With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, the celebrated comedian best known for his iconic: “You might be a Redneck if (and other topics) …” Here is my version that is devoted to those claiming Italian ancestry who participated in the annual San Marziale festivities at Holy Angels Church in Kulpmont, Pennsylvania last Sunday.
Full disclosure: My upbringing in New York was in a working-class neighborhood filled with many first and second generation Italian-Americans. In addition, my mother’s maiden name was the zenith of Italian surnames that sings all the traditional vowels: Ferraiuolo.
With that said, to me there always was a distinction between those claiming Italian extraction from Pennsylvania and those who hail from the New York City metro area with the same lineage.
The difference reminded me of the similar estrangement between the industrialized North and antebellum South in America prior to the Civil War. The same sentiments existed among Italian immigrants who arrived beginning in the 1880s. Those Italians who immigrated from Northern Italy were like the American North – more industrialized and sophisticated than those who arrived from the much more agrarian South. Southern Italy was filled with many hard-working pheasants who built New York’s skyscrapers and bridges and dug the tunnels for the city’s iconic subway system – by hand.
Without further ado:
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you think nothing is wrong with serving antipasto with bread that are store bought rolls from a plastic bag.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you do NOT utter the term “medigan” and “stunad” at least once a day.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you have at least one jar of store-bought tomato sauce that is shamelessly exposed in your pantry.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you have fallen into the habit of calling your recent ancestors “I-talians from It-lee.”
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you do NOT have at least one piece of living room furniture wrapped in plastic.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you think “gabagool” is a character on the Sopranos.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if all you can remember about your family are the grudges and resentments – better known as Italian Alzheimer’s.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you think Scotto and Vanzetti is a clothing line.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you pronounce Pennsylvania Hall of Fame football coach Carmen DeFrancesco’s surname “Dee-Francisco.”
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you confuse Rocky Balboa with Rocky Marciano.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you never knew that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s infamous Executive Order 9066 in 1941 branded some 600,000 Italian-Americans as “enemy aliens.”
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if the aroma of grilled sausage dancing in peppers and onions with a parmigiano sauce accentuating two-year old gran riserva prosciutto di parma with a side dish of grilled escarole does NOT bring you to tears.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you refer to the kind man down the block who always says hello as a “goodfella.”
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you insist Gelato was some fat guy who played left tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you refer to Fettuccini Alfredo as macaroni and cheese.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you think “wedding soup” is about “nuptials” rather than the “marriage” of hearty vegetables and savory meatballs in a rich broth.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you do NOT know that Tony Bennett was baptized Anthony Benedetto and Dean Martin was baptized: Dino Crocetti.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if you left the faith of your fathers and have no clue when or why.
You might be a Pennsylvanian-Italian if can’t trace your American roots to New York City – America’s Genesis for most Italian-Americans.
Italians have provided the world an army of influencers: Dante, Verdi, Fellini, Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Garibaldi, Puccini, Marconi, Versace and Sophia Loren among a plethora of others including holy saints and popes and the greatest culinary experience the world over.
The world loves Italy because it is old and still glamorous. Italy eats and drinks well but is rarely fat or drunk much like its people.
Vittoria Italiana in America.
