Ethical Issues

The 20-something stars of the MTV reality series “Jersey Shore” proudly refer to themselves as “guidos” and “guidettes” — terms that leave others in the Italian-American community crying foul. “When I was growing up, it was part of social identification for young people,” said New York State Sen. Diane Savino. “Today MTV has chosen to take something and turn it into a pejorative.” Savino, whose district encompasses parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island, took part in a colloquium entitled, “Guido: An American Youth Style,” sponsored by the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute at Queens College, which explored the “guido culture” glamorized by the show’s party lifestyle. Panelists included Queensborough Community College sociologist Donald Tricarico and New Jersey caterer Johnny DeCarlo, who has auditioned for “Jersey Shore.”

The end of World War II marked a watershed moment for the depiction of Italian women in American film, says Vera Dika, assistant professor of media arts at New Jersey City University. “They presented new models of Italian identity after World War II, ” said professor Dika, referring to actresses Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren and two movies, “The Rose Tattoo,” (1955) and “Two Women” (1962), in which they starred, respectively. “Italy was no longer a fascist country, no longer a country of poverty, no longer a country in defeat.” In a talk entitled “Italian Divas in American Film: Changing Images of Italian Womanhood,” part of the Philip V. Cannistraro Seminar Series in Italian American Studies at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute at Queens College, Dika discusses this seismic shift from supporting role to leading lady

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 a quarter-million Bukharian Jews left Uzbekistan, Central Asia, their home for almost 2,000 years. Some 50,000 settled in Forest Hills-Rego Park, Queens, the largest concentration in the U.S., according to Queens College Adjunct Professor Imanuel Rybakov, who is teaching “History and Culture of the Bukharian Jews,” the first such course at an American university. “Our schools were closed in 1940 and for 60 years we didn’t have the opportunity to study our own language or to write our own history,” Prof. Rybakov said in an interview. “Only in Israel and the U.S. we were able to educate our children and grandchildren about what it means to be a Bukharian Jew.” That includes the Bukhori language, a combination of Farsi and Hebrew, and some customs that resemble those of Central Asian Muslims.

Queens College sociologist and Distinguished Professor Pyong Gap Min, who served on the 2010 U.S. Census Advisory Committee on the Asian population, says every Asian-American must be counted to insure that this growing minority gains political clout. “The Asian-American population makes up about 4 percent of the total U.S. population and are overly represented in academia, professional jobs, managerial jobs because of their high education level, but in terms of political power they are behind the rest,” said Prof. Min, a leading scholar on Korean and Asian-American immigration. “If we have enough people representing the Asian population, politicians will pay more attention to our voices.”