La Famiglia Oreste

In 1900, at the tender age of two, Ernesto Oreste arrived in America
with his father, Carlo, his mother, Graziella, and his older sister,
Giovanina. Carlo, had achieved a moderate success as an accountant
in Teano, a small city in the Campania thirty kilometers from the former
royal capital, Caserta. But he had greater ambitions for his family,
ambitions that were unlikely to be satisfied in a region dominated
by agriculture. Instead, like many from his region, Carlo imagined
that in America a skill such as his could bring his family much better
fortune. He was too wise to choose America's largest city, New York,
which drew so many of his countrymen from the Mezzogiorno of Italy.
No, he would bring his family to a medium sized city where the extremes
of wealth and poverty were less pronounced.