I spotted The King of Mulberry Street, By Donna Jo Napoli, tucked into a corner of a large bookshelf at the Tenement Museum in New York City, engulfed by other books covering the Great Migration to America. It was the cover, as usual, that caught my eye: kids in their early teens hanging around a well-trafficked alleyway in Manhattan, circa end of the nineteenth century. A few of the boys stood resolute in their pose, as if they weren’t completely convinced this was just an innocent photograph being taken of them, as opposed to one of the many conniving schemes they encountered day in and day out in the tenement jungle around them. The other boys appeared to be delighted at the distraction from their hard daily grind. The photograph represented the story well.
The King of Mulberry Street is more than a coming-of-age story. The book also chronicles the journey and struggle of immigrants from across the globe as they flood into America, a land full of hope, wealth, and opportunity, or so they’ve heard. It’s protagonist, Beniamino, is a Jewish Napolitano boy who, upon wakening one day in Italy, is stowed onto a ship bound for America, and presumably a better life, by his despondent mother. Her parting gift, a brand-new pair of leather shoes, and the solemn advice to hide his Jewish identify to avoid discrimination, always be a keen observer, and to survive!
Beniamino manages to survive the boat ride from Napoli, unlike another stowaway who succumbs to Cholera and is thrown overboard. On entering New York Harbor, Beniamino contemplates the giant statue which greets him. It possesses him and stirs his emotions, as it does to all who slowly drift past it. With no family, he is labeled an orphan. A quick learner, Beniamino, given the name Domenico Napoli at Ellis Island, is savvy enough to avoid the orphanage and escape into Manhattan, where he sleeps in a barrel in an alleyway and soon learns how to navigate the trials and tribulations of living in an overcrowded slum, while not being able to speak the language and having no money.
In the King of Mulberry Street, the reader is taken on a descriptive journey that, by its end, gives you a good sense of what it was like to live at the end of the nineteenth century on the lower east side of Manhattan, also called the Bowery. The author writes in simple sentences that are descriptive and keep the scenes flowing nicely throughout the book. At books end, reading about the author, Donna Jo Napoli, I was surprised, and a little embarrassed, to find she mostly writes for young adults, and that this book is probably of that genre, thus the writing being simple and direct. Regardless, I never got the impression while reading the book that this was the case, and I am fully convinced any adult with an interest in The Great Migration or their own family’s arrival through Ellis Island, would find this story just as magnificent as I did. Napoli has written several books and has a B.A. in Mathematics and a PhD in romance linguistics from Harvard University. The story is loosely written on the skeleton of her own family’s immigration from Napoli and is filled with timeless Italian proverbs still relevant today. In addition to family lore, Napoli used historical material and studied old photographs of the era to give a realistic portrayal of the lower east side. In addition, she gives the reader an immersive experience of how it must have been for Poles, Russians, Chinese, Irish, and eastern Europeans entering the melting pot. The King of Mulberry Street is a quick, easy, satisfying read and illuminates a key moment in American history. It is published by Yearling, and at 8.99$, the book is both a bargain and a gem. I would highly recommend it for a light read and a peek into an important time.
