40 Vaccaro ⦁ Louis Prima & Tarantella its initial release. It was with these Italian novelties that Prima “introduced the southern Italian tarantella…to America.”22 According to Boulard, the majority of these songs took “a playful, kidding look at the Italian American experience in the big city, and some of the numbers seemed to be directly related to Prima’s personal experiences,”23 as well as those of other Italian Americans. “Please No Squeeza da Banana” specifically references a story of an Italian fruit vendor who dealt with a police officer bruising his fruit. Disputes with fruit stands run by Italian immigrants were a common occurrence; one customer’s complaint was covered in The New York Times on October 1, 1882, in which they accused the vendor of selling improperly weighed fruit.24 The perceived devious nature of Italian immigrants is further explored in the song “Luigi,” which is sung by a narrator suspicious of an Italian immigrant’s business ventures. Luigi is arrested, only to reveal that the narrator was the police officer who arrested him, warning his “dear paisanos” to be careful of the police. This song seems to reference the waves of Italian criminals who immigrated to the United States to escape arrest, which led law enforcement to believe that Italian American communities were harboring criminal activity.25 While some of these songs were inspired by real experiences, others intentionally played into Italian stereotypes, with Prima often replacing phrases with Italian food names like “lasagna” or “macaroni.”26 Within the greater scope of popular music, Prima’s embrace of stereotypes in his music was “providing a healthy outlet, one that allowed for a certain amount of sentimentality and self-parody.”27 Prima’s self-caricature of his Italian heritage came as a response to Americans’ heightened suspicions about Italians following World War II. When Benito Mussolini rose to power in 1922, Americans grew skeptical of the increasing number of Italian immigrants that lived alongside them, despite the majority of them eventually supporting the American war effort in World War II.28 Such skepticism increased due to Mussolini’s desire to create “Fascist clubs abroad,” which encouraged Italian immigrants worldwide to adopt fascism as a tool to glorify Italian 22 Rotella, Amore, 81. 23 Boulard, Just a Gigolo, 73. 24 LaGumina, WOP, 62. 25 LaGumina, WOP!, 98. 26 Boulard, Just a Gigolo, 74. 27 Boulard, Just a Gigolo, 74. 28 LaGumina, WOP!, 249.
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