Asturian-American Migration Forum

Hello everyone,

Art said I should post a couple of stories so her we go,

A little history first,
When I was young I remember going to the Spanish American Club for Weddings and so forth. Also the Spanish picnics at Myers Lake in Canton, Ohio. There were many Asturian Spanish families living all around my grandparents. The Alvarez lived in the house behind along with the Bothia, Conde and Gutilla families. My aunt Anita Vega married Enrique Gonzales (Henry) from Massillon, Ohio. My aunt Isabel Vega married Julius S. Bagerous (Tuddy). Both those families Gonzales and Bagerous are also Asturian......

NOW SOME HUMOR....
My grandfather's garage was the place all the Spaniards in the neighborhood came to play euchre. My grandmother would not let them play cards in the house because of all the smoke from the denobles....and the Five Brothers tobacco burning in the pipes. Grandpa Vega heated the garage (Wood Stove) and he and my father had built a nice card table there. My grandmother once tried to smoke chorizos in the garage and the fire truck came which was quite a scene with grandma Vega and the firemen. Grandma Vega was only about 4 feet 10 inches and 100 pounds but she sure held her ground when they tried to hose down her chorizos.

Another story, this one is about my Uncle Jesus (Had just come from Asturias). Uncle Jesus thought he was quite the ladies man, handsome and irresistible. He was always fussing with his hair to make it just right and making sure his cloths were nice and shoes shining perfect to impress
the women.... I think you get the picture. Well, one day Uncle Jess decide to go for a walk and like usual before he took out he went through his regular routine to make sure he would make a good impression should he have the good fortune of passing a beautiful women. Well some time
passes and Uncle Jess returns to the house strutting like a peacock smiling from ear to ear and can hardly console himself. He says, "Oh what a wonderful walk ! I saw three beautiful women and they all were admiring me as I passed and shouted Guapo, how handsome they think I am." My
grandfather laughed as did several others and Uncle Jess took offense thinking they did not believe his story. He barked out saying, "It was the truth !" My grandmother then after working up some courage she tells Uncle Jess that the three young ladies had yelled out, "WAP, WAPO" not
"Guapo" and were not paying him a compliment........with Uncle Jesus in disbelief my grandfather had to educate his heartbroken naive immigrant swashbucker brother.

I hope you enjoyed the humorous stories,

Roberto
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Transl. Terechu
Primero un poco de historia,
Cuando era joven recuerdo que iba al Spanish American Club a bodas y tal. También a los picnics españoles en el lago Myers de Canton, Ohio. Había muchas familias asturianas viviendo cerca de mis abuelos. Los Alvarez vivían en la casa de atrás junto con los Bothia, Conde y Gutilla. Mi tía Anita Vega se casó con Enrique González (Henry) de Massillon, Ohio. Mi tía Isabel Vega se casó con Julius S. Bagerous (Teddy). Estas dos familias, los González y los Bagerous también son asturianas.

AHORA UN POCO DE HUMOR
La cochera de mi abuela era el lugar de reunión de todos los españoles del barrio para jugar al “euchre”. Mi abuela no les dejaba jugar a la baraja en casa por culpa de toda la humareda que armaban y … el tabaco Five Brothers que fumaban en sus pipas. El abuelo Vega calentaba la cochera (estufa de leña) y el y mi padre habían construído una mesa para jugar a las cartas muy amañosa.
Un día mi abuela intentó ahumar chorizos en la cochera y apereció un camión de bomberos, lo que fue todo un espectáculo entre la abuela Vega y los bomberos. La abuela Vega no mediría más de 1,50 y pesaría 45 kilos, pero no dio ni un paso atrás cuando pretendieron apagar sus chorizos con la manguera.


Otra historia, esta es sobre mi tío Jesús (acababa de llegar de Asturias). El tío Jesús se creía un Don Juan, guapo e irresistible. Estaba siempre arreglándose el pelo y controlando su ropa y asegurándose que sus zapatos brillaban para impresionar a las mujeres…supongo que ya os imagináis cómo era. Pues un día el tío Jesús se va de paseo y, como de costumbre, antes de salir pasó por todo el ritual para asegurarse de causar buena impresión si tuviera la suerte de cruzarse con alguna mujer guapa. Al cabo de un rato el tío Jesús vuelve a casa pavoneándose y sonriendo de oreja a oreja que no se podía aguantar. Dice: “Oh que paseo tan maravilloso. Ví a tres mujeres hermosas y las tres me admiraron al pasar y me llamaron “guapo”, de lo apuesto que me encontraron.” Mi abuelo y otros cuantos se rieron y el tío Jess se ofendió pensando que no le habían creído. Les espetó: “Es la pura verdad!” Entonces mi abuela, despues de reunir el valor, le dice al tío Jess que las tres chicas lo que le habían llamado era “WAP, WAPO” (WOP : WithOut Papers / Without Any Papers = Sinpapeles) y no guapo, y que no le estaban echando ningún piropo... El tío Jesús no se lo podía creer y mi abuelo tuvo que enseñar al ingenuo y destrozado fantasma de su hermano inmigrante.


Espero que os hayan gustado estas historias.

cute .... got'a ask what's a WAP WAPO?

"Wap" (usually "wop") is an ethnic slur applied to people of Spanish or (more usually) Italian origin in the EEUU.

Bob

Hola Eli y Bob,

Thank you Bob for correcting me, yes I should have written, "WOP".
You are correct in that is was used as an ethnic slur applied to people of Spanish or (more usually) Italian origin. I myself have never heard it applied to Spanish people, only Italian in my area for some reason.

I was also told that the term "WOP" came from immigration (Ellis Island) when mostly Italian immigrants would come off the ships and have no identification or offical government papers with them. So the term "WOP" was stamped on their papers which meant, "W"ith "O"ut "P"apers.

Roberto

I think that the origin of "wop" is more likely "guapo." In the EEUU, many people simply lumped Spaniards and Italians together and didn't make a distinction between them. The word "dago" (from Diego) may be similar, and was usually applied to Italians, although the original name itself is Spanish. Where I grew up (Niagara Falls) there were relatively few Spaniards (mostly Asturians) and relatively many Italians (mostly Sicilians). The languages were similar enough that they could understand one another.

In his youth in Niagara Falls, some of my dad's best friends were Italian. All the kids from both families would eat Sunday dinner at the Italian house (pasta, of course) and then congregate at my grandmother's house for dessert.

The Sicilians were like the Asturians in that almost everyone had a nickname by which he or she was known by more than by his or her actual name. My dad's friends were called GooGoo, the Mighty Cayan, and Black Benny. Everyone called my dad Jack, after the boxer Jack Dempsey, although his real name is Isaac. I've almost never heard anyone call him Isaac.

This was a generation that took care of its own. If you fought one of the six brothers in my dad's family (two kids died in infancy), you fought them all. One of my uncles, quite literally the gentlest man I have ever known, once showed up on a neightbors porch demanding that they send out their son so he could kill him. Apparently there had been some sort of altercation. He was armed with a large and very sharp knife. The adults, of course, didn't let anything happen (Seven year olds are not difficult to handle). I have to assume that we was deadly serious, however. Those were different times.

Roberto, I'm still chuckling at the thought of your grandma smoking chorizos in the garage to cause such an alarm in the neighbourhood that the fire brigade was called, and then daring the firemen to hose her precious chorizos down !

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Roberto, todavía me estoy riendo al pensar en tu pequeña abuela ahumando chorizos en la cochera hasta el punto de alarmar a los vecinos, y como puso a caer de un burro a los bomberos, desafiándoles a que se atrevieran a regarlos con la manguera!

cool thanx,

not sure if this is dejavu or you've already explained that to me somewhere else Bob.... err... now I'm having dejavu on the net... don't know if that is good or bad lol

yeah me too terechu, and the thing is I can see something like that happening!

I love hearing stories like those, Robert. I didn't know my grandmother at all, and didn't spend much time with my grandfather, so it's only through stories like yours that I figure out what my grandparents may have been like.

It's interesting that discrimination is so "undiscriminating" (not recognizing the difference between Italians and Spaniards, for example). Maybe that's because part of this prejudice was about lifestyle. Eating fish and garlic seems to have been offensive to those who had been here longer.

I'd guess that the real issue the "Americans" had with the "wops" was that they were different and difference is threatening to us. This sort of reaction is especially true when we are more emotional than rational. Unfortunately, that describes most people. Plus, it's very human to look for a scapegoat and to beat up on them. The newly arrived get chosen because they're often the lowest on the totem pole, aren't they?

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Me encanta oír historias como aquellas, Robert. No conocía a mi abuela en absoluto, y no pasé mucho tiempo con mi abuelo, por eso es sólo por historias como las tuyas que entiendo como mis abuelos podían haber sido.

Es interesante que la discriminación sea tan "no discriminatoria" (en no reconocer la diferencia entre italianos y españoles, por ejemplo). Tal vez sea porque una parte de este prejuicio era sobre el modo de vivir. Comer pescado y ajo parece haber sido ofensivo a los que habían estado aquí un rato más largo.

Adivinaría que la verdadera tema que "los americanos" tenían con los "wops" era que fueron diferentes y la diferencia nos amenaza. Este tipo de reacción es especialmente verdadero cuando somos más emocionales que racionales. Lamentablemente, esto describe la mayoría de la gente. Además, es muy humano buscar una cabeza de turco y darles una paliza. Los recién llegados son escogidos porque son a menudo los más bajos sobre el poste de tótem, ¿no?