This weekend, thanks to over 30 years of effort by Theresa Argento, New Haven will become more Amalfitani than Amalfi.
Since 1975, Argento has been organizing the annual St. Andrew Festival in Wooster Square, a celebration of the patron saint of the coastal town of Amalfi, Italy, where many New Haven families originally came from.
The festival of food and music — which opens Thursday night and runs through Sunday — is an exact replica of the events that happen in Amalfi every year in June, down to the clothes that participants wear. The Wooster Square celebration is so accurate, and so well attended, that a visiting Amalfitani priest once told Argento that the New Haven festival might surpass the original.
On Tuesday afternoon, Argento, who’s 86, was at home in the Annex neighborhood, making last-minute phone calls to Italian pastry shops and tying up the loose ends before the start of the festival on Thursday evening. The summer celebration of St. Andrew has been one of the biggest events of the year for Argento ever since she was a small child. Argento’s mother, who came to New Haven from Amalfi when she was 16, made sure that her children celebrated the holiday, which was as important as Christmas to the family.
Argento has spent her adult life ensuring that the tradition continues. In the process, she has helped to bring together the sizable local Amalfitani community. There are more individuals in the Greater New Haven area claiming Amalfatani descent than there are in Amalfi, Argento said.
The Amalfitani community took root in New Haven when immigrants came from Amalfi to work in New Haven’s factories, particularly the Sargent Company, Argento said. Representatives from Sargent went to Italy in the early 1900s and recruited workers from Amalfi. “They came through Ellis Island with a tag that said ‘New Haven.’”
Argento’s father came when he was 4 years old, her mother when she was 16. “The love for Amalfi came from my mother,” Argento said. It was Argento’s mother who taught her the story of the miracle of St. Andrew.
St. Andrew spent his life preaching in Asia Minor, in Greece and Turkey, and his remains were kept in Constantinople. After the sacking of Constantinople in 1208, St. Andrew’s relics were taken to Amalfi. Later, Argento said, “the Turks were invading Amalfi to claim the bones of St. Andrew.” The Amalfitani fleet was vastly outnumbered by the Turkish ships, and it looked like certain defeat. But then came the miracle.
“There was an elderly man on the shores of Amalfi,” Argento said. “And he was whittling a stick.” The shavings fell from his knife and into the sea, creating a fierce “tempest” that drowned the Turkish fleet. The miracle is said to have happened on June 27, which is still the day that it’s celebrated in Amalfi.
The Wooster Square festival is a four-day affair, starting on Thursday. “We have a little parade,” Argento said. After the parade through Wooster Square, the statue of St. Andrew is unveiled.
“Friday we have a nice band that comes in,” Argento continued. See a full schedule here.
“Saturday is a big night. We have Neopolitan night,” she said. “We have Italian music. Just a nice evening.”
Sunday is the processional. “We march around Wooster Square,” Argento said. Men take turns carrying the pewter statue of St Andrew, “which is very heavy.” Women wear white and men wear red jackets, just as it’s done in Amalfi.
“Whatever they do there, we do here,” Argento said. She told the story of the Amalfitani priest who was so impressed by his visit to a New Haven St. Andrew celebration.
“So that’s a feather in our cap,” she said proudly.
Every day of the festival is filled with traditional Italian food. Opening a three-ring binder, Argento listed off the many vendors she’s lined up for the weekend. “Sausage and peppers… fried fish… torron… prochetti… penne a la vodka… italian ice… fried dough. That’s very popular… peaches in wine. It’s delicious.”
“To me this is like a reunion,” Argento said. She explained how the Amalfitani community in Wooster Square was broken up by the construction of the highway in the 1960s. That’s when Argento was forced to move to the Annex neighborhood and her father, Frank Carrano, lost his Wooster Square market. “It was terrible. Really terrible,” said Argento (pictured looking at photos of her father’s market).
The annual St. Andrew Festival now serves to bring together the Amalfitani families who moved out of Wooster Square when the highway was built, buying homes in East Haven, North Haven, and West Haven.
At 86, Argento has no intention of stepping down as an organizer of the annual festival. But she’s pleased to see that the traditions are catching on with young people. “We’re getting the younger generations interested. It’s wonderful.”
“It’s just in our blood,” Argento said. “I think in life you have to have something to bring the family together.”