Italian stereotypes surface in race for NY governor

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Strategy sessions have been held at a restaurant called Sinatra’s. “Sopranos”-style gold chains have shown up in campaign advertisements. Ethnic-tinged terms, like “goumada,” and wisecracks about Sicilian grudges have been bandied about. And television news crews from Italy have descended on the candidates.

In the raucous race for governor of New York this year between Andrew M. Cuomo and Carl P. Paladino, an unexpected debate is mesmerizing the Italian-American community and increasingly spilling out into public view: Is the contest shattering long-held ethnic stereotypes or reinforcing them?

The tension has recast a milestone election for the state’s largest ethnic group, which has spent decades battling for political might.

Along with feelings of pride have come moments of unease and even mortification. A Staten Island lawmaker has scolded Paladino, a Republican, for comments that “degrade our shared cultural heritage,” comparing him with the makers of the reality television show “Jersey Shore.” And in an interview, Paladino mischievously questioned whether his opponent was really Italian.

An age difference of only a decade separates Paladino and Cuomo, who are both expected to march in the city’s huge Columbus Day parade down Fifth Avenue on Monday, and each traces his lineage to southern Italy. But the two men are starkly different in how they view and express their Italian identity.

Cuomo, the Democrat who is the state’s attorney general, prides himself on transcending the image of the unpolished, old-country Italian, and credits his father, Mario M. Cuomo, the former governor of New York, for debunking many of those stereotypes.

Even as he embraces his ancestry, Andrew Cuomo is extremely sensitive about the assumptions that surround it and the political liabilities that could attach to it: He once had his pollster question the state’s voters about their views of the television show “The Sopranos,” to glean insight about how they saw Italians.

He complained after a reporter described him in an article as a “double espresso of a politician,” suggesting that the term amounted to an anti-Italian slur.

Behind the scenes, Cuomo worked to avoid having the Democratic statewide ticket he leads be excessively dominated by Italians this fall. He privately fretted that if Eric R. Dinallo became the nominee for attorney general and the incumbent Thomas P. DiNapoli for comptroller, voters might find that one Italian too many.

“People will think we’re trying to open a pizza parlor,” Cuomo joked to a friend, according to people familiar with the conversation. (Dinallo was defeated in a five-way primary last month.)

In an interview, Cuomo said he had absorbed the lessons of his father and tried to emulate him. The elder Cuomo was a breakthrough figure in American politics who still felt the sting of bias; as a young lawyer, he had been turned down for jobs at Manhattan’s “white shoe” law firms.

“He is the model of decorum and civility and grace,” Andrew Cuomo said, “and he was on the stage at the same time that you were watching Italian-Americans depicted in movies and television as thugs and people who were crude.”

He recalled the hurt that his father, the state’s first Italian-American governor, felt shortly after his election in 1982, when Albany reporters performed skits for an annual satirical show that featured gangsters and Mafia-inspired characters. “He was offended by it, and he should be,” Cuomo recalled of his father, who grew up speaking Italian at home.

The younger Cuomo said that the polling he paid for in 2002, during his first run for governor, showed that the stereotypes remained pervasive. “I can tell you, it’s real,” he said, adding, however, that he thought it was less pronounced and less negative than in the past.

By contrast, Paladino, a Republican real estate developer from Buffalo, seems to relish his reputation as an undiluted, street-smart, up-by-the-bootstraps Italian.

He travels to Italy up to a dozen times a year. He sometimes lapses into Italian. And he developed a habit of greeting associates, Italian-style, with a kiss on the cheek.

Like Mario Cuomo, Paladino’s father had endured discrimination; to find work, he shortened his given name from Belesario to the anglicized Bill. But rather than shrink from an ethnic style and mannerisms, his son has embraced them.

One of Carl Paladino’s proudest accomplishments was gaining admission to the Big Timers, a heavily Italian social club in East Buffalo.

“He can’t let go of that. He doesn’t want to let go of that,” his brother Joe said. “He is still connected to that neighborhood.”

Guy V. Molinari, the former Staten Island borough president and Republican power broker, who like many of New York’s Italian-Americans is riveted by the governor’s race, said, “As Italians, they are very much the opposite of each other.”

To Molinari, Paladino fits the mold of a traditional southern Italian: loud and brash, often shooting from the hip. “I know these type of Italians; they are in my family,” Molinari said. “They all talk at once; nobody listens.”

Cuomo, he said, is a different but equally recognizable kind of Italian: studious and reserved, bent on obsessively thinking everything through before taking action.

What is most interesting to many watching the campaign is that the stereotypes are being stirred up in a race between Italian-Americans, or, in the words of Stefano Albertini, a faculty member in the department of Italian studies at New York University, “not when there was an Italian against somebody else, but an Italian against an Italian.”

It is not only the candidates giving this election its Italian cast. Central players in both campaigns are Italian: Cuomo’s closest and most powerful adviser is Joseph Percoco, a pugnacious political enforcer (a term Cuomo finds ethnically loaded) and Paladino’s campaign manager and spokesman is Michael R. Caputo, who describes himself as a “junkyard dog.”

From the start, the Paladino camp, sensing Cuomo’s sensitivity to the issue, has deliberately injected ethnicity into the campaign. After Paladino won the Republican primary, Caputo commissioned a campaign poster that, by means of an altered photo, depicted Cuomo shirtless in the shower, trying to wash off the muck of Albany corruption. (“Clean up Albany,” it said. “Start with Cuomo.”) A sly detail was inserted: a gold chain around his neck, prompting howls of protest from those who detected anti-Italian bias.

Caputo scoffed at the complaints at the time, gleefully declaring to reporters, “Carl has his own gold chain he wears very proudly, and so do I.”

Paladino playfully told an interviewer from Italy that perhaps Cuomo’s claim of Italian ancestry should be viewed skeptically. “I don’t know, he might have been adopted,” Paladino said impishly.

During the same interview, he showed off his mastery of Italian, such as it is. When the reporter complimented his fluency, Paladino begged to differ. “It’s very broken,” he said. “I can find my way to the bathroom.”

Paladino’s response to Italians upset by his ethnic provocations: Stop being so touchy. He calls himself an equal-opportunity offender: Defending his having forwarded to friends and associates e-mails containing inflammatory images of African-Americans, he used a string of derogatory terms for Italians.

That prompted Diane J. Savino, a state senator from Staten Island, which is heavily Italian, to fire off a letter to Paladino chiding him for “offensive” language.

“In an environment where people still believe it is acceptable to degrade our shared cultural heritage, whether it be mob references or the buffoonery of the ‘Jersey Shore,’” she wrote, “it is simply unacceptable for you to lower the discourse even further, particularly in a gubernatorial campaign.”

On the campaign trail, Cuomo uses his Italian roots subtly, seeking to connect to voters of all ethnic groups who feel they have not gotten a fair shake.

Speaking to black churchgoers in Brooklyn a few days ago, Cuomo assailed Paladino for espousing a policy that he said would allow the police to stop people who look like immigrants. “I look like an immigrant,” Cuomo said, to warm laughter from the audience.

At times, he sprinkles in Italian phrases and speaks affectionately of his childhood in Queens, where family dinners revolved around animated debates. “Sundays,” he says, “was politics and pasta.”

In a recent speech, he joked that his mother, Matilda, still held a grudge against then-Mayor Edward I. Koch for challenging her husband in the 1982 Democratic primary for governor. “My mom is Sicilian,” he told the crowd. “They never forget.”

A few weeks later, she had a new affront to simmer over. After Paladino made unsubstantiated claims that Cuomo had been unfaithful in his marriage — one Paladino adviser whispered of a goumada, Italian for mistress — Matilda Cuomo was asked about the remarks. She invoked a favorite Italian expression.

“Passa ci sobre,” she said. “Pass over it. It’s garbage.”

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/article_792c4918-d4de-11df-a0cc-00127992bc8b.html

[Ken y Leidys 20]

I'd vote for Cuomo the Democrat. Paladino is a Republican hick, IMO.

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I'd vote for Cuomo the Democrat. Paladino is a Republican hick, IMO.

Paladino is a freakin' caricature.

That said, Cuomo's not the greatest candidate either. He pretty much sucks actually.

[Heracles 417]

Are Italian Americans really anything like Italians? For example, anyone who thinks Jersey Shore represents real Italians, needs to actually go to Italy. Especially some young guy or girl. The come back and tell me where the clothing and style got them in Italy. Punched out probably

Just the other day, I heard someone say that he was in Italy and some NYer, was saying that Italians in Italy don't know what real Italian is. It's like [bring three fingers together and shake hand while speaking], "you're third or even forth generation stronzo..". [open hand and make whatever gesture to their face]

Edited October 12, 2010 by Heracles

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Are Italian Americans really anything like Italians?

Of course not. Do they have to be? It's a pretty unique subculture that has evolved right here in the NYC area.

[Heracles 417]

Of course not. Do they have to be? It's a pretty unique subculture that has evolved right here in the NYC area.

I wouldn't call it "evolved". My own experience centers around extensive travel, from people who are first generation [with their parents born and raised in Italy] or people who were born in Italy. Not to mention, two family members being to married to Italians from Italy.

Without a doubt, I can say they are nothing like their distant ghettoized NYC area Italian; and I mean nothing. Point being, time to drop the Italian and just start calling themselves NE American, with Italian heritage.

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Without a doubt, I can say they are nothing like their distant ghettoized NYC area Italian; and I mean nothing.

It escapes me how you can be hard of hearing on a message board, but allow me to repeat. Italian-Americans aren't from Italy. They don't pretend to be from Italy. It is a subculture that has evolved right here in the US.

Edited October 12, 2010 by \

[R&V 8]

Paladino really does look and sound as if he is auditioning for The Godfather.

That has nothing to with why I wouldn't vote for him. Seems like a very intolerant man to me.

[Heracles 417]

It escapes me how you can be hard of hearing on a message board, but allow me to repeat. Italian-Americans aren't from Italy. They don't pretend to be from Italy. This is a subculture that has evolved right here in the US.

Clearly it is you who does not get it, though not surprised, since this applies to you in your own unique way. They are the ones calling [labeling] themselves Italian every chance they get. In fact, I've heard more people say it here than I did growing up in AUS, where I grew up with a large number of first gen.

You are right in a way though, as people here get to call themselves African, though their fifth great granddaddy was born there. If my child was born here, they would be able to claim Australian-American heritage. However, their child born here and beyond, would be true red and blue yank.

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Paladino really does look and sound as if he is auditioning for The Godfather.

Yup. He is a total caricature.

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Clearly it is you who does not get it, though not surprised, since this applies to you in your own unique way. They are the ones calling [labeling] themselves Italian every chance they get. In fact, I've heard more people say it here than I did growing up in AUS, where I grew up with a large number of first gen.

So your objection is to the fact that they use the word "Italian"? I am not sure why you find that so objectionable.

[Heracles 417]

So your objection is to the fact that they use the word "Italian"? I am not sure why you find that so objectionable.

Be it the use of racism labels, bigot labels or even one's heritage, I find a lot of things bastardized objectionable.

Calling yourself Italian and making it out as if you just got off the boat, is idiotic; especially when your great great granddad was the migrant. In fact, had these people actually traveled to Italy, rather than reside in the squalor they call home, they'd have seen how distant they are from actual Italians.

Edited October 12, 2010 by Heracles

[chri'stina 190]

There are Italians in other places than NYC. I am all mixed up nationality wise, like a true American, but as for the Italian part my great grandfather moved from Rome to the Philadelphia area. My Italian side is from there, not NYC and they were nothing at all like Jersey Shore types. I do know people who are Italian who grew up in Long Island and they have the strongest accents and are much more Jersey Shore-ish. It's much different than my Italian relatives had been. I was born in Queens but that's because it was my mom's hometown(she is not Italian). My dad moved from Philadelphia to live there and get married.

Edited October 12, 2010 by chri'stina

[Heracles 417]

There are Italians in other places than NYC. I am all mixed up nationality wise, like a true American, but as for the Italian part my great grandfather moved from Rome to the Philadelphia area. My Italian side is from there, not NYC and they were nothing at all like Jersey Shore types. I do know people who are Italian who grew up in Long Island and they have the strongest accents and are much more Jersey Shore-ish. It's much different than my Italian relatives had been. I was born in Queens but that's because it was my mom's hometown(she is not Italian). My dad moved from Philadelphia to live there and get married.

I know a few folks with Italian heritage here too, with none or like the LI, SI, NYC, Jersey shore pocket types.

Like I said, it's just dumb that these people call themselves Italian, when they are the furthest thing from Italians in Italy. They don't need to take my word for it either, a quick 8 hour trip and they will realize this for themselves.

Edited October 12, 2010 by Heracles

[chri'stina 190]

It seems that sometimes people who weren't born here or raised here most of their lives don't understand why Americans talk about their nationalities. But it's an interest to many people. If you live somewhere where you look different than others around you(this would happen to me in Alabama, argh), you will often get asked things like "what are you?". And then if you live in an area mixed with different people, some will also ask here "what are you?" out of interest. It's just what we do. So I don't think there is anything wrong with people saying "I am Italian". Some people like thinking about where their family came from.

Edited October 12, 2010 by chri'stina