- [Andrew] On this episode of Movers and Makers, the survival and modernization of Anticocaine Lenin-Lenin ceremonial clothing, a century old Italian-American social club reinvents itself.
Philadelphia's Chinatown once again battles for survival, and a historic final resting place for prominent African-Americans.
(jazz music) - Welcome to Movers and Makers.
I'm your host, Andrew Race.
One of the oldest and busiest commercial corridors in the city exists down in South Philadelphia, stretching diagonally from Gerard Estates up to Society Hill, the bustling and tightly packed Passkey Avenue stitches together a collection of immigrant communities that have transformed this part of town for over two centuries.
(jazz music) Prior to any immigrant arrival, this land belonged to the Le nape tribe, who called it Passkey, meaning place between the hills.
Today's episode explores how different communities are tackling complex issues of cultural preservation, balancing authenticity and change.
(jazz music) In our first story we visit the Anticocaine Lenin-Le nape tribe, one of the largest in the Mid-Atlantic, with origins predating our country's formation.
(upbeat ambient music) (traditional folk music) - I think the biggest misperception about native fashion is that it's all traditional.
It's all leather, it's all shell, and people don't realize that, yes, we're contemporary too.
(traditional folk music) We like to wear bright colors, we like to wear skirts, even though we do have our traditional ways that we do things.
(traditional folk music) It's also nice that culture is fluid and art is fluid.
(traditional folk music) (machine clunking ) My name is Cory Ridge way.
I'm originally from Ridge way, Delaware home of the Hillsborough nation.
And now I live in Anticocaine New Jersey with my husband and my four young kids.
And I make native American regalia.
Native American regalia is the clothing that native people wear when they are in the dance circle or at their ceremonies.
(traditional folk music) Native American regalia has had a tradition of being taken away from native people, whether it was their ceremonial outfits which were burned and taken away because we did not have freedom of religion until the 1970s.
So, a lot of our ceremonies were considered breaking the law.
Like if we were to go to a ceremony for healing or for praying, we could be put in jail for that.
The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal community is made up of about 1500 families in the Bridgeton ferritin area.
They're descendants of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape people who did not get relocated out of those 11 to 15 core families.
Now, we have this huge broad community of our people, who have been here for thousands of years.
It is a color change.
So, you're going to see more of it.
- Okay.
Yeah these are interchangeable.
There's lots of different dance styles.
There's lots of different looks.
And each regalia has to reflect the person who was wearing it.
- Red makes me feel more bold.
So, when I'm dancing, it's kind of like stepping into another part of myself that needs to be more bold, especially because jingle is such a healing dance.
- When I make regalia, I have to get to know the person.
I have to know what their likes and what their dislikes are.
So, there's going to be some people who are gonna want something more simple.
And then there's going to be a lot of the younger kids who wants something more extravagant.
- I think I'm going to keep the design pretty simple for now.
- You have to figure out who they are, what they like and know where they come from to be able to make the regalia that fits best for them.
- like a lace type.
- Ohhh!
That would be pretty.
(machine clunking ) - Depending on where you're at in the United States the regalia is going to be different.
It's just like climate is different when you're in Arizona versus here.
Out in the East, you're going to see more of Woodland Floral material like floral designs.
And when you go out West you're going to see more geometric.
And when you look at the different pottery and the different regalia, they all are very similar in that it reflects what's around them.
- Oh, that's beautiful.
Do you know what this is?
It's a white rabbit.
- No, it's not.- - No, it's not.
- I don't know.
(laughing) - And am in.
- Am in.
- And growing up, my parents made sure that I was really involved with the Nanticoke tribe.
We were at every pow wow, all the DAS performances.
We work together to make our regalia.
Some of my fondest memories growing up was having to be the one to pin the fringe on the shaws.
And I remember doing that around about eight or nine years old.
And I remember, I could see my mom sitting at the table sewing with my aunt and my brother and my dad in the other room, working on his stuff whether it's tying yarn or working on feathers and figuring out how we want it to look.
So, as a mom I really want to give my kids the same experience.
So, I take them to pow wows and I give them traditional names and I work with them so that they can learn to make regalia and that they can learn about their culture starting from a very young age.
Just those little baby steps really make a difference for when they get older.
(traditional folk music) Being native American and native American designs was not considered popular until now.
Even talking back to my parents' generation, people did not wanna be associated with being native American.
So today when you go to any of your stores and see all this native print and all this native design I'm not going to say that is a bad thing because it is nice.
It is nice to see native American culture put in a fashion form so that more people have access to it.
However, it's important to remember where this came from.
(traditional folk music) (soft music) (Accordion music) - In 1918, the place was founded by immigrants that came from a small town called Vasto in the region of Abruzzo in Southern Italy.
They didn't have a penny in their pocket.
They didn't speak the language.
And so they built this club, the society and to help them become Americans, it was a meeting place for them to gather and talk about politics, talk about how they could get jobs here.
And, that's how it really started.
And they would come and they would eat.
He would have some drinks at the bar and just get together and create a community here (Accordion music) (car engine roaring) - When Italians first came to America, they were not necessarily a wholeheartedly embraced community, both in America and in Italy, there was a lot of discrimination against Southern Italians, darker skinned, et cetera.
I had a lot of cases where fathers went over first and then kids and wives followed.
But many people who came here, it was a strange place.
(Accordion music) When you come into a strange place, you know what do you look for first?
You want to kind of reconnect and reestablish what is familiar and what's comforting to you.
And for many of these people that came over from Southern Italy, it was food.
It was connection to family and friends and people from not only their country, not only their region but their small town, which is how something like Polizzi social club came to being in its earliest iteration.
In order to be a member here, you had to be from this one small town by the sea.
And that's kind of how these people rebuilt their connections and a farm the world.
(Accordion music) - In 1918, it we certified the charter is actually right behind me on the wall with all the names of the gentlemen that came over.
And it was a men's only club at first, if there is an illness in the family or a funeral or some kind of special occasion, the dues that they would pay each month would help pay for a funeral or unseen costs that they would need to take care of their families.
This was kind of a building block to help them stabilize in American culture.
Food was always an integral part of this place.
And in my culture, it's everything, that's part of Italian culture is to work hard and then also enjoy life.
Some of the photos that are on the walls of them having big meals here, they took it so seriously.
There are so many documents that I have books and ledgers and hours of meetings of what they were talking about but there was always food involved, and always an atmosphere of togetherness.
It was really meant for men from the town of Vasto and as immigration grew and more Italians came to the United States, they expanded it.
And when I took over three years ago I made it a little more inclusive for all people to be able to come and experience what I experienced as a child.
So, I feel like that's my legacy.
And that's what I contributed to the society.
(Accordion music) - Place your membership please.
(Accordion music) - What is so commendable about Joey and this place is he doesn't see it like a restaurant or like a business.
For him, he is like the steward of this living Relic of South Florida.
It speaks to him as who he is as a chef and a guy.
But I think it's just so important for us to be able to have something well-preserved from the old neighborhood, so to speak but also something that everybody, if you're a member no matter where you come from or who you are, whether you're Italian or not Italian, you can partake in this and participate and kind of get a little glimpse of like what this part of South Philly was all about for quite a while.
(Accordion music) - The book in here about one day when I was going through all of the old ledgers and meeting minutes, and they had books I mean about this thick, starting from like 1918, all the way up to probably 1995, of just stories and what they did my uncle may crop up over here.
So, there's so much history.
And I thought, wouldn't it be good to honor these guys in a way to make my own ledger?
So, a lot of the recipes that are in the book are old family recipes from my grandparents my uncle who recently passed the spaghetti and crabs it's an Italian and American staple.
So, those were the things that I really wanted to get across.
A book here.
- All right.
- I hand chose Adam for the specific reason that we're both from South Philadelphia and we're both Italian Americans.
And I really felt like Adam would have a real understanding and a real grasp of the experience of sleazy club because he lived at his, well - This represents so much aware, you know who we are and where we come from.
- Yeah.
We have a little map on where we get our mozzarella cheese and we get our bread.
And there's a whole slew of different elements to the book, which I really love.
- When Joey and I started talking about it we knew it would be a cookbook with amazing recipes but to have just recipes and not present them in the context and what that means, both in Polizzi social club and in the Italian American community in South Philly, it wouldn't make sense.
It would be a half done book.
- It's really important, you know for me to represent my community and my culture as best I can.
That's what we did in, in writing this book.
I walk in every day, I look at the photos and I think to myself, this is why I do what I do here.
I'm almost like a curator of this place because there's so much history.
And I do what I do for those guys in those photos.
(Accordion music) (soft music) - Some say fears of the Corona virus are taking a toll on businesses and Philadelphia, Chinatown a place typically bustling with crowded restaurants - And John Good evening.
You said it is Friday night here in Chinatown by no means is it empty?
But it is pretty quiet right now to other weekends.
It could be much more busy and some businesses say they believe its fears over the Corona virus, which is causing this.
(upbeat music) - Chinatown has been here in Philadelphia, 150 years Chinatown as a gateway for new immigrants Chinatown as a commercial quarter with over 300 businesses we are a huge employment hub for immigrants who have limited English capacity.
It's a cultural home, it's a place I can come to celebrate the Chinese calendar events.
And I think it, Asian Americans a lot of confidence to follow their passion and feel like they're a part of Philadelphia Unbelievable economic devastation occurred in Chinatown due to the pandemic.
95% of the businesses in Chinatown are open at this point.
Some in a limited capacity 5% are not open it's yet to be determined, If they're going to come back the small businesses are not corporations, right?
They're really mom and pop shops and it's almost like their job or their livelihood.
And they're no different than anyone who was laid off or unemployed.
The income stream that they were getting just suddenly stopped.
(upbeat music) - (speaks in foreign language) (machine crackling) (speaks in foreign language) In the March 15 closed.
And then the July four, I opened but the business is very down.
Last year, the Chinese New Year, lots of people coming in Yesterday, nobody come in I don't know why (speaks in foreign language) I don't know.
- Asian arts initiative is a community-based arts organization.
And our mission is quite simply to build community through the power of art.
More importantly, for us as a culturally specific organization, we seek to define art and community by those are touched by the Asian diaspora.
- [Announcer] As COVID-19 spreads across the United States.
So does an alarming rise in hate crimes within Asian American communities.
- Racial equity has always been really important for us.
We were founded out of racial tension as a conversation around how to come up with some arts-based solutions.
It is so hard for Asian Americans to navigate what our role is in an American discourse around systemic racism because depending on which way you're looking at it we are white adjacent we're black adjacent, we're Brown adjacent.
We are Brown I mean, it is everything.
Our community is as unique and unified as you want it to be.
So, those are the hardest questions I think for us to answer what is our responsibility?
How do we own this privilege?
And also advocate for more dignity and visibility without, you know, taking too much space or enough space or whatever that means.
So, that that's been the last year.
That that's a lot, but yeah (jazz music) Unity at the initiative is a multi Vaillant exhibition public program experience that we designed to focus on the work and practice of Jeffrey Chung who is a artist, painter illustrator and a professional skateboarder.
Who's done a lot for visibility, trans visibility actually in both art and skateboarding among other things.
(jazz music) Initially the show was focused predominantly on Jeffrey's work is really going to celebrate his craft because he wasn't able to spend as much time here as we'd hoped.
And because we were already sort of reflecting on what our true mission is, you know to serve racial equity and to think about art as activism the emphasis, you really should be on Philadelphia artists.
So that was, that was part one just to make sure that we were engaging artists while we could pay them in a time when we knew that most of them were probably suffering economic injury because of the pandemic.
The second part of it was let's raise the pay rubric.
I'm really grateful that thinking about it through the lens of how do we make sure artists are fed has low key kind of changed the way I'm thinking about the mission even of our organization to become sort of this resource the arts are going to happen no matter what art happens no matter what I could say, stop doing art.
And I won't change anything.
People will continue to sing and dance and paint and make beautiful food.
And the reason it needs to be supported is so that we do it with dignity.
(upbeat music) Practically speaking, It's so hard to rebuild.
I mean, losing a footprint is really hard to regain when I think of businesses that have been shuttered or demolished.
I am amazed at how quickly I forget that it was there.
It's amazing.
Like when it becomes a bank or a condo, I'm like, what was it?
I can't recall.
It's really easy to forget these things.
We already barely have a narrative in American history as Asian-Americans barely if we don't have physical presence and an actual presence, it's like we will not have been here.
That's why it's so important to maintain a Chinatown and any city I think.
(jazz music) (soft music) - Pioneering African-American opera singer and civil rights activist, Marian Anderson once lived in this house in South Philadelphia in today's profile we visit Anderson's resting place at the country's oldest black owned burial ground for over 100 years Eden cemetery has provided a sanctuary where African-Americans can be buried with dignity and respect.
(soft music) (upbeat music) - You have people coming from far and wide.
We have educators, family historians, or they could be doing genealogy.
We have people who are coming to sometimes get to meet their loved ones for the first time.
Or they could be history buffs.
And they simply want to see some of the final resting places of some of the world's most famous people - In the late 19th century, Jerome Bacon administrator and instructor of the Institute of colored youth.
Along with John C Asbury a prominent African-American attorney in Philadelphia Charles Jones, Martin J. Lehmann and Daniel Parvis got together and thought that this was the location that they would love to install a boot colic African-American cemetery.
They were hoping that they could establish this at a time when cemeteries were segregated or the African-American cemeteries of the city were being overrun by public works projects.
It was a Quaker family the Bartram family who did sell the lands to Eden cemetery.
In spite of the fact that many in the Collingdale area were not happy and that there was racism.
And there was a reaction to that.
Celestine Cramwell, her husband was on the advisory board.
She had passed away during the summer of 1902.
And even though the negotiations were still ongoing for the town of Collingdale to allow this site to be a cemetery the founders felt a sense of urgency to want to bury her as soon as possible, and also potentially become the first burial which he did here at Eden.
The town was fighting tooth and nail against that.
And it took John C Asbury's hard work at legal acumen to defeat those forces.
It's a, another story of American institutionalized racism.
Segregated cemeteries were often the only option and finding the land for those was often difficult.
Sometimes it was certainly behind African-American churches or in African-American communities or homesteads.
Other times it was as part of burials in what were called strangers, burial grounds or potters fields, places for those who did not have enough money were orphans could have been part of asylums, or they were the outcasts or the others in society that were buried often with the funding of a local community or a city or state.
So, some of the initial interments were actually re interments in the early 20th century from Lebanon cemetery in South Philly and olives cemetery in West Philly and Steven Smith cemetery in West Philadelphia as well.
And you'll see those disinterment from their former cemeteries and reinterprets out here, become just as significant of the story as the interments in the early 20th century (soft music) - We're gathered now to lay, to rest these Individuals.
- I mean, you can just hit on so many thematic groups here that the history is just incredible.
There's Marian Anderson and there's Williams, there is John Baxter who was the first African-American gold medalist in the Olympics in the early 19 hundreds and James Forten and T Thomas fortune, who was the right-hand man of Booker T Washington And Francis Ellen walk-ins Harper and Jesse faucet, two incredible African American novelists.
The list goes on and on.
This is one of the first memorials to world war one in the country.
Let alone one of the first African-American memorials.
We're still doing that research.
- [Cory] The history and legacy of historic Eden will go on for many years to come.
(soft music) But we would like to have people come onto the cemetery grounds to do more than just lay a loved one to rest.
We would like for them to come on and find out about all the wonderful things, the contributions that the people that are laid to rest here has made to the world.
(soft music) - we hope you today's episode on cultural preservation as someone born and raised in South Philly, it's wonderful to see old traditions being honored, while new ones are being made.
I'm your host, Andrew Race, and I'll see you on the next Movers and makers.
(upbeat music)