America 1982

Tommy Hawke was wearing sportswear. He was holding on to the lamppost in the South District of Warwick City and took a few breaths. Then he looked at Melonie next to him and asked:

"Aunt, you are a woman, right?"

Seeing that Tommy Hawke was panting heavily after running only three kilometers, Melonie mocked with disdain: "The eyes are so good. How did you see it, Tommy? If you didn't tell me, I thought there was no such thing in this world." If anyone can discover this secret, keep running! There are still 700 meters to the Church of Sant'Ezio."

"I don't know what's the point of you suddenly forcing me to run with you every day." Tommy Hawke asked with confusion: "I changed my profile two months ago and it said I'm not good at track and field. Among sports, I prefer table tennis, and I am the absolute main force of our school’s table tennis team.”

Melonie lowered her voice to Tommy Hawke seriously: "Don't you think what we are going to do is very risky? You must be fully prepared for this. For example, the most basic thing is that you must at least let yourself be caught by the police. When arrested, have enough physical strength to escape."

"I can give you a reasonable explanation. There are no bullets flying in the movie, no blood dripping, no gangs and police. This is a small business that is harmless to humans and animals." Tommy Hawk covered his face with his hands. After rubbing it hard for a few times, a dull voice came out from under the palm: "Melonie, you should watch less TV series made by Californians. I find that since I told you about this little business, your spirit has become... I'm a little nervous. We are just poor people selling cigarettes, not tycoons selling arms or drug lords. We are not qualified to be involved in the big scenes you mentioned. The most terrifying scene you can encounter may be when I drive The fishing boat accidentally looked in the wrong direction and was supposed to go north to Canada, but we ended up in Cuba.”

"Normal people are nervous." Melonie ignored Tommy's helplessness. After leaving a sentence, she turned around and continued jogging forward: "Only a freak like you can act as if nothing happened."

After running the last 700 meters and standing outside the main entrance of the church, which was neither grand nor gorgeous, Melonie asked Tommy Hawke: "Why did you come to the church?"

"It's not the church, it's the institution next to the church. Did you see that low-key and inconspicuous sign?" Tommy Hawke stretched out his finger and pointed to a two-story building next to the church.

Looking in the direction Tommy pointed, Melonie read the Italian text on the somewhat mottled sign: "Brotherhood of Ezio."

"Church organization?" After Melonie finished reading, she looked at Tommy Hawke uncertainly and asked: "Although I have been to Sant'Ezio Church with my parents countless times, I have never paid attention to this inconspicuous thing. sign."

Tommy Hawke shook his head slightly: "Are you sure you are Italian? Aunt?"

"Just like you are not sure that I am a woman." Melonie sighed and said to Tommy Hawke: "Tommy, have your friends ever reminded you that it is best to be more direct when speaking."

"This was once a great place, a place where Italians helped each other in the United States. Now it has lost its glory, but it shouldn't be difficult to find a guide here." Tommy Hawk said to Melonie.

The Ezio Brotherhood, as mentioned by Tommy Hawke, was an Italian organization that once spanned the east and west coasts of the United States. It was founded in 1942.

The reason for its establishment was that the United States officially entered World War II. The U.S. government was worried that Italian-Americans with a strong sense of family and homeland would be exploited by Mussolini and cause huge hidden dangers to the United States. Therefore, various restrictive policies for Italians were introduced starting in California. Then it spread quickly like a wave and expanded to the West Coast states. Although hundreds of thousands of Italian-Americans served the United States at that time and died on the battlefield, this did not dispel the U.S. government's suspicion of Italians.

Italians suddenly found that they were no longer allowed to go to the seaside, and the fishing boats they relied on for a living were forcibly impounded. Italians were also subject to a separate racial curfew policy. They were not allowed to go out at night, and they needed to apply for a permit from the police station if they traveled five kilometers from their residences. The most important thing is that if you violate any of the above restrictions, you will be forcibly taken away immediately, labeled as a "hostile foreigner" and sent to custody.

These policies resulted in the complete unemployment of tens of thousands of Italian families who relied on fishing on the west coast of the United States. At this time, in New York and New England on the northeastern coast of the United States, due to the large number of Italian immigrants, the government was unable to carry out large-scale racial controls, so the restrictive measures were relatively mild. Many of them are mainly based on influence and co-optation. From this, we can intuitively see the differences between the north and the south of the United States in the treatment of foreign ethnic groups. The southerners are barbaric and the northerners are civilized.

Italians attach great importance to family and association, especially family members. Therefore, even though they are thousands of miles away, when Italians on the east coast learn that their relatives or friends on the west coast are in trouble, they all lend a helping hand.

However, it is too difficult to rescue thousands of miles away, so some people have proposed that the unemployed Italians on the west coast should be allowed to migrate to the northeast coast. Italian Catholic churches in various states can be used as liaison stations along the way, and Italian religious personnel can be used as liaisons to provide the migrants with the best services they can. food, money and all kinds of help.

So, as this idea was recognized by the Italians, almost all Italian east coast immigrants united, gangsters, craftsmen, factory owners, traders, fishermen, barbers and even pimps... no matter what status, no matter where they are in the United States At that time, they all tried their best to participate and provide all kinds of information and help in order to save the same people from the fire. In this way, an Italian migration line across the United States began to appear on the American map.

A large number of Italians used this migration line to secretly set out from Los Angeles, California in the southwest, using information given by their own ethnic groups to bypass interrogation, and passed through various states in the United States along the way, finally arriving in New York, Boston, Portland and Providence in the northeast. Even as far north as Canada.

Because churches along the way were used as contact points to provide help, and Italian religious personnel were used as liaisons, the idea of ​​​​slowly completing this painful migration of Italians was pioneered by Rocky Salvatore, the pastor of Sant'Ezio Church in Providence. proposed, so this organization of Italians who helped the states along the way was also known as the Ezio Brotherhood.

In addition to helping the migrating compatriots, the Ezio Brotherhood would also communicate with each other in a timely manner about the attitudes of cities in various states in the United States towards Italians, and help fellow compatriots find suitable settlements. It is precisely because of its existence that many Italian children can live in My parents struggled to survive when they were under control and did not starve to death.

Times have changed, and today's Ezio Brotherhood can no longer exert its brilliance as it did in the past. After all, Italians prefer small circleism and value family. They have never been interested in large institutions and organizations like the Ezio Brotherhood. , thinking that their feelings are limited and can only be given to those closest to them.

So when their relatives were rescued and the storm passed, the Italians who were once united turned from a red sun into a sky full of stars and returned to their own lives.

The current Ezio Brotherhood is indeed more like a church organization used by Italian churches to maintain communication, but it retains one feature, that is, when Italians need to go to a completely unfamiliar city for some reason, you can come Go to the church with the Ezio Brotherhood sign for help. If there are Italians living in that city, then the Brotherhood can help you contact a fellow Italian in that city who is warm-hearted and good at communicating and can help you integrate into the new city. Of course, this business is now paid, just like a tourist guide.

After listening to Tommy Hawke's story, Melonie looked at him blankly for a few seconds before saying:

"Tommy, where did you get this information? Your words have made me doubt whether I am Italian. There is no such record in American history textbooks."

Tommy Hawke looked at the sign and stepped forward: "Among the Italian immigrants who were forced to migrate, there was a baby girl named Alida Leon. She once told me, let's go and find her. A guide."

...Thank you to the leader of Mengmengquan for the reward, and thank you to all readers for your support. I will go down to eat first. I apologize for the late update today.