The Arberesh Community in New Orleans - Part Two
Writer Mark Orfila shows an Albanian flag in front of a business in a Sicilian village, Piana degli Albanese, that has ties to both Albania and New Orleans, photo by Kelley Anderson
April 2025A New Orleans writer follows the trail of the city’s Arberesh community to two ancient Sicilian villages, where he finds the cultural ties still strong – despite time and distance.
– by Mark Orfila
Foreword
At the turn of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Sicilian immigrants flooded New Orleans, transforming the French Quarter into “Little Sicily.” While you probably were aware of that, if you haven’t read Part One of this story, you may not know that many of those “Sicilians” were actually Arberesh - people of Albanian descent.
While they came to New Orleans from Sicily – where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries – the Arberesh are a distinct ethnic group who trace their language, customs, and cultural identity back to Albania. Arberesh immigrants played an enormous role in creating New Orleans as we know it.
This part tells the story of how the sons and daughters of one particular Arberesh village in Sicily have managed to maintain the continuity of their community across the ocean and through the years.
Since I will be approaching this story from a personal perspective, a brief introduction would be in order. I have no Arberesh ancestry, nor any genetic links to Albania as far as I know. But I am a native New Orleanian who – after spending 13 years living and working among ethnic Albanians in Albania, North Macedonia, and Kosovo – has come to consider Albania my second home.
My time among the Albanians has given me an appreciation for the deep reservoir of cultural pride and loyalty, which underlies the resilience of New Orleans’ Arberesh community.
The 40th Anniversary of the Contessa Entellina Italian Society in front of the St. Louis Cathedral in 1921 (- 31), The Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1979.325.6744, See below for details of this image.
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Most Arberesh emigres to New Orleans came from just two Sicilian villages: Piana degli Albanesi and Contessa Entellina. The former citizens of each of these villages gathered in New Orleans to form a charitable society, and each of these societies built a magnificent mausoleum in Metairie Cemetery for its members.
In the course of writing this article, I visited Metairie Cemetery for the first time. Visiting those two beautiful tombs was a very moving experience.
Societa Italiana di Beneficenza Contessa Entellina, 1910 - 1920, Historic New Orleans Collection, 1974.25.6.269
Inside the Contessa Entellina tomb in Metairie Cemetery, photo by Mark Orfila
A tombstone inscription in both Albanian and English, photo by Mark Orfila
When I began working on this story, my wife Kelley and I were in the midst of preparations to relocate to Albania. With Sicily just a hop, skip, and a jump away, Kelley looked up flights online and learned that a round-trip ticket was about $40 a person. How exciting would it be to visit the birthplaces of those Arberesh pioneers whose final resting places I had recently seen back in Louisiana?
Within a month of settling into Albania, we made the trip to Sicily.
Piana degli Albanesi (Plain of the Albanians) was first on our list. (In the past, the Italians referred to it as “Piana dei Greci,” a misnomer arising from the fact that the Arberesh practiced the Greek Byzantine rite in some of their churches.)
Arriving there on a sunny Saturday morning, we found the village ablaze with vivid displays of its Albanian heritage. Following Giorgio Castriota Way (Skenderbeg’s Latin name) into town, we saw the balconies of homes, business, and municipal building draped with Italian and Albanian flags hanging side by side – Skenderbeg’s fierce, double-headed eagle, jet-black on a blood-red field, sharply juxtaposed with the familiar green, red, and white bars of the Italian flag.
A large banner commemorating a recent visit by the president of Albania still hung from city hall. Just like the Albanian capital Tirana, Piana had its own Skenderbeg Square with an imposing statue of the 15th century hero.
Italian and Albanian flags often hang together in Piana degli Albanese, photo by Mark Orfila
Skenderbeg Square, Piana degli Albanese, photo by Mark Orfila
Apart from being the heart of Sicilian Arberia, Piana degli Albanesi is also widely recognized as the world capital of cannoli. I was already a fan of cannoli – based entirely on my experience as a regular customer at Angelo Brocato’s in New Orleans – so my first order of business was to pop in at Extrabar, the pastry shop right off the main square.
The proprietor, Nicola Petta, greeted me in Italian as I walked in the door. I returned the greeting in my best Albanian, and his face lit up. “Oh you’re Albanian!” he exclaimed.
I explained to him that I was actually American, but that I had learned to speak Albanian during my years living in the Balkans. When I told him that I was from New Orleans, his face lit up all over again. He was excited to tell me about his cousins in Dallas whose ancestors emigrated through the port of New Orleans.
Nicola Petta and writer Mark Orfila in the Extrabar, Piana degli Albanese, Sicily. Photo by Kelley Anderson
Here’s how I would describe our conversation:
Imagine that you’re a foreigner who speaks English, not flawlessly, but fluently enough that you’re able to converse comfortably with native speakers from the U.S. or the U.K. Now imagine finding yourself in some strange place where the local language is some version of Shakespearean English.
That was more or less the situation I found myself in. Nicola understood pretty much all of my Albanian, and I understood more than half of his (to my ears, at least) archaic dialect, so with minimal struggle, we managed to communicate.
Kelley and I ordered cannoli. Nicola insisted on assembling each one to order so that the pastry shell wasn’t soggy. He invited me to a back room to film the process as his worker lovingly and expertly stuffed a generous portion of sheep ricotta into the crispy shell.
Mark Orfila with the world famous cannolo at the Extrabar, photo by Kelley Anderson
The experience was everything I had dreamed of. Evidently the New York Times agrees. Nicola proudly pointed out a framed article dated December 2023, in which food writer Claire Saffitz attempted to recreate Extrabar’s recipe for the perfect cannolo. After finishing my cannolo, Nicola and I posed for a picture, each of us holding aloft a bottle of Albanian booze.
Then Kelley and I headed further inland toward Contessa Entellina. In advance of the trip I had contacted a local guide who agreed to show me around and set up a couple of interviews, but she had had a last minute medical emergency, and everything had fallen through. I was going to have to wing it. But buoyed by my serendipitous experience in Piana, I was hopeful.
Driving our rented car, we saw picturesque vineyards and olive groves stretched out over the hills in every direction, but apart from a couple of farmers harvesting olives and a shepherd or two tending their flocks, the landscape was devoid of people. And while the highways connecting Sicily’s main cities were wide and well-maintained, the road to Contessa was rough, rutted, and only sporadically paved.
On the road between Piana degli Albanese, and Contessa Entellina, photo by Kelley Anderson
Olive groves on the road between Piana degli Albanese and Contessa Entellina, photo by Kelley Anderson
According to our GPS, it was supposed to be about an hour’s drive, but it took much longer, and we arrived there in the late afternoon. The village streets were immaculate but empty. A stray dog and a lonely clothesline hung with fresh laundry were the only signs of life. I joked that we must have arrived just after the final resident finally departed for New Orleans.
Hyperbole aside, tracing the town’s population over the years really gives a sense of just how much of itself Contessa gave to our city. The population peaked in 1861 at 3,364. Over the next several decades, almost 3,000 people would leave for New Orleans.
By 1921, the population of the village had dwindled to 1,910. Some scholars assert that by the 1920s there were around 20,000 people of Arberesh extraction in New Orleans – more than the entire Arberesh population remaining in Sicily at that time.
Hoping to find someone – anyone – to talk to, I wandered into a nearby cafe and found a couple of men hanging out. This time my Albanian greeting drew only blank stares. I tried English with the same result. Frustrated, I walked back outside and tried the door of the church across the street but found it locked. The afternoon was waning. We wandered around the village for a while taking pictures before finally giving up and setting out for the nearby town of Corleone to spend the night.
Coming into Contessa, the road had barely been passable in places; trying to leave was far worse. Over and over, Google Maps kept sending us down dead-end paths. Every way we went ended in a washout. Night was falling, and the whole thing was starting to feel like the beginning of a horror movie. Finally, ditching the GPS and relying on our intuition, we found our way out.
At first, the town of Contessa Entellina seemed completely deserted, photo by Mark Orfila
A statue of Skenderbeg, in Contessa Entellina, photo by Mark Orfila
After a rich and rewarding experience at Piana degli Albanesi, my encounter with Contessa Entellina had been a bust. It was a shame, especially in light of the fact that of the two villages, Contessa has a far stronger and more enduring connection to the Crescent City than Piana.
The New Orleans society founded by the former residents of Piana – like the overwhelming majority of the mutual aid and benevolence societies of that time – served its purpose and disbanded long ago, leaving behind only that beautiful tomb. The Contessa Entellina Society, on the other hand, is still going strong. The banner at the top of their website proclaims: “The oldest Italian/Sicilian Society in New Orleans - Incorporated September 8, 1886.”
At its inception, the society wasn’t unique. Mutual aid societies were woven into the fabric of New Orleans’ social structure. They offered social activities such as dances, picnics, parades; and social services, such as medical insurance – and, of course, communal tombs. So what was it that set the Contessa Entellina Society apart? What was the secret of its longevity?
In Part One, we met two New Orleanians who are proud of their Arberesh ancestry: Bret Clesi, whose passion for his heritage led to his appointment as Honorary Consul-General of Albania; and Italian-American activist Charles Marsala. It turns out that the great grandfathers of both of these men were present at the society’s inception.
The 40th Anniversary of the Contessa Entellina Italian Society in front of the St. Louis Cathedral in 1921 (- 31), The Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1979.325.6744, See below for details of this image.
Detail: The 40th Anniversary of the Contessa Entellina Italian Society in front of the St. Louis Cathedral, The Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1979.325.6744,
Detail: The 40th Anniversary of the Contessa Entellina Italian Society in front of the St. Louis Cathedral, The Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1979.325.6744
You may recall from Part One that Marsala first discovered his Arberesh heritage at 59 years of age (just five years ago). That discovery, as it turns out, was the result of a letter he received from then president of the Contessa Entellina Society, Gaspar Schiro.
Marsala, who spoke at Schiro’s funeral two years ago, recalls the letter with a chuckle. The first paragraph informed him that his great grandfather and two of his great uncles were among the founding members of the society. The second paragraph notified him that he owed $75 in dues.
Clesi’s and Marsala’s great grandfathers – along with most, if not all, of the 100 or so men who gathered in 1886 to form the society – spoke Arberesh as their mother tongue. As late as the 1990s, Clesi recalls members of the society still speaking to one another – not in Italian, Sicilian, or English – but Arberesh.
Nevertheless, the society’s official name was la Societa Italiana de Beneficenza Contessa Entellina (The Contessa Entellina Italian Society for Charity.) It appears that from the very beginning that New Orleans’ Sicilian-Arberesh community was both distinct and inseparable from the Sicilian-Latin community.
The history of an elegant building still standing on the edge of the French Quarter illustrates this complicated relationship. 1020 Esplanade has been converted to condos, but you can still see “Unione Italiana” carved in stone above its facade. According to Clesi, it originally belonged to the Contessa Entellina Society. Eventually, it was shared by more than 20 different Italian societies.
The Italian Society building in 1966, courtesy Vieux Carre Digital Library
The historical plaque out front notes that the building was the home of “both the Contessa Entellina Society Band, made up of Albanian-Sicilian Italian-Americans, and the Roma Band, of Sicilian Italian-Americans. During their rivalry a musician could be in one, not both.”
The society managed to steer its members to maintain both their connections to and their distinction from the larger Sicilian community, a delicate balance that proved key to the community’s survival.
Another vital factor that contributed to the society’s success: it was able to keep its members connected – to one another, and to their roots. In addition to offering them social activities and services, the society also became the custodian of the Arberesh story, handing it down from generation to generation.
Hearing about Skenderbeg, the exodus from Albania, and ultimately their regathering at the mouth of the Mississippi, the sons and daughters of Contessa Entellina in New Orleans inherited a strong sense of who they were and where they came from.
Long before I went to Sicily, I already had all the information I needed about Contessa Entellina and the society the village had spawned in New Orleans to write a strong story.
To be able to say that I had actually set foot there was more than I had dreamed of when I had set out to write the article.
Still, I couldn’t deny that the whole experience of not connecting with anyone in Contessa Entellina was a huge letdown. I woke up the next morning feeling a bit demoralized.
Kelley convinced me to give it another try. Sure, it would mean backtracking a bit, but we had the time, so why not? With her encouragement, I shook off the previous day’s ordeal, and we turned our rented car back toward Contessa.
We found our way there easily this time, but the streets just as deserted on Sunday morning as they had been on Saturday afternoon. We headed toward one of the village churches, hoping to find people gathering there for mass. The plaza was empty, but this time when I tried the church door, it was unlocked.
Kelley Anderson on a public plaza in Contessa Entellina, photo by Mark Orfila.
There was only one person inside, a middle-aged gentleman, bustling around, straightening up in preparation for the arrival of his fellow parishioners. He glanced up briefly before resuming his work. Not wanting to disturb him, Kelley and I tiptoed around, whispering our admiration for the vivid paintings of Jesus, Mary, and the saints.
After a minute, the man tentatively made his way towards us. His name, as we were about to learn, was Nino Schiro, and the scene that played out with Nino was almost a replay of the previous day’s introduction to Nicola: the same unadulterated delight when I greeted him in Albanian, then when I told him that I was from New Orleans.
Naturally, Nino’s initial assumption was that I must be Arberesh. It broke my heart a little to have to convince him otherwise. In the end, it didn’t matter. I was a New Orleanian who spoke Albanian; I was practically family one way or the other.
“Did you know that thousands of people left here and went to New Orleans?” he asked.
“Yes, I did know that,” I replied. “Did you know that one of your Schiro cousins was once the mayor of New Orleans?”
“Yes, I did know that,” he answered laughing.
After showing us around the church, Nino insisted that we hop into his car so he could take us three minutes up the hill to an older, smaller church, which is evidently used these days only for special occasions. Both churches were beautifully and intricately adorned, but for me, the most moving thing by far was seeing the name of my city inscribed in bronze.
On the front of this older church was a plaque erected in a partnership between a local committee and “the resident brothers of New Orleans” commemorating the sacrifice of soldiers from Contessa Entellina who died fighting on the Allied side in World War 1. It was dated 1919.
Plaque on the front of the church in Contessa Entellina honoring local soldiers who made the “supreme sacrifice” in WWI, paid for in part by “our brothers resident in New Orleans.”
Inside the church was another plaque, which bore the names of Bret Clesi and 22 other donors described as “children of this land of Contessa Entellina residing in New Orleans” who paid to restore the church’s door. This one was dated 1984-1985, almost a hundred years exactly from the founding of the society.
On the 1919 plaque, “the resident brothers of New Orleans” likely referred to those actually born in the old country. But by the 1980s, Bret and his fellow “children of this land” were generations removed from the land in question.
Plaque thanking the “children of this land resident in New Orleans” who contributed to the restoration of the door of the church in Contessa Entellina, photo by Mark Orfila
According to Clesi and Marsala, another village church I did not have the opportunity to visit, bears even more recent plaques expressing gratitude to the sons and daughters of Contessa in New Orleans for their help in repairing the structure after it was damaged in an earthquake.
The plaques on and in the churches testify to a new chapter in the Arbersh story. Over and over again the Arberesh of New Orleans have continued to reach back across the Atlantic to offer support to their kin in the old country. Across the ocean and across the years, the roots are still nourishing the leaves, while the leaves are nourishing the roots.
Detail: The 40th Anniversary of the Contessa Entellina Italian Society in front of the St. Louis Cathedral, The Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1979.325.6744,
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