labour movement held strongly anti-immigrant and often openly racist views regarding so-called ‘foreigners’ arriving in Canada.”4 To protect the interests and salaries of “Canadian” workers, unions supported anti-immigration legislation, would refuse membership to workers based on ethnicity, and even supported deportation.5 As Italian-Canadians, many of our families have difficult stories to tell about labour: low-paying jobs, workplace accidents and abuse, and even sudden deaths that were never investigated. The reality is that many of these lost lives were not valued, inside or outside of work.
The xenophobic claims that immigrants “take our jobs” and “affect our standard of living” have a long history, even in the attitudes of our own community. And even in labour organizing, which aims to champion the rights and lives of workers in a capitalist system made to exploit and abuse them, we see distinctions made between who matters more, who matters less, and who doesn’t matter at all.
I’d like to give you a little overview of what’s going on in Quebec at the moment. Here’s the gist of it pulled from a Montreal Gazette article:
Saying the rapid rise in the number of non-permanent residents is causing Quebec’s housing crisis, straining public services and hastening the decline of the French language, Premier François Legault announced new regulations Tuesday that will reduce the number of temporary foreign workers on the island of Montreal.
[…] As of Sept. 3, the government will refuse any requests made under the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) program for the next six months for jobs in Montreal with salaries under the Quebec median of $57,000, or $27.47 an hour. The moratorium could be extended to three or five years, Legault said. The measures are expected to decrease the number of temporary foreign workers in Montreal by 3,500, from the current 12,000. The federal government said Tuesday it approved Quebec’s proposal.
[…] “If tomorrow morning those 300,000 were not here, we would not have a housing crisis. I know that will shock people when I say that, but it’s a fact.”
At the same time, Legault said the influx “puts in question the future of French, particularly in Montreal. “So I, as the representative of this province that has a francophone majority, I have the responsibility to reduce the number of immigrants, particularly in Montreal, to protect French.”
[…] The freeze on temporary foreign worker permits will also apply to workers who are attempting to renew permits that have expired.
Blaming the housing crisis on temporary foreign workers is wild. Studies have shown that it is not a supply/demand problem, rather what is available (and what is being built) does not represent the needs of the majority of those seeking housing. Real estate developers are mass constructing overpriced condo buildings everywhere in Montreal, and when a 2021 bylaw forced them “to include social, family and affordable housing units to any new projects larger than 4,843 square feet,” every single developer opted to pay the imposed fine instead. Not to mention the growing claims that real estate brokers are buying homes from more vulnerable, elderly Quebecers at cheaper rates, only to resell them immediately at higher prices.
Getting into the language thing would take a whole other article. But suffice it to say that this same premier, when proposing a new language law in 2022, used a report on languages spoken in Quebec homes as evidence that French is under threat in the province. I fear that we have lost the plot. Because please, tell me, how are we going to control the languages people speak in their private homes? And why would that even be seen as okay?
Despite fearmongering over immigrants and the threat they pose to our entire socioeconomic structures, we continue to deal with worker shortages in almost all fields. There are not enough French teachers. And the response has been to make it harder to get that language accreditation.6 There isn’t enough social and community housing. But keep building the condos and kick out the immigrants. The people who stick around and can’t afford $1500/month studios still won’t be able to afford them even after “those 300,000,” as Legault referred to them, have gone.
Bad policies. Racism and xenophobia. Exploitation. And through it all, we work harder. It’s our response because we need to survive. Even if it’s just by a thread. Meanwhile, we read headlines and listen to friends and family say “no one wants to work anymore,” while hustling so hard to find a job that will actually pay a fair wage for all the work being asked of you. We blame it on the foreigners, migrants, immigrants. The way it was blamed on us when we were them.
We bought into, and perpetuate, a system that is so toxic, yet has been so convincing that, three generations later, we are still telling ourselves that working harder will make everything okay. As long as we have our state-sanctioned long weekends.
Tutte a munne ne vè pe la fatìa,
vòria da vierne e grànera d’estate;
chi la recerca e chi la maledice,
chi ne tè troppa e chi la vularrìa.
E iè pesante sule a numenarla,
ma quande chiù te pesa
chiù te la puorte ‘n cuolle.
“The whole world can’t see straight because of work,
north wind in winter and in summer hail;
and there are those who seek it, those who curse it,
those who have too much and those who want it.
And it feels heavy just to talk about it,
and yet the more it weighs you down
the more you carry it on your back.”
This poem by Cirese, a renowned dialect poet from Molise, hit hard when I first read it. Though I struggled to understand the full meaning of the ending. But I think I’ve got it now: my nonni, too, wanted to be cultivators of hard work. They, and many others, wanted to harvest it all up. They wanted to get the worst of it done, the hardest, most back-breaking tasks. And they wanted to take it with them to the grave. So that no one coming after them would have to the same. So that the desire to survive became the ability to thrive.
The odds were (and are) against them. The system survives and thrives alongside us. But the legacy of my nonni, my people, will always fuel me. My identity and value isn’t dependent on some abstract idea of “hard work” (that seems to never be attainable; you’re always chasing after it), it lies in the qualities they have modeled for me: selflessness, devotion, ingenuity, passion.
Cass
See below for monthly tarot pull, footnotes, and resource list.
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Monthly Tarot Read
Each issue will include a tarot pull reflecting on the topic of the newsletter
Each card in the Tarot of the Divine deck represents a fairytale, legend, or myth from a different culture. The Star depicts the tale of Alyonushka and Ivanushka, a brother and sister who were orphaned and set out to find work.
They had a long way to go, and a wide field to cross, and after they had been walking for a time, Ivanushka began to feel very thirsty. "Sister Alyonushka, I am thirsty," he said. "Be patient, little brother, we shall soon come to a well." They walked and they walked, and the sun was now high up in the sky, and so hot were the two that they felt very blue.7
Eventually, no longer heeding his sister, he drank water that had collected in the print of a goat’s hoof. He instantly turned into a little white goat. Despite this, they had a period of good fortune, which eventually came crashing down (The Tower) when a witch trapped Alyonushka in a river and impersonated her. Alyonushka and Ivanushka worked together to save each other from their curses.
The Star is a symbol of hope after disaster or difficulty. A reminder that things can get better; we can rebuild; there are possibilities ahead. Like Ivanushka, we have been drinking from a cursed well. Stagnant water becomes a breeding ground for bacteria.
This card also made me think of an Instagram post I saw recently:
As the card of hope after stripping down to the essence, we need to remember that we are in community. When we (re)build: to what end? At what cost? At whose expense?
English translation by Luigi Bonaffini: The whole world can’t see straight because of work, / north wind in winter and in summer hail; / and there are those who seek it, those who curse it, / those who have too much and those who want it. / And it feels heavy just to talk about it, / and yet the more it weighs you down / the more you carry it on your back. / Who can say a “deliver us, O Lord” / to leave his children with a lighter weight? / Give me the lantern of the sorcerer / because I want to be a harvester / and harvest hard work / in every field in the world / all year long, without sleep or rest. / Then tow it on a handcart out the door / and pile it up out on the threshing floor / to take it with me on the day I die.
Maria Teresa Santaguida, “Ferragosto: storia ed etimologia di una festa, dall'imperatore Augusto ad oggi,” AGI, 15 August 2020, https://www.agi.it/cronaca/news/2020-08-15/ferragosto-storia-etimologia-antica-roma-augusto-9411533/.
Since 1971, Quebec has legislated a two week long annual holiday for the construction industry at the end of July.
Foster, Jason, Alison Taylor and Candy Khan. “The dynamics of union responses to migrant workers in Canada.” Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 29, No. 3 (JUNE 2015), pp. 409-426.
Ibid.
Previously, if you completed your education degree in English, you would have to pass a test in order to teach French. That test is no longer valid (even for those who have already done it). Instead, they now have to take a certain number of credits in French language courses.
https://russian-crafts.com/russian-folk-tales/alionushka-tale.html
Further Resources
Andrea Trombin Valente, “Perché a Ferragosto tutto chiude?,” perpletude, 3 August 2020, https://purpletude.com/editoriale/perche-a-ferragosto-e-in-agosto-tutto-chiude/.
“Ferragosto: history, traditions (and curses) of one of the most beloved holidays in Italy,” Random Times, 15 August 2020, https://random-times.com/2020/08/15/ferragosto-history-traditions-and-curses-of-one-of-the-most-beloved-holidays-in-italy/.
Maria Teresa Santaguida, “Ferragosto: storia ed etimologia di una festa, dall'imperatore Augusto ad oggi,” AGI, 15 August 2020, https://www.agi.it/cronaca/news/2020-08-15/ferragosto-storia-etimologia-antica-roma-augusto-9411533/.
Sharon Wall, The Nurture of Nature: Childhood, Antimodernism, and Ontario Summer Camps, 1920-55 (UBC Press: Vancouver, 2009).
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/labour-day
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mouvement-pour-une-journee-de-travail-de-neuf-heures
https://canadianlabour.ca/labour-day-a-holiday-born-in-canada/
https://canadianlabour.ca/who-we-are/history/1872-the-fight-for-a-shorter-work-week/
Really loved this one, the inherited family/immigrant narrative around the promise of hard work rings true for me as well. I needed to be reminded that my worth does not equal my work. It's so easy to become isolated in that feeling.
Side note: My nonno is included in the list of Italian Fallen Workers. My mom helped put together some of the research for the Memorial and its written publication.