Rhode Tour

Lyon Fabrics

2016-06-01T15:47:47+00:00

P: ¿Cuál fue la ciudad pequeña de Rhode Island que eligió a un alcalde latino de veintisiete años de edad en el año 2013?

R: Central Falls, donde el sesenta por ciento de los residentes son latinos, y la mayoría Colombianos.

P: ¿Porque hay tantos Colombianos en una ciudad tan pequeña?

Todo comenzó en el principio de los años 60, cuando Jay Giuttari, el hijo del dueño de una fábrica en Central Falls, estudiaba en el Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts, donde se hizo amistades con el hijo del dueño Colombiano de una fábrica. Después de graduarse, Jay consiguió empleo en Colombia por un tiempo. El descubrió que los tejedores locales usaban maquinaria idéntica a las de la fábrica de su padre, y que eran expertos en reparar las tejedoras viejas. Mientras tanto en Central Falls, su padre se encontraba en dificultades reemplazando a sus empleados retirados; cuyos hijos ahora se integraban a la universidad, convirtiéndose en maestros, abogados y doctores en vez de trabajar en la fábrica.

La solución de Giuttari: dar empleo a los Colombianos, y los primeros tres llegaron en un dia frio del mes de Marzo en el 1965. Lyon Fabrics cerró las puertas en los años 90, pero por más de 20 años la fábrica contrató Colombianos expertos en tejer que trabajaban las maquinarias. Ellos se convirtieron en el componente principal de la comunidad Colombiana de Central Falls.

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Lyon Fabrics

2016-05-31T15:43:04+00:00

Q. Which small Rhode Island city elected a 27-year-old Latino mayor in 2013?

A. Central Falls, where 60 percent of residents are Latino, most of them Colombians.

Q. Why are so many Colombians in one city that measures one square mile?

It all started in the early 1960s when Jay Giuttari, son of a Central Falls mill owner, was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he became friendly with the son of a Colombian mill owner. After graduation, Jay worked in Colombia for a while. He discovered that local weavers were using machinery similar to that in his father's mill and that they were very skilled at repairing the old looms. Meanwhile back in Central Falls, his father was finding it difficult to replace retiring workers; their children were going to college, becoming teachers and lawyers and doctors, rather than going into the mills.
Giuttari 's solution: hire Colombians, and the first three arrived on a cold March day in 1965. Lyon Fabrics closed in the 1990s, but for over 20 years the mill welcomed skilled Colombia weavers to work the machines. They became the nucleus of the Colombian community in Central Falls.
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The Home of Betsey Metcalf (Demolished)

2016-03-22T06:49:03+00:00

Is it a stretch to see Benefit Street as a sweatshop for girls of the cultural elite? Probably; but it is interesting to note that in the years that Mary Balch’s School was teaching its young pupils the art of needlepoint, a young girl named Betsey Metcalf started Day’s Academy in Providence, teaching girls to braid straw hats that resembled the straw bonnets then in vogue in England from patterns she developed. When asked why she did not patent her technique, Metcalf replied that she did not want her name to be sent to Congress; her contemporary, Mary Kies, who lived in Connecticut, did not suffer this qualm and applied for and won a patent to protect her method of braiding straw into bonnets in 1809.
Betsey married Obed Baker in 1807 and moved to Westwood, Massachusetts. She continued to teach women to braid straw bonnets at the local Baptist and Unitarian Churches so they could raise funds for causes such as relief during the Irish Potato Famine. She and her husband were anti-slavery activists and may have helped slaves escape to the North through the Underground Railroad.
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