I Have to Get This Off My Chest, Any Italian Who is a Bigot is More of an Asshole Than Anyone Else [View all]

[louis c]

I am full blooded Italian. My Mother's Family is from Calabria and my Father's is from a little village in South Central Italy called Rocco Segura.

I have many cousins and Aunts and Uncles who resent immigrants. I'm married to a Filipino and I have been a supporter of equal rights for all since I was a teen. I was brought up a progressive and have never wavered.

Enough about me. The history of discrimination against Italians in this country is legendary. Especially, Southern Italians (who all my relatives are). After the first wave of Southern Europeans entered this country in the 1900-1919 period, the government passed immigration laws directed at those groups, especially Italians, to limit immigrants from those regions. You see, bigots will always take the few who commit crimes and have a notorious image to paint the whole race, religion or nationality with the same brush. Italians were sitting ducks for that bigotry. Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, the Mafia. Murder, extortion, bribery, bombings and corruption was highlighted during the 1920's. Every Italian was stigmatized by the few of us that made the headlines.

Laws were passed discriminating against Italians. Society shunned our Grandparents and Great Grandparents. In the 20's, when the federal government placed quotas on Italian immigration, many family members came to our shores illegally from Southern Italy. Everyone here has heard the derogatory term WOP attributed to Italians. That acronym stands for With Out Papers. We didn't get that moniker because we were all legal.

I know every group, Irish, Jews, Polish and Greeks all have their history of discrimination in this country. But when we read that history, don't we just hate the politicians and individuals that perpetrated those injustices on our blood ancestors? Don't we sympathize with our own kin against the ignorant assholes who made their lives a living hell, so that we, their heirs, could enjoy the liberty of this great country?

Our ancestors who braved the degradation and sacrifice for the future of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, didn't suffer so that we could grow up and take the place of the assholes who performed those abominations against them.

They would be ashamed of us if we didn't stand up for America's latest wave of immigrants.