Susana Ventura was born in New Britain, Connecticut, and grew up in a working class Italian immigrant family. Her father fell ill from a severe beating he endured at Ellis Island in 1946 and in 1953 he was committed to Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, Connecticut, where he died 12 years later of a heart attack at age 50. Arcade and her three siblings were raised by Arcade's mother, who worked as a seamstress in local sweatshops. The family was presided over by her maternal grandparents, both born in the 19th century in a remote Southern Italian village of Picerno, Basilicata.