Let’s talk ethnicity here. I’m Italian-Polish American. My wife is Italian-American. All of our parents were born in the United States, so we’re not entirely connected to the “old country.” Our own self-images are formed in part by experience, in part by those representations of Italian-Americans in films and television. The most common stereotype is of course the Mafioso, the well-dressed men with the crooked noses and pinstripes who offered special kinds of insurance plans for small businesses. There are many other popular images, more comical ones like Chico Marx’s playful halfwit, or the jovial overweight “nana.” I also love … Continue reading →