Former Mayor Vellucci An Inspiration

To the editors:

Although Missouri is a long way from Cambridge, I’ve often told my local radio audience about Al Vellucci (News, “Former Cambridge Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci Dies,” Oct. 21).

My parents and I were born in the Azores. Like many other immigrants from those islands, we were unable to speak English, jobless and badly educated. My mother, in fact, had never attended school back in our native village of Freguesia. Even her Portuguese vocabulary was somewhat poor. To say, therefore, that she would have difficulty in America learning a new language would not be exaggeration.

In the meantime, my father and I did learn spoken English relatively well—so much so that within six years of our respective arrival (my father came in 1944, while my mother and I came in 1946), we had become American citizens. My mother, much to her regret, remained Portuguese. She could never pass the standard U.S. Naturalization exam, an exercise which most native-born Americans would be equally unable to pass.

I moved on in search of the “American dream.” I married in 1957, and my first child was born in 1959 in Mineola, New York. My mother in the meantime remained a Portuguese citizen. She could not understand why she had to be the missing link in a family that had now given a new citizen to America and where everyone within it was also American.

It was then that I decided to do something. I decided to speak to Vellucci during one of my occasional visits to Cambridge. Al had always been most cordial to me and proud that an East Cambridge boy had graduated from Harvard. I told him about my mother’s plight.

“Does she know what my name looks like when written?” Al asked.

“Of course,” I replied.

“How about your father?”

“He should,” I replied once again. “He’s been voting for you for years.”

“Good,” Vellucci said with an assuring smile. “Just make sure that she votes.”

About a month later my mother received a letter from the INS telling her when to present herself for a Naturalization Exam—one which she passed, even if no one ever asked her any questions.

My mother died as an American citizen on Dec. 17, 1996, in Bridgeton, Missouri. Prior to her death, she asked me to contact Vellucci for help just in case her nursing-home money ran out before she died.

It didn’t. She left me four cents.

Manuel L. Ponte ’54

St. Louis, Missouri

Oct. 21, 2002

My parents and I were born in the Azores. Like many other immigrants from those islands, we were unable to speak English, jobless and badly educated. My mother, in fact, had never attended school back in our native village of Freguesia. Even her Portuguese vocabulary was somewhat poor. To say, therefore, that she would have difficulty in America learning a new language would not be exaggeration.

In the meantime, my father and I did learn spoken English relatively well—so much so that within six years of our respective arrival (my father came in 1944, while my mother and I came in 1946), we had become American citizens. My mother, much to her regret, remained Portuguese. She could never pass the standard U.S. Naturalization exam, an exercise which most native-born Americans would be equally unable to pass.

I moved on in search of the “American dream.” I married in 1957, and my first child was born in 1959 in Mineola, New York. My mother in the meantime remained a Portuguese citizen. She could not understand why she had to be the missing link in a family that had now given a new citizen to America and where everyone within it was also American.

It was then that I decided to do something. I decided to speak to Vellucci during one of my occasional visits to Cambridge. Al had always been most cordial to me and proud that an East Cambridge boy had graduated from Harvard. I told him about my mother’s plight.

“Does she know what my name looks like when written?” Al asked.

“Of course,” I replied.

“How about your father?”

“He should,” I replied once again. “He’s been voting for you for years.”

“Good,” Vellucci said with an assuring smile. “Just make sure that she votes.”

About a month later my mother received a letter from the INS telling her when to present herself for a Naturalization Exam—one which she passed, even if no one ever asked her any questions.

My mother died as an American citizen on Dec. 17, 1996, in Bridgeton, Missouri. Prior to her death, she asked me to contact Vellucci for help just in case her nursing-home money ran out before she died.

It didn’t. She left me four cents.

Manuel L. Ponte ’54

St. Louis, Missouri

Oct. 21, 2002