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

From __Saturday Night Fever__ to __Jersey Shore__, Italian American youth in New York City have appropriated—and been appropriated by—popular American culture. Here, Donald Tricarico investigates how Italian ethnicity has been used to fashion Guido as a distinct youth style that signals inclusion in popular American culture and, simultaneously, the making of a new ethnic subject. Emerging from a wave of Italian immigration after World War II in outer borough neighborhoods such as Bensonhurst, the story of the Guido is an Italian American story, symbolizing the negotiation of a negatively privileged ethnicity within American society. Tricarico takes up questions about the definition of Guido, the role of disco, and the identity politics of Jersey Shore in order to reconsider the significance of Guido for the study of Italian American ethnicity. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Theorizing Italian American Youth Culture (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 1-30 A Local Italian American Youth Style Tradition: Anticipating Guido (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 31-53 The Turn to Disco and Other Subcultural Developments (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 55-85 Becoming Guido: Identifying a Youth Subculture (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 87-113 Performing Style (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 115-141 “It’s Cool Being Italian”: Fashioning an Ethnic Youth Style (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 143-172 The Local Struggle for Cool (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 173-205 GUIDOVILLE: Labeling Italian Americans Deviant (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 207-236 A Party Culture Becomes a Media Spectacle (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 237-270 Rethinking Italian American Ethnicity: A Middle Space (Donald Tricarico)....Pages 271-303 Back Matter ....Pages 305-332 From Saturday Night Fever to Jersey Shore, Italian American youth in New York City have appropriated--and been appropriated by--popular American culture. Here, Donald Tricarico investigates how Italian ethnicity has been used to fashion Guido as a distinct youth style that signals inclusion in popular American culture and, simultaneously, the making of a new ethnic subject. Emerging from a wave of Italian immigration after World War II in outer borough neighborhoods such as Bensonhurst, the story of the Guido is an Italian American story, symbolizing the negotiation of a negatively privileged ethnicity within American society. Tricarico takes up questions about the definition of Guido, the role of disco, and the identity politics of Jersey Shore in order to reconsider the significance of Guido for the study of Italian American ethnicity.-- Provided by publisher Donald Tricarico. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 305-325) And Index.