No Trudeaumania here

>> Italians irate over icon imbalance

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

One might wonder how intense a local controversy could be over a peasant girl born in Italy in 1850. Answer: very. The woman in question, one Maria Francesca Cabrini, was the 15th child of a peasant family from Lombardy who moved to New York in 1889, became a missionary, set up schools and orphanages and was eventually canonized in 1946. When local Italians wanted to open a Catholic English-language school in 1960, they named it after her.

Fast forward to more recent times. In 1998, the Quebec government concludes that two English elementary schools in Rosemount is one too many and demands that the newly formed EMSB hand one over. Parents fight to save their schools but as Emily Carr, the larger, Protestant one, is more coveted by the nearby French school, the Quebec government passes Bill 111, allowing them to hand it over to the French board. At the beginning of last school year, Emily Carr's 330 students are transferred to the smaller Francesca Cabrini, home of 150.

While Francesca Cabrini escaped the axe, its Italian cultural identity didn't. After the schools merged, the statue of the sainted Cabrini was taken away, the local priest's weekly pastoral visits were discontinued and, as an olive branch to the newly integrated Carr parents, Cabrini parents offered to change the name of the school. Their notion was to rechristen it Our Lady of Consolata, after the nearby church, or after former principal Gordon J. Bacci. But the Carr parents, who suddenly outnumbered the Cabrini's parents, had other plans. They put three different names on the ballot: Jeanne Sauvé, Henrietta Muir Edwards or Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Italians argued that the character of the neighbourhood be reflected in the new name and that the community play a role in the decision process, rather than having the issue decided by parents, whose involvement ends when their child graduates. The argument was ignored and in the aftermath of the former PM's death last fall, the Trudeau name prevailed with 70 per cent of votes from parents and teachers.

At a board meeting this March, 19 commissioners, including eight of Italian heritage, unanimously voted to rename the school after Trudeau. But soon Catholic priests in Rosemount were prodding their flocks to save the sainted name and, by June, nearly 5,000 had signed a petition to stop the school from being named after Trudeau.

Official Italian ire

The Italian school commissioners suddenly adopted the issue. At a fiery meeting in April, commissioner Joseph Petraglia asked commissioner Marvin Helfenbaum, "How would you feel if it was one of your schools?" Interpreting this as an anti-Semitic comment, Helfenbaum reportedly smashed his water carafe, causing much spillage as he angrily retorted with charges of racism.

At the final vote on the issue June 26, the commissioners remained deadlocked until they reconvened behind closed doors. "Something happened back there. When they returned after half an hour, they changed like night and day. When they went out, all the Italian commissioners were with us. After they returned, they changed their minds," says Cabrini loyalist Rosie Fiore. The Cabrini name was officially removed but, like many Italians, Fiore hopes to eventually have it changed back. "The older generation feels it was their hard work and money put in to build this school. They feel betrayed. The new name is a symbol of vengeance because Emily Carr blamed Cabrini for closing down their school."

Anna Mancuso, the 30-year-old president of Quebec's Italian Congress, which represents 250,000 locals with roots in the boot-shaped Mediterranean peninsula, says the community is already underrepresented name-wise. "The message they're sending us is that the Italian community doesn't deserve to have a school named after it. The school was founded for and by the Italian community and the name change basically took away part of our local heritage."

Although the school board has promised to try to find a place for the Cabrini name elsewhere, the congress won't play ball. "We were also invited to take part on a committee concerning name changes at the school but we've decided not to participate in it. They haven't listened to us so far and it's a disgrace on their part."

The EMSB's mercurial spokesman Mike Cohen considers the issue dead. "It's a done deal. This has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. We gave more due process than any other school in the history of Montreal and it's in the past. We don't care to discuss this anymore."

Mancuso suspects a troubling pattern at work also gaudily evident in a fiasco in which the Papineau Bridge was cleared to be renamed after Senator Rizzuto, only to have been blocked. "The Italian community is one of the most integrated communities and sometimes we can be taken for granted. We're so much part of the city that nobody automatically thinks we deserve any recognition."