Blue-islanders

Posted by Bob on October 21, 2002

In Reply to: blue-islanders posted by Bruce Kahl on October 20, 2002

: : : I watched a video in which "blue-islanders" was used as an adjectival-noun to denigrate a class of people whose leanings or tastes offended the narrator. What is a "blue-islander"?

: : I haven't found it in my regional speech dictionaries.

:
: Maybe the following?
: There is a town in Illinois in the US of A named Blue Island which was settled in the early 20th Century by people of Italian heritage.
: They kept the customs and mores of Italy and did not blend into mainstream US culture for a long time.Eventually they merged into the mainstream of US culture. The phrase was used to describe them and other groups who took their time blending in.
: This was the process with other immigrants also. Americanization became common once the immigrants and Americans became accustomed to the other's culture.

Blue Island borders on Chicago's South Side. It would be helpful to know what decade was being represented in the video: Blue Island was Italian, then (I believe) Polish, and is now mostly Mexican-American. (Local Chicago joke: "I'm going to the Islands on vacation." "Really? Which ones?" "Blue, Stony, Wolf..." All rough neighborhoods.)