![]() tomorrow at Book Passage in Corte Madera, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera. MARIA LAURINO: The author of "Were You Always an Italian?" will give a reading and sign books at 5:30 p.m. "Instead the calls were from classic ethnic self-haters, so many of them third generation Italian Americans who are just glad to have permission to talk about it." "I did a New York radio show, and I expected people to call in saying they hate 'The Sopranos,' and they're completely assimilated," says Laurino. One immediate result of the publication of "Were You Always an Italian?" is that people are becoming willing to talk honestly of their feelings about their Italian heritage. "There are people imitating the fictional creation of a rock critic from London," Laurino says. What they don't know is that 20 years later, Cohn admitted that his article was a fiction. One example: Many familiar with the film "Saturday Night Fever" know its origins were in a New Yorker article by journalist Nik Cohn. Laurino takes to task the film industry, which propagates myths about Italian Americans, which are, in turn, imitated by people looking for any way into acceptance and acknowledgment. This Northern California steakhouse is the best in the state, according to Yelp.The viral $95 white T-shirt from 'The Bear' came from a San Francisco store.SFO deciding if ‘virtual queuing program' Reserve from Clear is worth it.'We don't feel it's right': Costco is the latest company to crack down on membership sharing.How a miracle-obsessed megachurch conquered a California city.‘Never seen anything like this’: Yosemite visitors are waiting 4 hours to enter a packed park.Horoscope for Thursday, 6/29/23 by Christopher Renstrom. ![]() "I talked to a smart guy who said he wants to be the 'guido,' because the guido is cool, but he also wants to go to an Ivy League college." "I was very touched by the students," says Laurino. Laurino has a terrific chapter about the origin of words and sayings that are neither Italian nor American but distinctly Italian American, such as "stunod," "gavone," "gedrool," "mamaluke" and "morto di fame." For the uninitiated, that would be "stupid" "slob" literally "cucumber," also "stooge" "idiot" and literally "starving to death" but meaning "self-pitying." She also has a powerful chapter about Bensonhurst, a Brooklyn neighborhood with its own culture. "I was asking him about (Mayor) LaGuardia, trying to put him in the tradition of Italian American politicians in New York, when he asked me, 'Were you always an Italian?' It was a great question." Later, when she became a journalist, Laurino interviewed former New York Gov. In a funny moment in the book, an Italian (with a strong accent) tells Laurino that people in her grandparents' town of Avellino were in the business of "sheeps." For years, Laurino goes around with beautiful visions of her ancestors as shepherds until she discovers that the man meant "ships." "First I wanted to be Jewish, then Roman. Well, the world of Southern Italy is very far away from Rome," says Laurino. "I went to Rome, and I thought, 'Rome sounds good,' I'll be Roman. I'd see the guys - we called them the 'ginzo guys' - and at the same time I knew that that's where my father came from."Īs a young woman she traveled to Rome. Meanwhile, across the tracks was the lower-middle-class Italian enclave, Millburn township. I saw it as the ticket to intellectual and financial success." "For most of high school, I wished I was Jewish. Laurino, 41, grew up in Short Hills, N.J., as one of the few Italians in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood. ![]() "At this stage I feel good about being Italian," says Laurino, "though I felt guilty about it for most of my life." But the specifics of her case touch on larger issues of identity, assimilation and what Laurino calls "ethnic self-hatred" in America. At its most basic level, it's a memoir of Laurino's relationship with her heritage. "Were You Always an Italian?" is one of those books that is so original that it's hard to imagine how its author even knew she had a book until it was all written down. We inherit that, and we need to understand that." The truth is that most Italian Americans come from an impoverished land, a peasant culture. "There's a tendency to dwell on 'nice' stories, and to fall into this nostalgic bath that's so unreal. "Much of what gets written about Italian Americans is either stereotypical or it goes in the other direction, talking about 'the beautiful song of our heritage,' " says Laurino, speaking by phone from her home in Manhattan. "Were You Always an Italian?" is one of the best books about the immigrant experience in America, as well as one of the most unique and gracefully written.
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