hi!

i have a question about the scene where carlo beats up connie he calls her a guinea. why would he use such an expression when he's italian himself?

I always kind of wondered that myself, but I hear other races/ethnicities do the same thing. I've called other people in my family polocks. Granted I was joking around, but I still do it.

Plus it just sounded like a quick, thoughtless rant, you know? When you're really pissed off and not really thinking of what you're saying?

Guinea is a pejorative term for Sicilians. I don't remember Carlo's Italian derivation mentioned. Perhaps he was a Neapolitan.

E Vero!

Since they were married he HAD to know what terms or sayings would REALLY piss her off.

Probably everyone at one time in their life has said SOMETHING to another person that would really piss them off that was also bashing yourself. It's just a matter of pissing the other person off more.

I searched in a "surnames site" and I found out that RIZZI is a Nothern Italian surname (scarcely present in a couple of Southern regions, not at all in Sicily). So it is reasonable that Carlo felt himself different from those "Sicilian guineas" he came across with by marrying Connie.

Give a look to the site, I found it interesting! there's also a USA page, where you can spot Italian surnames in America!!!

http://www.gens.labo.net/it/cognomi/genera.html

It is said in the novel that Carlo was a half-bred, from Sicilian father and a mother from northern Italy. That's why he had blonde hair.

I thought his last name was Rizzo, not Rizzi. If he had any Northern Italian blood in him and not any Sicilian blood in him, it makes sense then that he would use a perjorative term such as "Guinea" to describe his wife (of Sicilian blood). As I said before, unfortunately, mainland Italians (at least in my grandfather and grandmother's era) did not consider Sicilians real Italians (mostly due to the mixture of other cultures in Sicily). My grandmother was insulted if anyone ever thought she was Sicilian and would quickly and sternly correct anyone who assumed she was Sicilian in public. Sicily was, at one time, a penal colony much like Australia was. Mainland Italians considered Sicilians "lower class" thieves, murderers, etc. I don't know if that attitude still exists today, or if it existed anywhere outside of where my grandparents lived, but according to them (one from Campania and the other Calabreze), Scilians were not true Italians. The funny thing is, I find the culture of Sicilians very much like how I grew up in my family. The food, language, and customs were very similar, but you would never say that to my grandmother!

~~ Lollie

a sort of racist attitude towards Southern Italians (not only Sicilians) still exists , mainly in the North. They have this idea of Southern Italy being "financially maintained" by the North, as if only Northen Italians work and pay taxes . This mentality is quite common up in the North and made the electoral luck of some political parties. Consider that this attitude extends to Rome itself for being the seige of the political central power. One of the most successful slogans of the afore mentioned political parties (e. g. the "Lega Padana", firstly centered in the Milan region and then developed in all Northen Italy) is "Roma ladrona, la Lega non perdona", meaning "Rome, you're a thief, the Lega will not forgive you" and stuff like that . Sicilians are immediately connected to the mafia, as if ALL Sicilians were in the Don Corleone family.....As for Neapolitans, they are still granted a reputation for being "cheaters and thieves", while we Romans are usually said to be lazy and indolent.....Of course this is a mentality that can thrive on ignorance and bias. Consider that Italy was united as a national country only in 1861, quite recently in historical terms. So it is no wonder that this parochial-minded attitude still survives in some way -- we call it "campanilismo", from the word "campanile", meaning "bell tower", hence a fanatic love for one's native town or village and a hostile attitude for others, those you cannot see from your "campanile".

I noticed many of the Italian Americans in the BB write "Calabrese" as if it was the name of a region. It isn't. This is an adjective. You say your relatives are from CALABRIA, so they are CALABRESI. Calabrese is a singular adjective.

Lavinia, the feminine Plaw.

i think you mistake him for enrico salvatore "ratso" rizzo in midnight cowboy!

i didn't know that the term "guinea" refers only to sicilians. the only slurs for italians i knew in english were "wop" and "greaseball", but in the movie there are several others, "daigo", "gumbah". do these refer only to sicilians or italians in general?

i've heard that the name "rizzi" was a rather northern italian name. however, in the german dubbing, he calls connie a "spaghettifresser" (spaghetti-muncher) which is a derrogative term for italians as a whole. we have some others in german, like "itaker", "makkaronifresser", "papagallo", "katzelmacher", but none specially for sicilians though!

but i think you italians also have some names for germans and austrians, so no harm done!

and what about al neri? is he sicilian? he's rather fair (played by an irish lad). is he also some mainland italian?

Lavinia:

Thanks for the correction on "Calabrese"! I couldn't remember the correct town name and knew it had something to do with Calabrese--LOL! That's what happens to you when you hit 50!!!

Fantastic information, by the way, on the sad, but all too common, attitude of some people--whether they be Italians, Spanish, or whatever.

~~ Lollie

Quite honestly, I have only heard a person called a "guinea" a few times. Mostly I've heard "wop" (don't have any clue where that came from!!), "dago", "spaghetti vendor", etc. Carlo may have called Connie a "guinea" just because she may have been personally affronted by it, who knows, right?

~~ Lollie

it's the acronym of "WithOut Papers", if I'm not wrong. It's due to the fact that many Italian immigrants arrived to Ellis Island without their documents. In France they still use to refer to immigrants from developing countries as "sans papiers".

we Italians say: "The mother of idiots is always pregnant"!

About Neri - he is a Sicilian, his parents were from a village that was 5 min. from Corleone.

BTW, from Puzo's intonation in describing Carlo and many others, you may think that Sicilians have their own racism, despising northern "blondes" as absolutely ignoble.

well, but richard bright is obviously not sicilian. he could pass for some northern italian, but he still looks kind of irish.

And do you know where the name TONY derived from? When immigrants arrived at Ellis Island, many had stickers or signs on their lapels which said :

TO-NY ( TO New York ). j/j!


Don Cardi

Thanks Lavinia. I always thought that was he case. My family on both sides is Sicilian. I had one uncle (through marriage) who was from Calabria. Everyone loved this guy, but he was not immune from being teased because he was only "Calabresi". My father and he would go around and around speaking Italian (fortunately in this case, with love and good humor) as to which was better Siciliano or Calabaresi. I didn't think, nor did I know at the time, of these feelings between these two areas, but they must have because they both joked about it all the time.

TIS