Joe Columbus Allen was born in 1890, the year that plans for the World’s 1893 Columbian Exposition were announced (which is why his middle name was Columbus). He would live to be 103 years old.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

The Columbian Exposition was a world fair held to celebrate the 400th aniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of North America.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

My grandpa, Loren Allen, was born in 1922 in Modesto California. Grandpa Loren would later become the father of my mother.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

The Great Depression was the greatest economic downturn in the course of history. The Great Depression lasted for ten years and led to about 15 million Americans being unemployed. 

Pictured:  my great-grandpa, Joe Allen, during the Great Depression.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

World War II was fought from 1939 to 1945, with the United States fighting with the Allied powers, Italy with the Axis powers under Benito Mussolini.  

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

Pearl Harbor was bombed just before 8 am on the seventh of December, 1941. This event led to the US entering WW2.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

Just nine hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked the Phillipines, taking it over in 1942 after defeating the combined American-Philippino force. This led to my grandfather's being stationed in the Philippines around the time of the liberation in 1944.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

My grandma, Marjorie Allen (Rouse at the time), joined the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). She was in service for three years, until the end of the war. The WAVES were the female branch of the navy.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

My grandpa, Loren Allen, was stationed in the Philippines for the duration of the war.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

On the second of May 1945, the Allies defeated the Axis powers in Italy with the Spring offensive. 

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

In January 1946, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established, modelled after the Soviet Union under Communist principles.  Yugoslavia acquired the province of Istria from Italy in this same year. 

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

In 1947 Trieste became a city state under the protection of the United Nations as the free teritory of Trieste. During this time, a lot of industry left Trieste because of the uncertain status of the city. As a result, after the final border was established in 1954, the influx of refugees couldn't find jobs, so many of them left for Canada, the US, and Australia 

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

A so-called fourth wave of immigration to Canada happened after World War II, especially Europeans, with the largest groups being Italians and Portuguese.  By 1971, Italians were the third largest ethnic group immigrating to Canada over the previous decade.  

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

After WW2, part of Italy became Yugoslavia, and the Italians had their rights and property taken away, and weren't allowed to leave the country. My Grand-Uncle Silvano Meier escaped with his wife illegaly by boat to Trieste, and wound up in Sydney, Australia. If they had been caught, they would have been shot, so they left their baby son, Dino, in the care of my Nonna Silvia for about two years. Eventually, nonna Silvia figured out a way to have baby Dino reunited with his biological parents.  Later on, when my Nonna had her own child, she chose to name him Dino, my dad. 

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

In the middle of February 1956, my nonno Virgilio left his home town of Isola in the province of Istria, which became the former Yugoslavia after the Second World War.  (It was Italy before then.)  Because he was an Italian, he became part of the Istriano exodus that followed the Second World War because his homeland changed hands from Italy to Communist Yugoslavia.  He ended up in Sistiana, Italy where he stayed with other refugees who had escaped Yugoslavia, including his friends Franca and Mario Lorenzutti.  Virgilio is lying on his stomache in the center of the photo; Mario is right behind him.  This picture was taken while they were both refugees in Sistiana.

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by Dino Franco Felluga

As Mario Lorenzutti wrote to my father, "In maggio/giugno del 1956 fummo trasferiti nel campo profughi di Opicina ( baracche)  e li ,tuo papa` rimase fino al 24 maggio 1960 ,giorno in cui parti` per il Canada ,come emigrante./rifugiato."  Translated:  In May/June of 1956 we were transferred to the refugee camps in Opicina, and there, your father remained until the twenty-fourth of May 1960, the day that he parted for Canada as a refugee immigrant.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

On May 24, 1960, my grandfather left Italy for Canada to start a new life there.

Picture:  This picture was taken on the day nonno Virgilio left Italy for good.  Virgilio is on the far right; Mario Lorenzutti (who helped me with some of the historical details for this project) is right next to him.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

Mario Lorenzutti says this about my nonna Silvia to my dad: "Tua mamma invece e` partita da Sovignacco nel 1963, non ricordo il mese . Ando` a Trieste con il passaporto ,perche` quella parte dell`Istria era gia` passata sotto la Jugoslavia dopo la guerra e quindi rimase a Trieste chiedendo asilo politico. Lavoro` al Villaggio del Fanciullo a Opicina per quasi un anno fino alla sua partenza per il Canada nell`autunno del 1964."  Tranlation: "Your mother instead left Sovignacco in 1963, I do not remember the month. She went to Trieste with a passport, because that part of Istria had already passed under Yugoslavia after the war and so she remained in Trieste asking for political asylum. She worked at the Children's Village [a preschool] in Opicina for almost a year until her departure for Canada in the autumn of 1964."

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

My Nonno and Nonna are married in Trieste, after Nonno Virgilio returned from Canada to marry my Nonna.  They thought that they might stay with the help of Silvia's aunt, but couldn't get it to work so my Nonno Virgilio returned to Canada, followed soon after by my Nonna Silvia.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

After finding it difficult to find work in Trieste due to the number of refugees, Nonno moved back to Canada in april of 1964 to set up a living situation, and after Nonno finished that, Silvia joined him in the Autumn of the same year.  They eventually bought a house in London, Canada (pictured), where I visited many times in my childhood.  

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

The homebrew Computer Club was a group of electronic enthusiasts that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozinak give credit to for inspiration for the original Apple computer. This fist meeting, which occured in a garage in Menlo Park CA, eventually led to the creation of the Silicon Valley.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

The Rouse family owned a prune ranch in San Jose in what would later become Silicon Valley. It was sold to facilitate the expansion of the Silicon Valley.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

My parents, Dino Felluga and Emily Allen, moved to Indiana in July of 1997.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

I was born in the winter of 2005 in a snowstorm.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga

I am living in California now because my parents are on sabbatical from the college that they work at. We drove from Lafayette, Indiana to here over a span of six days, starting on the fourth of July.

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by Lorenzo Allen-Felluga