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Your grandparents were considered White sorry to bust your bubble... The thing that made Irish and Italians(to a lesser extent) considered minorities(in some circles) was their religion.
Southern Italians and especially Sicilians are often of a darker complexion, racism most definitely was part of the prejudice.
To the main point, lawn gylan is one of the main places where the branches of the new York Italian American family tree grew. My graduating class was at least half Italian.
From Manhattan to Brooklyn/queens to long island is a very common trajectory.
Sicilians are caucasians. As are even darker people's of Turkey, Armenia, etc. The whole by Grandparents were considered Non White especially by Italians is nonsense. If anyone White people were considered non white at any time in American History it was Irish Americans after the great famine.... Italian Americans rode on the minority struggles of Irish people, a generation or two afterwards... If it wasnt for Irish Americans establishing churches and such in New York, Italians would never have came over in the numbers that they did.
Sicilians are caucasians. As are even darker people's of Turkey, Armenia, etc. The whole by Grandparents were considered Non White especially by Italians is nonsense. If anyone White people were considered non white at any time in American History it was Irish Americans after the great famine.... Italian Americans rode on the minority struggles of Irish people, a generation or two afterwards... If it wasnt for Irish Americans establishing churches and such in New York, Italians would never have came over in the numbers that they did.
And it's called Staten Island! PS-Italians, Irish, Jews, Greeks etc were never considered white, because whites were WASPs. However, the bar kept getting lowered as demographics changed in this city...at this point the only people who cannot use the term "white" are those who are black, asian, or indigenous/black Hispanic looking.
Laughing a little at the title, because certain of my grandparents, long dead, would have been shocked that Italians are considered white.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mps0909
Your grandparents were considered White sorry to bust your bubble (HUH?)...The thing that made Irish and Italians(to a lesser extent) considered minorities(in some circles) was their religion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Abe Vigoda
Southern Italians and especially Sicilians are often of a darker complexion, racism most definitely was part of the prejudice.
To the main point, lawn gylan is one of the main places where the branches of the new York Italian American family tree grew. My graduating class was at least half Italian.
From Manhattan to Brooklyn/queens to long island is a very common trajectory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mps0909
Sicilians are caucasians. As are even darker people's of Turkey, Armenia, etc. The whole by Grandparents were considered Non White especially by Italians is nonsense. (HUH?)If anyone White people were considered non white at any time in American History it was Irish Americans after the great famine.... Italian Americans rode on the minority struggles of Irish people, a generation or two afterwards... If it wasnt for Irish Americans establishing churches and such in New York, Italians would never have came over in the numbers that they did.
Mystified over how such a simple statement could have been ao misread. MY grandparens were NOT Italian. They were of Dutch descent, and like most northern Europeans of the early 20th century, they did not consider the recently-arrived Italians to be white people like they were. Of course, not all Italians are dark-complexioned, but many were and that was the stereotype. I remember my father telling me that in Paterson (NJ), the Italians and black people lived in what was known as "the colored section".
I'm pretty sure no one on here ever read The Virginian--it's a book, written in 1902 and famous for being known as the first Western novel (a popular TV show was later based on this book), but there is a character in the book who keeps modifying the fact that he's Italian when he introduces himself by his obviously different name by saying, "but I've been white for a hundred years." It was a common perspective a hundred years ago or so.
But in the 1920s, enough Italians were around that broccoli started to become popular in the US outside the Italians community. Perhaps that brought them acceptance.
Wait, what? Why should Carroll O'Connor apologize for "how" he portrayed Archie? What does that even mean? The actor is not responsible for the script--that goes to the producer and show creator (Norman Lear) and the writers. The actor's job is to say those lines as they're written. If he gave his character nuance, again that's his job. If you have a problem with Archie being a bigot, you need to take that up with Normal Lear, not Carroll O'Connor.
And for what it's worth, both Lear and O'Connor were pretty liberal--I doubt that O'Connor was endorsing Archie's ridiculous views and words. Lear in fact intended Archie as a parody of extremist right-wing views, and was very surprised that so many viewers took to him.
(For the record I would say that even "lovable" bigots should be called out for their views, and I wonder how many viewers were secretly cheering on Archie. It is definitely a complicated situation, I just don't think O'Connor should be blamed because he played his role well.)
Really. Putting the bigotry out there was pretty much the entire point of the show.
My bigot of a grandfather was in his last days when AITF first came on. He loved Archie, and we all laughed behind his back because he WAS Archie. Even looked like him.
Italian's (be it national or Americanized) for whatever reason tend to be very specific about sticking within their own kind, and moving in droves at the first sight of non-whites moving into their neighborhoods.
Those Italians you seek are all located in parts of NJ, South Shore SI, and South Shore LI, with some in a few areas of Westchester.
Populated NYC is too full of minorities (this includes hipsters, gays, and certain religions) for them to return.
Reformed Jews tend to follow a similar pattern- ironically both have come to terms with living with one another in a place called Massapequa on/in/atop Long Island.
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