I recall that, when the last U.S. census appeared, the great "New York
intellectual" Nathan Glazer, with whom I sometimes co-taught at Harvard,
observed that more Americans than it was statistically plausible identified
their ethnic background as Italian. One conclusion to draw from this is
that Italians are America's favorite ethnic group. Despite the stereotype
of the mob. Maybe it's just plain sexy. Maybe it's the Italian food
that everybody across the country seems to like that has broken down the
stereotype.
An article by Tom Baldwin in Friday's Times of
London quotes Pastor Wright, whose rhymes and rhythms are not at all
pastoral, as referring in his church newspaper to Italians as "garlic
noses." I haven't seen this reference myself. This is the kind of
vulgarity and bias that is also a huge impediment to African American advance.