Tengo famiglia

Adieux de Nick : Please, understand it’s something I have to do, OK?

FRANK: The very day I turned fourteen, my father put me on a boat. In my pocket he stuffed 200 liras and the address of a cousin in a place called Hoboken, New Jersey. The only advice my father gave me – Tengo famiglia. If you just said that in English, it would be I support a family. But in Italian, it means more, much more – « I’m a man, I’m doing well for my woman and my children. I have a reason for being alive. »

NICK: Tengo famiglia.

FRANK: I arrived to learn that my cousin had left Hoboken for a faraway land called Brooklyn. So for six weeks, I lived underneath a pier off the Hudson river – every minute and every day trying to figure out a way to earn enough money to get back home.