Francesca: Coming back to my family roots
Francesca is a 41-year-old Italian American woman. Married to a construction worker and the mother of two young children, she has worked as a restaurant server for much of her life.
Boston’s North End is an iconic neighborhood also known as “Little Italy.” Its historic buildings, narrow cobblestone streets and bustling Italian restaurants, coffeehouses and pastry shops give it a truly Italian flavor.
For Francesca, the North End is more than a place to soak up the history of Boston and enjoy authentic Italian food. She grew up there speaking Italian and surrounded by relatives. Her father and grandparents were immigrants from Italy who established businesses, including a tailoring shop and restaurant, in the neighborhood. Even now, married and with two young children, the North End remains central to her life. She has worked as a server and occasional bartender in a small Italian restaurant there for almost 20 years.
When Francesca was 14, her family’s restaurant business collapsed. Her father’s expansion of the business overextended its capacity and he had to liquidate his businesses and property to cover their debts. Her little brother was born at this time. She and her sister were no longer able to attend their private girls’ school because they couldn’t afford the high tuition costs. Francesca recalls, “It was heartbreaking for my parents that they couldn’t afford private school. Giving us a good education was so important for them. They decided to move to the suburbs and they chose a pretty expensive area that has good public schools.”
The move from the North End to the suburbs was a big change for the family. Her mother, who had not worked since getting married, found a job at a shoe store in a mall. Her father, unable to find work as a tailor, was unemployed until he found a job in an auto body shop owned by a friend. The financial stress created discord between her parents and they decided to first separate and then divorce. During this time, her grandparents moved to be closer to them and became an even more important part of Francesca’s life. While her mother was at work, her grandparents took care of Francesca and her siblings. That is a continuing pattern in Francesca’s life. Her father, who lives in the town next to them, is the go-to babysitter whenever she and her husband cannot be at home for the kids.
At her public school, Francesca felt the collision of her family’s economic cascade with the wealthy community in which she had landed. She felt alienated from the wealthy lifestyle of her peers, who had grown up in a world of country clubs, yacht clubs and exotic vacations. Her family had owned property and a business, but they had also lived and worked in an ethnic enclave teeming with her relatives who primarily spoke a foreign language. She was embarrassed when other kids asked her what her parents did for a living. “I’d be thinking in my head, ‘My parents just lost everything they had. My mother works in a Payless shoe store. And my dad is kind of unemployed.’ But I didn’t want to tell them that. I didn’t know what to say.”
Francesca and her siblings graduated from high school and attended public universities in Massachusetts. After college, Francesca found a managerial job at the corporate headquarters of a liquor company. She kept up her connection to the restaurant business and the North End by working one or two nights a week as a server there. She soon married a man who worked in construction, in a unionized job for a government transportation agency.
In her late thirties Francesca began to rethink her life priorities. Unexpectedly pregnant, she worried about how to raise children and keep her corporate job with its long hours. Her husband’s income alone was not enough for the family. Francesca dreamed of moving to another part of town and opening her own business. After some thought she decided to give up her corporate job and expand her restaurant hours.
For Francesca, the late afternoon and evening hours required of a restaurant server were a big advantage. She would be at home for the children during the day, while her husband worked from 7 am to 2 pm. After he got home to take care of the children, she could go to work on the 4 pm to 11 pm shift. She values family care of her children, and sees this schedule as a way to make sure that one parent is always at home with the children, even if both are working.
The devastation wrought by COVID-19 on the restaurant industry in 2020 has had big repercussions for Francesca and her family. Thankfully, her husband’s job was not affected by the pandemic closures. Still, the loss of Francesca’s income has meant that they have had to delay their plans to buy a house in a more prosperous neighborhood. “We bought our current house as an investment. We weren’t planning to raise our kids here in this neighborhood. We want them in a better school district. And we were almost to that point before COVID, but now I don’t know.”
In the future, Francesca hopes to open her own Italian café. She reasons that she first has to get her children into a better school district, before plunging into a risky business venture. But it is an important goal for her, one that will bring her full circle back to her family roots in Italian food, culture and the restaurant business.