{"id":34466,"date":"2016-04-08T01:00:36","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T05:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=34466"},"modified":"2021-05-27T09:13:52","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T13:13:52","slug":"qotd-midwest-white-trash-spotting-guide-for-coastal-elites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2016\/04\/08\/qotd-midwest-white-trash-spotting-guide-for-coastal-elites\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Midwest white trash spotting guide for coastal elites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Further north into the Midwest, you run into the Polacks<\/strong>. This is technically a derogatory term for people of Polish descent, though I\u2019ve also heard it applied to people whose Eastern European ancestors came from less well-known countries. In Europe, particularly France and Russia, Polish people are stereotyped as thieves or under-the-table laborers. In the US, you\u2019re more likely to run into the stereotype of \u201cPolish people are unintelligent,\u201d although both continents tend to associate being Polish with being a plumber. Polacks are also the target of a uniquely American type of joke, the Polack joke<\/a>, which has developed regional variations. In Texas, they\u2019re Aggie jokes<\/a> instead.<\/p>\n

Further north still, in Minnesota and the Dakotas, you get the Scandahoovians<\/strong>. Tall, blonde, chubby, kind of dim and easy to put one over on, but friendly: there\u2019s your stereotypical Scandahoovian. Jokes about Scandahoovians are kinder, on average, than jokes about Polacks; the Scandahoovian is still the butt of the joke, but about half the time, he outwits the Yankee. Scandahoovians will also never stop feeding you, but instead of sausages, it\u2019s casserole and they call it \u201chot dish.\u201d They\u2019re quiet folks; I\u2019m told this is a survival trait, acquired as a result of having to spend the entirety of winter either at home with your family or ice fishing. (Get into a spat with someone, and you\u2019ll be doing a lot more ice fishing. So they keep things to themselves.)<\/p>\n

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn\u2019t mention the Italians<\/strong>. Italians compete with Czech-Germans for keeping you fat and happy, but they\u2019re much more talkative. They also compete with the Scots-Irish for fighting you. I don\u2019t know much about Italian white trash culture; I married into Pennsylvania Scots-Irish, and that branch of family sure loved Italian food and was happy to work with their neighboring Italians, but tended to keep to their own culturally. \u201cJersey Shore\u201d is where most folks get their stereotypes of Italians these days, and I\u2019m sure it only shows the shittiest, most laughable parts of Italian white trash culture. I\u2019ve made a few Italian white trash friends, and they\u2019re some of the most loyal people I\u2019ve ever had the pleasure to meet.<\/p>\n

Meredith L. Patterson, “A Field Guide to White Trash”, Status 451<\/em><\/a>, 2016-03-18.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Further north into the Midwest, you run into the Polacks. This is technically a derogatory term for people of Polish descent, though I\u2019ve also heard it applied to people whose Eastern European ancestors came from less well-known countries. In Europe, particularly France and Russia, Polish people are stereotyped as thieves or under-the-table laborers. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[57,41,13],"tags":[1420,262,907],"class_list":["post-34466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-classism","tag-culture","tag-snobbery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8XU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65998,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34466\/revisions\/65998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}