Word: americanization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Tricarico has been researching Guidos for over 20 years and has put out academic papers with titles such as "Youth Culture, Ethnic Choice, and the Identity Politics of Guido," "Guido: Fashioning An Italian-American Youth Style," and "Dressing Up Italian Americans For The Youth Spectacle: What Difference Does Guido Perform...
Many clamor to differ. Andre DiMino, president of UNICO, the national Italian-American service organization, objects to the term, whether it's self-described or not. He told the New Jersey Star-Ledger: "It's a derogatory comment. It's a pejorative word to depict an uncool Italian who tries to act cool." But is it a generational pejorative? Do younger Americans of Italian descent have a different relationship to the G word? According to Donald Tricarico, a sociology professor at City University of New York/Queensborough, "Guido is a slur, but Italian kids have embraced it just as black kids...
...abandon the game just because he's not on the fairway? Is it beyond the realm of possibility that these same Tiger fans, who have grown to appreciate the sport as well as the superstar, will seek out other players to pull for? A Phil Mickelson? A talented young American like Anthony Kim? Of course, no other player has the charisma or talent of Tiger. But while Woods is away, fans may rehearse a golf life without him. (See the top 10 fleeting celebrities...
Most people on the east coast easily recognize the word as a slur against Italian-American men of a certain class and swagger - and there was MTV just letting it rip. As the ramp up to the show continued, Italian-American anti-defamation groups started their drumbeat and the commercial was tweaked ever so slightly: the word "Guido" was replaced with "roommates" - which is more generally the premised cast of the reality show. But that was not the last we heard of Guido, well, because it's all over the show. Indeed, in the first episode of Jersey Shore...
There's no date stamp on when the term Guido came into play, but Tricarico theorizes that it very well may have originated as an insult from within the Italian-American community, confering inferior status on immigrants who are "just off the boat." It clearly references non-assimilation in its use of a name more at home in the old homeland. In fact, in different locales, the same slur isn't Guido: in Chicago the term is "Mario" and in Toronto it goes by "Gino." Guido is far less offensive, among Italian-Americans, than another G word, which is also...