[Mario22268]

Why do people call Italians dagos, wops or guineas? I’m Italian and have no idea what they mean, but I know they are slurs.
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Name : Mario22268, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, City : Newbury, State : OH, Country : United States, 

[Paula]

I seem to have read an article about this very thing at some point. Evidently during the Ellis Island era of immigration to the United States, many Italian people arrived illegally, or “Without Papers (WOP).”

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Name : Paula, Gender : F, Age : 31, City : Texarkana, State : AR, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Nick]

‘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.

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Name : Nick, City : Brookline, State : MA, Country : United States, 

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