October 8, 2005 at 12:00 am #18168
Nick
Participant
‘Dago’ has not always meant ‘Italian’ – when italian immigrants first started coming to America, they often got jobs as day-workers on docks. As has been said, they would ‘work during the day, then go’, thus ‘day-go’ or ‘dago’. The term was originally given to all day-workers, but over time came to refer to Italians exlusively.