Product Description

Maria Laurino sifts through the stereotypes bedeviling Italian Americans to deliver a penetrating and hilarious examination of third-generation ethnic identity. With "intelligence and honesty" (Arizona Republic), she writes about guidos, bimbettes, and mammoni (mama's boys in Italy); examines the clashing aesthetics of Giorgio Armani and Gianni Versace; and unravels the etymology of southern Italian dialect words like gavone and bubidabetz. According to Frances Mayes, she navigates the conflicting forces of ethnicity "with humor and wisdom."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #203222 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Recalling guidos, gavones and gedrools, Laurino presents a concise but stimulating look at Italian-American culture as a model for the immigrant experience as a whole. The author, a third-generation Italian-American, grew up in 1950s New Jersey as a minority whose ethnicity was long stifled. Not until then-Governor Mario Cuomo asked her, "Were you always an Italian?" did she consider the implications of her roots and identity. This entertaining memoir chronicles Laurino's experiences from childhood to marriage, eventually getting to the heart of what it means to be Italian in America. She creatively approaches various cultural facets, from clothing to politics to religion, with candor and personality, using specific examples to illustrate general cultural themes. Her take on Italian fashion is amusing; she claims that the contrasting styles of Versace and Armani are symbols of the dichotomy faced by many immigrants and their families: cutting-edge boldness vs. European class. The historically tumultuous situation in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, serves as an example of the friction between Italians and other cultural groups in this country, and Laurino suggests that the Italian-American experience, rife with stereotypes and struggles, is not unlike that of African-, Korean- and Ecuadorian-Americans. She covers the hallmarks of Italian culture, including dialect, family and faith. In examining each component, Laurino openly expresses the mixed feelings of pride and embarrassment she felt as a child, which eventually developed into understanding and veneration. This book will serve as a welcome reminder that there is more to Italian culture than The Sopranos. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Laurino, a New York writer who grew up in suburban New Jersey and was once a speechwriter for NYC mayor David Dinkins, explores the disconnect that many Italian Americans, rooted in the rocky soil of Southern Italy, feel between images from Bensonhurst and Mafia movies, on one hand, and Northern Italian style and verve on the other. Her essays ask questions that follow like beads on a rosary: Do we smell bad? Is our food weird? Why is it so hard to accept leisure in our lives? Her deconstruction of Italian dialect--captured snatches of parents' and grandparents' unwritten past in words like gavone and stunodis mesmerizing, both as a journalist's examination of words and their uses and as a woman's study of what makes her herself. And her witty analysis of the difference between Versace and Armani from an Italian American standpoint is itself worth the price of admission. Essential for Italian Americans, enlightening for anyone else. GraceAnne A. DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews
Three generations in America doesn't necessarily take the sting out of being an immigrant, as described in this appealing and sometimes thought-provoking memoir that moves from suburban New Jersey to Italy's southern provinces. The title question was posed by former New York governor Mario Cuomo as journalist Laurino was interviewing him on his own roots. Laurino's honest answer was no, as she recalls her adolescent efforts to distance herself from her Italian heritage. They began in earnest when a classmate characterized her as the smelly Italian girl: assured by friends that she did not have an odor, Laurino nevertheless began to understand that, despite her wardrobe from Saks, her darker skin and the vowels at the end of her name put her on a lower rung of the social ladder than the WASPs or JAPs who were the popular cliques at her high school. Broadening her perspective, Laurino examines the stereotyping of Italian-Americans via Mafia movies and a visit to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst (where gold-chained guidos and big-haired guidettes mark one very visible end of Italian-American rankings). Laurino blends personal experience and academic research in examining class bigotries not only in America, but also in Rome and Milan (where she found the northern Italian contempt for southern Italians as powerful as the prejudice against African-Americans in the US). When she and her husband finally visit what is left of the family in southern Italy (on the ankle of the boot), she finds them poor, hardworking, and closely knit, as they were when her grandparents sailed for America. Their habits and concerns resemble those of Laurino's mother (in her work rituals, for example, or in her inclination to hoard any luxury), leading the author to speculate that her own tendency to hoard may have been born in the fields of abject poverty. Other hyphenated Americans who have experienced discrimination and confusion about their heritage will find this often funny and graceful book simpatico. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Finally: An Answer
Male or Female, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd generation this book is a must read. I think I might be a little older than the author having grown up in the late 40's and in the 50's. I also come from New Jersey (Trenton) and initially raised by my grandmother gravitated between the burbs my parents had moved to and the Italian section known as the burg. I basically grew up in both worlds, the old and the new. I never really thought much about who I was, but an experience I encountered in the 1990's with a section of the Navy rattled that foundation resulting in a search for my Italian heritage. Having read "Were you always an Italian?" has helped in making me understand myself. It has shown me that the choice's made and the direction traveled is not unique. A must read for every Italian-American.

An Insult
I read this book and it spoke to me because I too am a child of immigrants that grew up very close to where the author grew up in NJ. It was like she was living my life. Yes, there are many problems that children of immigrants face while trying to navigate between their birth culture and the American way of life. After I was finished, I put the book on the shelf and forgot about it.

Then I went to the town where my mother grew up in Italy. On the drive there, I noticed that this town is the neighbor to the town of the author's family. Having spent time in both towns, I must say that what the author has written about the area is truly insulting. Her characterizations of the area as desolate and sad do a disservice not only to her ancestors, but to mine. The people were kind and warm. Yes, it is not the richest of areas, but why do you think the people left this area to make a better life to begin with? They didn't have a lot of opportunities, but they worked hard to make better lives for themselves. Jsut becasue they needed to leave doesn't mean they didn't love the area to begin with. That is why so many return year after year. I'm not sure what she was expecting, but I'm sorry she was so disappointed. These towns were filled with good people living their everyday lives. I suppose the author feels they should spend their time discussing Italian literature and art in the town square by candlelight.

I am embarassed to think that I once read her words with reverence. I understand that this is a "personal journey," but come on, would it hurt her to be the least bit truthful with the reader?

Where You Always and Italian? Ancestors and Other Icons of Italian America
You needn't be Italian American or born in New Jersey from Italian parents to appreciate this book.

It's not the nasty mythical underbelly, but about real Italian Americans kvetching over their roots. Many wishing they were born a WASP or a Monarch butterfly.

An extension of John Fante and other first or second generation Italian Americans questioning their ethnicity. Intentionally masking their identities, many reborn as highly educated but ethnically stable members not at all like Tony Soprano.