Editing Frank Capra (section)

== Early life ==
Capra was born Francesco Rosario Capra in [[Bisacquino]], a village near [[Palermo]], [[Sicily]], [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]]. He was the youngest of seven children of Salvatore Capra, a fruit grower, and the former Rosaria "Sara" Nicolosi. Capra's family was Roman Catholic. Frank's siblings were Luigia, Ignazia, Benedetto, Antonino Giuseppe, Antonia, and Anne.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=De Las Carreras |first=Maria Elena |url=http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0154.html |title=The Catholic Vision of Frank Capra |magazine=Crisis, 20 |number=2 |date=February 2002 |access-date=May 31, 2011 |archive-date=December 25, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111225094148/http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0154.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The name "Capra", notes Capra's biographer, Joseph McBride, represents his family's closeness to the land, and means "goat".<ref name=McBride>McBride 1992, p. 16.</ref> He notes that the English word "capricious" derives from it, "evoking the animal's skittish temperament", adding that "the name neatly expresses two aspects of Frank Capra's personality: emotionalism and obstinacy."<ref name=McBride />

In 1903, when he was five, Capra's family immigrated to the United States, traveling in a [[steerage]] compartment of the steamship ''Germania''—the least expensive way to make the passage. For Capra, the 13-day journey remained one of the worst experiences of his life:
{{Blockquote|You're all together—you have no privacy. You have a cot. Very few people have trunks or anything that takes up space. They have just what they can carry in their hands or in a bag. Nobody takes their clothes off. There's no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. They're all miserable. It's the most degrading place you could ever be.<ref>McBride 1992, p. 29.</ref>}}

Capra remembers the ship's arrival in New York Harbor, where he saw "a [[Statue of Liberty|statue]] of a great lady, taller than a church steeple, holding a torch above the land we were about to enter". He recalls his father's exclamation at the sight:

{{Blockquote|Cicco, look! Look at that! That's the greatest light since the star of Bethlehem! That's the light of freedom! Remember that. ''Freedom''.<ref>McBride 1992, p. 30.</ref>}}

The family settled in [[Los Angeles]]'s East Side (today Lincoln Heights) on Avenue 18, which Capra described in his autobiography as an Italian "ghetto".<ref name="google">McBride 1992, [https://books.google.com/books?id=DMkLpTFBEtUC p. 34.]</ref> Capra's father worked as a fruit picker and young Capra sold newspapers after school for ten years until he graduated from high school. He attended the [[Manual Arts High School]], with [[Jimmy Doolittle]] and [[Lawrence Tibbett]] as classmates.<ref>Thomas & Jablonski ''Bomber Commander: the Life of James H. Doolittle'' 1977 
 p.13  ISBN 0283983825</ref> Instead of working after graduating, as his parents wanted, he enrolled in college. He worked through college at the [[California Institute of Technology]], playing banjo at nightclubs and taking odd jobs like working at the campus laundry, waiting tables, and cleaning engines at a local power plant. He studied [[chemical engineering]] and graduated in the spring of 1918.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/100-years-ago-frank-capra |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716194527/http://alumni.caltech.edu/distinguished_alumni/by_year?year=1966 |archive-date=July 16, 2011 |title=100 Years Ago: Frank Capra |work=Caltech Magazine |publisher=Caltech Alumni Association |access-date=December 18, 2010}}</ref> Capra later wrote that his college education had "changed his whole viewpoint on life from the viewpoint of an alley rat to the viewpoint of a cultured person".<ref name="Wakeman p. 96" />