Joe Orlando was born in Sicily in 1964.  When he was nine, Joe and his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Gloucester.  After high school, he started fishing with his father.  Six months later, he became a skipper, and has been fishing out of Gloucester ever since.  

Scope and Content Note

Joseph Orlando provides insights into his family history, his experiences growing up in Sicily and Gloucester, and the impact of fishing on his life and his family's life in both Italy and the United States. He discusses how he comes from a fishing family, and in Sicily, everyone in his town was involved in fishing. He mentions that his father and grandfather were both fishermen, and they made a living by selling what they caught. He explains that fishing was done using smaller boats with manual labor, and there was little technology at the time. After moving to Milwaukee and living there for about a year and a half, Orlando says that his father's godfather invited them to Gloucester, Massachusetts, a fishing town where they could return to their fishing roots. He notes that Gloucester is where he started school and developed a love for the water.

Orlando explains that his father became a respected fisherman in Gloucester, working on various boats and eventually owning his own and supporting his family, allowing his mother to stay at home. Joseph points out that he didn’t start fishing himself until 1973 when he became a skipper at a young age, which was unusual at the time. Orlando describes his perspectives of how fishing in Gloucester went through significant changes over the years, with the introduction of technology like hydraulics and the implementation of a two-hundred-mile limit. 

Orlando goes on to  discuss the changes brought about by the Magnuson-Stevens Act and its impact on fishermen. He mentions that the enactment of the act introduced area closures, larger mesh sizes, and the implementation of days-at-sea regulations, where fishermen were given a specific number of days to go fishing. However, as these regulations were gradually reduced, Orlando says that he invested over half a million dollars in permits to secure additional fishing days. He explains that the regulations later shifted from days-at-sea to quota-based catch shares, which devalued Orlando's permits. He expresses frustration with the quota reductions and believes that the science behind them is flawed. Orlando explains that the fishery did not recover as promised, and the system of leasing permits from others has created further challenges. He criticizes the lack of accountability on the part of NOAA and expresses the difficulties faced by fishermen in adapting to changing regulations. Orlando also discusses the decline in profitability, the need to release fish to catch certain species, and the impact of these changes on his family business. Despite his role as the president of Sector II, which represents the remaining fishermen, he highlights the drastic reduction in the number of participants in the industry.