I keep kinda sorta forgetting that today is Columbus Day. One of the United States' niftier quirks is that Columbus has been adopted as the Italian-American national hero, so in cities with large historic Italian immigrant populations you see some Columbus Day celebrations, but in places like DC there's nothing. This, in my view, is how you can tell that Baltimore -- with its Columbus Day parade -- is the southernmost of Northeastern cities whereas parade-less DC is the northernmost city of the southeast (if you doubt me, note that the original lyrics of "Hail to the Redskins" enjoined the team to "fight for old Dixie").
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Columbus Day
08 Oct 2007 02:21 pm
Comments (20)
Even more curious is that Columbus's "Italianess" is really an anachronism. At the time he sailed the Ocean Blue, "Italy" was a loose collection of very powerful merchant city-states (Genoa, Venice), moderately powerful regional monarchies (Tuscany, Lombardi), and occupied zones (Piedmont, Sicily). Columbus almost certainly would have identified more with the French and Spanish than he would have the Sicilians or Umbrians or Neopolitans.
Hence the very very old but useful line about D.C.: "combines northern charm and southern efficiency."
Thanks for the original Dixie-oriented line to the REdskins song.
Since the Mason-Dixon Line is the Pennsylvania/Maryland border (indeed, Mason and Dixon were hired jointly by the Penn family and Lord Baltimore), it follows that Baltimore is, indeed, in Dixie
I once read a story in a Russian Jewish publication saying he was Jewish. It ended with talk about a "brit malah" [sp]. I asked the lady at a restaurant what it meant; she got out her universal translator and told me. Boy was I embarrassed!
Anywho, isn't MattY going to note that this is - to all right-thinking persons - actually a very sad day, the day when the oppression began?
The Sopranos Columbus Day episode was pretty funny.
Let us not forget JFK's classic description of Washington as "a city that combines Southern efficiency with Northern charm."
Matt, are you confusing the line "fight for old D.C." with "fight for old Dixie"? The first line is still in the 'Skins fight song. I'm not sure the "Dixie" thing ever appeared in the 'Skins song, though I'm no expert.
I think Riley is correct.
No, Matt is right, or at least Wikipedia agrees with him and goes into great detail about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Redskins
"D.C.." according to this, replaced the "Dixie" of the original lyrics.
The Redskins were the last team in the three major sports to integrate, interestingly. (Although the second-to-last was, alas, the Red Sox, so this is not necessarily proof of a Dixie connection.)
Actually, the more obvious proof that D.C. is part of the South is the fact that the football team has a racist name. (And yes, "Redskins" is quite a bit different from "Braves" or "Indians".)
Unfortunately, I think Tom Yawkey (Red Sox owner) and George Preston Marshall (Redskins owner) were cut from the same cloth.
I recently picked up an anthology by Shirley Povich -- Maury's dad, and a great sports columnist for the Washington Post. For years Povich regularly skewered George Preston Marshall for his systematic racism.
"in places like DC there's nothing"
Well, I wouldn't call splashing paint on the statue at Columbus Circle (in front of Union Station) "nothing"...
Also, DC has no port or waterfront area, did not serve as a conduit to any sort of hinterland, and, I would wager, saw it's most massive growth in population in the mid to last two thirds of the last century, thus placing it in a similar category to other sunbelt cities like Atlanta, Raleigh, Houston, Jacksonville, etc.
Of course, the inherited architecture and infrastructure of the national capital gave it a gravitas that a lot of those other cities lacked, and the movement of northeastern intellectuals to work in government gives it a distinct northeastern feel, but it is not _of_ the Northeast in the way Boston, NYC, Philly, and Baltimore (sort of) are.
Dilan Esper: The Redskins actually played in Boston for their first five seasons, although they were always owned by Marshall (a West Virginia native, for what it's worth). They were originally called the Braves, like the baseball team, since they played at Braves Field, but then they moved to Fenway Park (in 1933, coincidentally the same year Tom Yawkey bought the Red Sox). No longer able to use the Braves as their name, they chose Redskins so they could keep the Indian motif. They drew poorly at Fenway despite a record of success and moved to Washington in 1937.
Right, because racists are only in the South.
Columbus almost certainly would have identified more with the French and Spanish than he would have the Sicilians or Umbrians or Neopolitans.
That is a dubious assertion And I say that not just as an Italian-American. But also because in the 1490s there were really no "Spanish" with which Columbus could identify either. The Castilians hadn't even united with Aragon when Columbus was born. Hell, even today Spain is just as disunited as Italy, with full fledged separatist movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country. Many "Spaniards" still self-identify first as Valencians, Galicians,Extramadurans, etc. "France" was also still a fairly loose concept in 1492.
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When can we start celebrating de las Casas Day?
Also, DC relies on air conditioning to make life bearable, in true Southern fashion.
As long as we're categorizing in silly fashion, note that Maryland was a slaveholding state and Baltimore was pretty much an occupied city during the Civil War - necessary to control the pro-Confederacy mobs.
Comments closed October 22, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Do any actual Italians particularly care about October 12th?
Posted by El Cruzado | October 8, 2007 2:52 PM