SOME OF US AREN'T EVEN IN THE MAFIA--IMAGINE THAT!

The Westchester County Weekly
By Elisa Flynn 
Published 08/09/01 

As an Italian-American I am SICK TO DEATH of The Sopranos phenomena 
and the never-ending depiction of Italians as one-dimensional, cartoon 
mafioso figures. It's insulting to see your ethnic group constantly compared 
with and depicted as one very small facet of that group's most negative side. 

We have finally reached the point where ethnic groups traditionally put down 
and marginalized by the media, e.g. African-Americans, are being depicted 
as multi-dimensional, complex and interesting human beings. If African-
Americans were put down and mocked as blatantly as Italians are, there 
would be lawsuits, protests and an information campaign. But with us there 
is nothing.

Why are so many young and not so young men more than happy to emulate 
Tony and his crew? Why is TV's idea of mob fashion considered de riguer? 
This is not glamorous! This is not acceptable behaviour! Just because a 
character goes to a shrink doesn't make him an all right guy. He still cheats 
on his wife. He still participates in illegal activity for a living. Is this what 
people want to emulate? 

Italian-Americans, like any other ethnic group, are a diverse lot. We are 
garbagemen and Ph.D's. We are senators and sales clerks, family men and
artists, biologists and bartenders. We are just like everybody else, but 
somehow the popular imagination is only allowed to hold one type in 
its collective mind, and have it hammered in again and again. 

I'll tell you a story. My relatives came to this country over a period of about 
40 years, from the 1870s to the 1910s. They were uneducated and poor, 
but they came here to find a better way of life. In Italy they had basically 
nothing, and they had heard that there were endless opportunities in the 
USA. Each and every one of them worked like dogs to make a living, learn 
English, and make a better life for their children. They didn't carry guns. 
They didn't push people around. They didn't join the Mafia. My mother's 
father once accidentally witnessed a Mafia murder, a man being stomped 
to death.My grandfather was taken to the very edge of a roof of a building 
so that he had to look down on the street below, and was asked if he would 
ever report what he had seen. No, of course not, said my grandfather, and 
he was allowed to go home in one piece. This example was a lesson, 
something to be feared, and not ever something to be admired or imitated. 

Ours is the typical immigrant story and experience. An in-depth and 
well-written discussion of the Italian-American experience can be found in 
Maria Laurino's Were You Always An Italian?, published last year. Laurino, 
who grew up in New Jersey, relates her experiences of growing up as a 
third-generation Italian in the United States and still being treated like an 
outsider, still being made to feel less than equal, or something other than a 
white American. Her personal story discusses all the stereotypes, but also 
is an interesting tale about the language, food and family we were 
surrounded by. 

I relate to this 100 percent, although my transition to outsider came out 
later in life than hers did. Growing up in a mixed neighborhood in Yonkers, 
and attending schools through high school with a healthy mix of immigrant 
backgrounds, I never really felt different because I was surrounded more or 
less by my own kind.

That was until I started college, where I soon discovered that not only is the 
world not filled with Italian Roman Catholics, but somehow I was not the 
norm.My skin was darker. My food choices were different. I got every kind of 
comment from "you're the darkest white person I've ever met," to "how could 
you be named Flynn? You must be Black Irish." (My father's stepfather was 
Flynn.) It was a whole new world to me, as my life was to my new 
acquaintances. So what does this have to do with anything? 

I am proud of my family; I am proud of the work they did, the struggles they 
endured, and the way each generation nutured and pushed the next one to 
do better. I know that there are so many others whose stories are the same. 
I do not see these people represented by the media; I see the caricatures in 
The Sopranos and movies like Saturday Night Fever and Moonstruck (written 
by non-Italians, by the way). Why is it that people admire this crap? Why do 
people want to go on a Sopranos Tour (an On Location Tour flyer offering 
tours to sites used in The Sopranos, including "the diner where Chris was 
shot" and "the Bada Bing night club," crossed my desk the other day)? 

I suppose it's because it looks exciting and macho on TV and the movies. 
I suppose it's fun to ridicule others. It seems that in this case, some people 
seem to have a harder time than usual separating art from life. But you 
know what? It's disgusting and insulting to those of us who can't stand to 
once again see our heritage and lives become the butt of a twisted 
stereotype. 

I might be able to make a mean marinara, enjoy cannolis, remember 
Sicilian being spoken at home when I was growing up, and have dark skin, 
but I do not want to be reduced to a parody.

Let's take prejudice from another angle. Are all Anglo-Saxons tight-assed 
whiteys? I don't know, but maybe someone should start parodying them in 
the media as one-sided, stupid, fearful, violent and worthy of mockery, and 
see if they like it.