Ethnoanalysis- Do Barese Women Rule With an Iron Fist?

One of my very good friends went to medical school at the University of Bologna. He had to study Italian to matriculate, and became quite fluent in that language. He became engaged, and eventually married, the sister of another American studying there, who was of Italian descent.

One day Brian came to our house and started dishing with my grandmother, who grew up in Torino. Naturally, my grandmother loved conversing in her native tongue. When she asked where his fiancee's family was from, he replied "Bari", a city on the southeastern side of the Italian peninsula. My grandmother exclaimed: "Barese women! - They rule with an iron fist!"

Native Italian she might have been, but my grandmother was so American in this response. You see, she slotted poor Martha into a construct, the same way that our contemporary Anglos pigeonhole ethnicities into broader constructs like "Hispanic" and "Asian" and "Slavic". Naturally, the regional stereotypes of my grandmother's youth would not fit the reality of a third generation American decades removed from her parents' point of origin in the Old Country.

Likewise, the convenient categories adopted by the media whenever the subject of ethnicity comes up do not conform to the complex, ever-evolving reality. Always consider this whenever an ethnic angle surfaces in the press.

Oh, I almost forgot. Brian and Martha have been married just about 30 years now. I have not seen any evidence of an iron fist. But an iron nudge- maybe!