Saturday morning I biked thirty minutes to the tram, and then rode another 8 stops to the end of the line, all while talking my way out of a ticket because apparently bikes aren't allowed on the tram. It's one of the few ways to get to the Falchera, a public housing area so far outside of Torino that it essentially forms its own community. Italians refer to it as the "ghetto," so I guess terms such as that and the "projects" translate anytime the government cheaply builds housing, and then abandons any further development.
After briefly greeting friends I had already made out in the periphery, I was warmly welcomed into the kitchen of a woman I will only call M, seeing as she could easily be referred to as the Mother of the Falchera. M smiled widely, kissing me on the cheeks and displaying rows of teeth missing on both top and bottom. She insisted I drink something, was aghast that I politely declined coffee, so we settled on Orzo (a toasted barley drink usually given to children). She tried to force cookies upon me, offered to cook up a quick plate of pasta, and was already in the process of reheating a piece of frittata before I gently but firmly stopped her. This is typical Italian hospitality - more specifically, Sicilian hospitality.
M moved to Torino from Sicily in 1960, the youngest of thirteen total children. She married one year later, and she and her husband were blessed with two beautiful twin girls before he was suddenly struck with a serious illness that would confine him to a wheelchair the rest of his short life. They had little money, and lived in the run-down city center on pennies. During the early 1970s, developers capitalized on the "economic miracle" and booming business of the FIAT factory to start redeveloping the downtown area. They either forced tenants to leave or bought them out in order to change cheap living quarters into luxury apartments or offices. By 1974, M was the only one left in her building. She refused to be bought out on principle, and due to her husband's illness, the landowner had no legal grounds to evict them.
Chuckling to herself, she turned to me and described how she would yell down at the people who passed under their apartment, berating any police officer or representative of the law who dared approach the stairwell. She lived on via Garibaldi, now a high-class shopping street that was and is still heavily trafficked. She hung sheets from their three balconies, painting them with slogans to draw attention to the plight of many working-class families forced out of their homes. "CASA OCCUPATA CONTRO I SFRATTI!" or "THIS HOUSE IS OCCUPIED, AGAINST FORCED EVICTION!"
By then over 600 families - many of whom had found themselves in her very situation - had traveled to the satellite village of the Falchera to force their way into towers of apartments that were not yet finished, lacking basic necessities such as water, heating, and light. Eventually M decided to join them, moving into an apartment better suited to her husband's wheelchair.
Her home became the focal point for community life. Meetings were held in the garage just below her, and M was constantly feeding anyone who stepped beyond her threshold. In addition to her two twins, she set up a free daycare for mothers who had to work. She even became mother to three additional children who had significant mental or physical problems.
M was far from content to fight from the walls of her home, though. She and other women occupied local government offices, at times scuffling with the police as they fought for the right to a home that the average worker could afford. With a strength in her tone that matched the endless cartography of lines on her face, she told me how women volunteered to be the voice of protest because "we women are stronger." She continued, exclaiming, "You have no idea how many beatings we took, mamma mia!" Other women would rig baskets to pass food to the balconies while they refused to leave city hall - they would stay for days waiting for their demands to be addressed.
She concluded, "I fought for years for this house, and I haven't moved since." She gently jostled the hair of the young man sitting next to her - yet another promising youth who had been discarded for his challenges that she was raising as her own, at 80 years of age. As we said our final goodbyes, she grasped my arm and looking me in the eye said, "My father always told me 'You've got to walk with your head straight.' Don't look back. Always move forward, always."
From a woman who has always lived by those words, I think we have a lot to learn. So let's stand a little taller, walk a bit more confidently into the future, and fight for what we believe in, all while having the same compassion and generosity of M.
[M's current apartment, with the Lotta Continua banner still hanging from her balcony]
