Guido Culture and Italian American Youth: From Bensonhurst to Jersey Shore

338 Pages·2019·4.011 MB·English

by  Donald Tricarico

GUIDO CULTURE
AND ITALIAN
AMERICAN YOUTH
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Italian and Italian American Studies
Series Editor
Stanislao G. Pugliese
Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY, USA
This series brings the latest scholarship in Italian and Italian American
history, literature, cinema, and cultural studies to a large audience of spe-
cialists, general readers, and students. Featuring works on modern Italy
(Renaissance to the present) and Italian American culture and society
by established scholars as well as new voices, it has been a longstand-
ing force in shaping the evolving fields of Italian and Italian American
Studies by re-emphasizing their connection to one another.
Editorial Board
Rebecca West, University of Chicago
Josephine Gattuso Hendin, New York University
Fred Gardaphé, Queens College, CUNY
Phillip V. Cannistraro (Deceased), Queens College and the Graduate
School, CUNY
Alessandro Portelli, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
William J. Connell, Seton Hall University
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14835
Donald Tricarico
Guido Culture
and Italian American
Youth
From Bensonhurst to Jersey Shore
Donald Tricarico
Queensborough Community College,
CUNY
Bayside, NY, USA
Italian and Italian American Studies
ISBN 978-3-030-03292-0 ISBN 978-3-030-03293-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03293-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962905
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
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Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
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on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
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For Nina, Marina, and Dominique
P
reface
This book is a product of a career-long interest in Italian American cul-
ture in New York City. My doctoral dissertation, published as a book in
1984, was a community study of an Italian neighborhood in Greenwich
Village where my mother’s side of the family had resided since the
1880s. Like the Italian neighborhood, Guido youth culture is an adapta-
tion beyond the immigrant generation on the level of culture and social
structure. It has held my scholarly interest since the late 1980s.
The volume is an adaptation of five book chapters and two journal
articles published from 1991 to 2017. I began to entertain the possibility
of a book when Guido was named by MTV in 2009 for the commer-
cially successful reality TV series “Jersey Shore”. Earlier material is incor-
porated in a narrative that aspires to be comprehensive and concise. New
insights are included from a standpoint in the present. There is ample
room to expand on topics crimped by other formats. I remain funda-
mentally concerned with enriching the discussion about Italian American
ethnicity, both empirically and theoretically, in academic sociology and
Italian American studies. The book is also submitted as having relevance
for a youth culture field that has overlooked Italian Americans and other
European ancestry groups.
vii
viii PREFACE
I would like to thank the following publishers for granting permis-
sions to adapt my earlier work: Fairchild, Fordham University, Illinois
University, McGraw Hill, and the Italian American Review.1
I would like to thank Palgrave Macmillan for the opportunity to make
my work accessible, in particular Megan Laddusaw who escorted me
through the early stages and Christine Pardue who was diligent, patient,
and expert throughout the production process. Stanislao Pugliese, the
general editor of the Italian and Italian American Studies series, as well
as an Italian American studies scholar, expressed confidence in my ability
to write an important book. It is unlikely that this book would have been
written without his commitment.
I would like to thank Dan Pucciarelli, a gentleman from Bath Beach,
who patiently escorted me down memory lane to reconstruct the feel of
the disco movement in southern Brooklyn in the 1970s. I would like to
acknowledge the support of The Calandra Institute for Italian American
Studies at The City University of New York and affiliated scholars Joseph
Sciorra, Laura Ruperto, Anthony Tamburri, and James Pasto. I am
grateful to Amy Traver for her surgical edits and loyal friendship. There
is the constant love of my wife, Nina and our daughters Marina and
Dominique. Marina’s fiancé Dimitri Vastardis generously volunteered his
word processing acumen and earnest sports talk.
Bayside, USA Donald Tricarico
1Portions of Chapters 4 and 10 were adapted from New Italian Migrations to the United
States, copyright 2017 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois and used with
permission of the University of Illinois Press. Portions of Chapter 5 were adapted from
Making Italian America, publishing in 2014 by Fordham University Press. Chapter 5
was also adapted from The Men’s Fashion Reader, edited by Andrew Reilly and Sarah
Crosbey and published in 2008 by Fairchild Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury. Material
in Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 was drawn from the essay “Bellas and Fellas in Cyberspace:
Mobilizing Italian Ethnicity for Online Youth Culture,” from the Italian American Review
1. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 1–34. Reprinted by permission by the John D. Calandra Italian
American Institute, Queens College, City University of New York. Finally, Chapter 8
was adapted from Sources: Notable Selections in Race and Ethnicity, edited by Adalberto
Aguirre, Jr., and David V. Baker, copyright 2001 by McGraw-Hill Education.
c
ontents
1 Theorizing Italian American Youth Culture 1
2 A Local Italian American Youth Style Tradition:
Anticipating Guido 31
3 The Turn to Disco and Other Subcultural Developments 55
4 Becoming Guido: Identifying a Youth Subculture 87
5 Performing Style 115
6 “It’s Cool Being Italian”: Fashioning an Ethnic Youth
Style 143
7 The Local Struggle for Cool 173
8 GUIDOVILLE: Labeling Italian Americans Deviant 207
9 A Party Culture Becomes a Media Spectacle 237
ix
x CONTENTS
10 Rethinking Italian American Ethnicity: A Middle Space 271
Bibliography 305
Index 327