From: luciano@athos.Berkeley.EDU (Luciano Lavagno)
Subject: Re: Prejudice against Italian-Americans
Reply-To: luciano@athos.Berkeley.EDU (Luciano Lavagno)
Organization: UC Berkeley IC CAD Group
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 01:54:49 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.204248.15617@husc3.harvard.edu>,
murray@husc10.harvard.edu (Brendan Murray) writes:
>Posted by Thomas Gentile using a friend's account:
>
>To anyone who believes that Italian-Americans are not victims of prejudice
>and stereotyping in this country, I offer the following two quotes, which
>were overheard during dinner tonight at the Harkness Commons, which is the
>cafeteria at the Harvard Law School (supposedly a bastion of "liberal
>tolerance"):
>
>"The only reason (Supreme Court Justice Antonin) Scalia was appointed to
>the Court was because they needed someone on the Court who knows how
>to MAKE PIZZA! Ay-o!" (Laughter Follows)
>
>"All I know is that back when we had Jews on the Court the Court got
>things done. Now that we have Italians on the Court the Court isn't
>getting anything done".

I am sorry about your misfortunes, but I am afraid that prejudice against ANY
ethnic group is still very widespread in the world. 
You would probably hear similar (and even more rude) comments if you were a
student coming, say, from Sicily to Turin.

Ignorance can make the situation worse, but Harvard students can hardly be
classified as ignorant (even though there are many stories, obviously sign of
prejudice themselves, about Harvard men :-)).

>Overheard conversations like these are only part of the reason why I've
>begun to pronounce my name in a way that disguises its Italian origins
>now that I am a student at the Harvard Law School. Consider the fact that
>FOUR TIMES during the course of my undergraduate career at Harvard College,
>upon learning of my ethnic origin classmates asked me if my family had
>used their Mafia connections to secure my admission to Harvard.

I am pretty sure that disguising your name is not going to lessen the
prejudice. They will just notice it whenever you are writing it on a paper.
And remember, ripping the yellow star from your shoulder won't help...
A better solution might be to tell them, maybe faking an Italian accent you
don't have (sigh !), that "they can count on you any time they need to get rid
of anyone, especially impolite people". :-)

>I apologize to those who read this newsgroup for the purpose of enjoying
>the Italian language and discussing issues related to Italy; I understand
>that discussion of Italian-American issues is not the primary purpose of
>this newsgroup. I only want to get people thinking about these issues
>(and hopefully also posting and e-mailing). I think that the establishment
>of a new newsgroup for the discussion of Italian-American issues would be
>a good idea, and I welcome anyone who is interested to e-mail me with
>suggestions or even a brief note in support of the idea.

I don't think that there is enough traffic on this newsgroup to support the
creation of a more specific one devoted to Italian-American issues.
Anyone who does not care can just kill the subject (we have seen much less
related topics on this newsgroup lately :-) ).
Ciao !

Luciano
-- 
Luciano Lavagno            luciano@ic.Berkeley.EDU            +1-510-642-5012
Dept. of EECS, 207-69 Cory Hall, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA