This was happening during a period when there was a great deal of discrimination against Italians in America. For example, this excerpt was taken from a profile on Joe DiMaggio from Life Magazine in 1939.
"Although he learned Italian first, Joe now speaks English without an accent. ... Instead of olive oil or smelly bear grease, he keeps his hair slicked with water. He never reeks of garlic and prefers chicken chow mein to spaghetti."
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Smelly Bear Grease
A tangent from an NPR article on Italian singers:
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4 comments:
I will have to beg to differ. I submit evidence that Bear Grease wasn't "smelly", just highly scented.
A favorite quote from any of Mr. Luce's rags.
Joe was pretty sophisticated for a wop-a-dago, being from San Francisco & all.
Squeezing the highly scented bears for their grease was a hazardous job.
All I would have had to say to the author of this piece is:
Mangia un cazzone molto grosso, testa di merda!
Che schifo!
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