Concerning Guidos

[What Exit?]

I can find little hard data but as an Italian-American that grew up on the Jersey Shore and lives fairly close still I wanted to clear up some confusion.

In general the Guido of today is not the Guido of yesteryear. It was a more generic term of derision for Italian-Americans of lower classes and perhaps associated with Guinea Tee* and Gold Chain Wearing types or the black socks, sandals and shorts visitors to the Jersey Shore that were a subset of the Bennies². Jon Travolta's characters in the 70s could have been called a Guido.

Today's Guido is a new but related and better defined subset of Italian-Americans that are yet another generation or two removed from their immigrant forebears. They are mostly from Staten Island and simply visit the Jersey Shore in the summer and few are actually New Jersey residents. Oddly enough last week the local Public Radio station WNYC had a small segment about the Guidos.



* The sleeveless ribbed undershirt also known as the wife-beater.
² A derisive term for the bad drivers or obnoxious New Yorkers that flood the Jersey Shore every summer. (Non-ethnic)

[vison]

Thanks for the enlightening post. I guess.

[Cluricaun]

[vison]

[Sarahfeena]

The term I hear more often in Chicago is "Goombah." I think this is more of a reference to mob connections, though.

[What Exit?]

The term I hear more often in Chicago is "Goombah." I think this is more of a reference to mob connections, though.

Yep, Goombah is something else. They might not be in the mob, but they at least talk like they are and probably have friends and family that are. They all sound like extras from the Sopranos and talk loudly. I doubt many of those guidos will make successful goombahs, but who knows.

[The Original An Gadaí]

Funnily enough, I saw the neo-guido style in evidence in Italy.

[Nrblex]

Don't forget the fake tan. They gotta have the fake tan.

Mmm. Cheeto skin.

[Cartooniverse]

Unfortunately my image of Guidos and Guidettes was formed in Philly, especially South Philly and Fishtown. A 1970's-era Guido refers to his girlfriend as his bitch. He treats her like garbage and speaks of her, her parents and family with utter contempt. He never grows up and expects to basically marry a woman who will mother him, except when he's fucking her.

A Guidette eats is up as she has been brought up to.

An utterly nauseating stereotype to aspire to.

Cartooniverse

[elmwood]

There always seemed to be some subset of the young Italian-American population that was somehow more ... uhh, flamboyantly macho Italian.

Recalling from memory in my part of the woods:

Cars:
1970s: Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Buick Regal
1980s: Chevrolet Camaro (IROC: "Italian Retard Out Cruising"), Pontiac Trans Am, Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Buick Regal Grand National.

Fashion:
1970s: Matching sweatsuits, flashy disco clothing.
1980s: Anything from CHESS KING, YO! IOU, Z. Cavarrichi, ripped sweatshirts, parachute pants, black jeans, Members Only jackets, and the like.

Music:
1970s: Disco, disco, disco, disco and disco.
1980s: Dance/pop music played on radio stations with names like "Kiss 98", "Power 101", "Beat 93" and the like.

One thing that was a constant through the years: bodybuilding. Most independent fitness equipment and sporting goods stores in the Buffalo area are owned by Italian-Americans.

About 20 years ago, Linguist Wolfgang Wolck identified various ethnolects, or ethnic variations, of the Buffalo accent. Visit the Buffalo area today, which is the center of the Great Northern Vowel Shift, and you'll find that Italian-Americans speak in a Buffalo accent that has a lot more "swagger", for lack of a better word, than those of other ethnicities.

Only a minority of Italian-Americans were guidos, but most guidos were Italian-American. Italian-Americans in the Buffalo area tend to be rather successful, with an emphasis on hard work, education, and family life. Italian-Americans do seem a wee bit less assimilated into the wider American culture than other ethnic groups, but the same can be said of other dominant ethnic groups in the Buffalo area, where there's still strong ethnic neighborhoods and some insularity and parochialism.