Originally posted by The Don of Bball:
Originally posted by dontomasso:
[b] Not per se, but back in those days people pretty much stuck with their own ethnic groups and didn't even intermarry. So I suppose there might be some latent anti semitism ("So you give your loyalty to a Jew over your own blood.") but not really.
I grew up in a small town roughly 50% Italian, 35% Irish, with the majority of the remainig 15% being Polish/Slovak. By the 1960's, the neighborhoods were pretty mixed, except for one or two neighborhoods that were Italian.
Pretty much everyone was Catholic, but St. Anthony's was still heavily Italian, St. Mary's was mostly Irish and St. Kasimir's was Slovak. Everyone pretty much went to each others' picnics, and occasionally we'd go to the different churhes with friends' families. I don't recall any ethnic issues.
Today, there is no ethnic affiliation with the churches and it's more uncommon to find full-blooded Irish or Italians. Reading the local papers are funny in that you now frequently see names like Brendan Fanelli or Gianni Yablonski.
