Steven Calco: Treasuring Our Family’s Story | Community Connections

ITHACA, NY — When Steven Calco was a child he would travel summers to be with his family in a tiny village, Scrisera, in the San Salvatore di Fitalia region in Sicily, Italy. Steven’s paternal great-grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1906 on the ship Perugia, and worked on building the railroads in Bronx, NY.

After Steven’s great-grandfather was injured at work he had both legs amputated. With no worker’s compensation or disability programs yet created in this country, he was forced to return home to Sicily to seek care. Steven’s grandfather, Charlie, was a farmer in their village; he raised eight children — Steven’s father Joseph was the youngest. Over time, many of Joseph and his seven sisters and brothers immigrated to the U.S., so they could find jobs and raise their families in a land with opportunity for hard workers. They settled in Bensonhurst, an Italian enclave in Brooklyn, where Steven’s family still lives. A close family, during summers they would travel back to their beloved Scrisera.

Steven’s father, a construction worker, was hired in 1984 for the refurbishment of the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island, where many of Steven’s family first entered the U.S. Steven’s beautiful mother, Maria, was also the youngest child in her family of five siblings in Scrisera.  Her father, also a farmer, was able to care for his large family until a natural disaster caused sudden poverty.  Maria was first placed in a convent, amongst strangers, so that her parents and much older siblings could work long, arduous days as migrant laborers. Maria later recounted lonely and terrifying times, with no one to defend or comfort her in the convent. 

Steven’s parents were introduced when his mother was 18, and after their wedding they moved to Brooklyn. Maria, grateful to be hired in a clothing factory sewing kids’ dresses before she could speak English, was determined to learn English. She listened to television shows and studied the dictionary in order to become an American. Steven, the first-born American in his family, lived his whole life surrounded by 12 aunts and uncles and several cousins in Bensonhurst. Although his own mother had not experienced the comfort of a stable family life, over time she found solace creating a loving family life.

When Steven went to college he majored in history at Brooklyn College. There he discovered, as a first-born American, that the struggles of workers to make their way out of poverty and to be treated justly with dignity, had special resonance for him. He was the first member of his family to graduate from college and felt a special connection to labor history through his own family’s history.

“Everyone in my family, except me, was born in another country, working as farmers, railroad and construction workers, and garment makers,” he said. “I’m reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words ‘So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs [but] whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth.’”

Listening to oral histories of his Sicilian relatives in the town of Scrisera, Steven treasured the details his family and community members shared. After Steven heard an archivist describe his profession, Steven became interested in the preservation and processing of archival collections. This motivated him to earn a master’s degree in library science, with a minor in archival management at Queens College. Working in the archival collections part-time, plus grad school, filled Steven’s days. He devoted his free time to organizing the underrepresented part-time librarians and archivists in CUNY and playing bass in a punk rock band.

These days, Steven lives apart from his beloved family in Brooklyn, serving as research archivist at the Kheel Center in Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Only the perfect job which Steven now fills, had enough of a pull to land him here amongst us in 2018.  

“The Kheel Center at Cornell University is one of the largest archives in the world that documents both labor and management history. Here we provide access to documents from all perspectives in order to create a more comprehensive history for scholars and anyone researching our collections.” Created in 1949, the Kheel Center (https://catherwood.library.cornell.edu/kheel/) is a repository of over 200,000 linear feet of archival material, including rare books and pamphlets, photographs, oral history interviews, collective bargaining agreements, union constitutions, artifacts, posters, manuscript materials, and films.” 

Clients who have worked with Steven at the renowned center are impressed to work with such a professionally poised and competent research archivist, who is sensitive to the intersection of the professional and the personal lives of the person whose archives he helps create.

Steven is preparing an exhibit highlighting Dr. King’s support for the working poor, organizing them to achieve just wages and conditions. Bringing his professional expertise to a story that resonates with his own family’s plight as migrant workers imbues this exhibit with special richness. Dr. King’s efforts have special value today as the gap between rich and poor grows larger, and immigrants face new obstacles as they seek to live in the land of freedom and opportunity. This exhibit will be traveling to John Henrik Clarke Africana Library at Cornell this spring 2021.