Brontes to America

Brontes to America: The Ettore Bronte Story, 1901 - 1978 recounts the incredible journey of the son of a Sicilian customs official who gave up privilege on the northwest coast of Sicily for new life in America at the age of 15. From a world marked by violence and power, Ettore Bronte flees the old country to become his own man on his own terms, in America.

He encounters too soon the raw existence of survival in the tenements of Brooklyn, New York and New Brunswick, New Jersey. Swept up by patriotic fervor over U. S. entry into World War I, Ettore joins the U. S. Army in 1917 to fight for his new homeland at age 16. Through five bloodied battles and trench warfare of the most inhuman sort as part of the 23rd Infantry Regiment in France, he loses one eye to shrapnel and miraculously survives. Not to be encumbered by physical or emotional scars, Ettore returns to his new country determined to resume the new life he had initially set out upon.

Brontes to America weaves the story of the immigrant experience of one Italian-American and his unique contribution to the fabric of our country. His is the story of endurance, survival, tremendous courage, and bravery. Follow Ettore and by extension follow the survival of the Bronte family on a uniquely American journey.