Concetta Orlando, female, 91
great-grandmother/housewife
Italian-born, Italian-Sicilian-Albanian-English-speaking
Richmond, CA
Oct. 14, 2001
Piana digli Albanesi, formerly Piana al Greci (1941)
(The Plain of the Albanians, The Plain of the Greeks)
Connie Orlando was born in 1910 in the 500-year-old village of Piana digli (degil) Albanesi, a mountainous plateau located 15 miles south of Palermo, in Sicily, Italy. She came to the United States to meet her husband in 1930, where she learned English. Her grandparents were also from Piana digli Albanesi. She didn’t know how far back her ancestors went, but she thinks their settlement dates back to 1492.
The history of the village, the Plain of the Albanians, is interesting as it was founded by Albanian refugees fleeing from the Ottoman Turks in 1492. The Turks didn’t believe in the Greek Orthodox Church, so they fled for religious reasons.
The village was formerly known as Piana al Greci—greche, or Greeks, but in 1941 Mussolini changed the name because "the villagers weren’t Greek." Italy had attacked Greece so it was an expunging. After Connie left home to come to America. Connie said that a cousin, I think she meant a distant relation, a priest, who lived in a village in the Pelopponeses, in what is now Greece—it was Albania then—came to Italy when the Turks invaded. She said “They all got into a boat and came to Sicily,” then eventually settled in Piana digli Albanesi.
What is amazing is that they retained their language and customs for 500 years, even though Italy, a different culture and language, was now their homeland. Connie (who lives at 653 W. “H” Street, in Ontario, CA 91762), is still very active, and her memories of her village and its customs are amazingly detailed. She was married in a traditional heavily embroidered Albanian wedding dress (similar to Balkan and southern Ukrainian/Romanian wedding dresses) in a Byzantine Orthodox church.
UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes
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