I remember buying dry dog food at the local Co-op. GRIMALDI’S DOG FOOD. (A bulldog with boxing gloves was on the bag.) “DAGO for Grimaldis! WOPPING to please!”
My husband is a person of Italian descent, who calls himself an American-American. He says that his Great Grandfather was an Italian-Italian; his Grandfather was an Italian-American. His Father was an American-Italian; which makes husband an American-American. (And he says that the genes of his English mother saved him from the progenitorial ‘beak’ :-)
He’s got an ‘Italian Flag Hat’ that his family always called a ‘Guinea Helmet’.
He has no problem with being called a WOP (he says ‘that’s funny, right there’) or with being called a ‘Guinea’.
He’s younger than I am, and has never heard the term ‘Dago’; but I heard my father use it often, regarding his Italian friends. Nobody was offended, back in the day. People have just been conditioned, now - largely by others who have NO CONNECTION at all to these ethnic roots - to ASSUME offense.
By the way: his name is ‘Tony’ - and he often tells me that it means ‘To New York’ (’that’s a joke, right there.’)
He talks with his hands extravagantly too; when he’s driving, it drives ME nuts.
And I guess that’s enough Family Disclosure - because now, he’s going off into ruminations about how ‘nobody covers their fig tree in Winter, down here’, and ‘nobody grows their own tomatoes and makes Sauce anymore’.
Pretty soon, he’ll be wanting a house with two kitchens - (I’ve never known a real Italian-American family who didn’t have two kitchens, or some partial attempt at that.)
Husband closes tonight with the notion that ‘a main thing that brings people together is FOOD’.
I think that’s true in every culture - I’ve had African-African friends who would beg, ‘come and eat with me’ - because eating alone is horrible. In some places, the phrase ‘he eats alone’ is a horrible insult, indicating a person who is selfish and unliked.)
I would only add that MUSIC is another thing that brings people together.
For this who don't know, Dago Wop means Italian With Out Papers. Common during phrase late 40's