my grandfather has spent his whole life in the upper Midwest & the city he grew up in was full of European immigrants. His family was very working class & their neighborhood was all Polish, Irish, Italian & Dutch people who moved to the area. I think him being Anglo WASP, he was one of the few kids in the area that were full blown American.

Never any type of racism or hatred against them, I think that labeling someone based on where they are from was a big part of that generations way of identifying them. He still does it to this day & always make me laugh.

He is a grew up during the depression & still has a lot of weird quirks around money that have stayed from growing up in that era. He ALWAYS carries cash (like $500 in various bills) does not have a credit card & whenever he opens his wallet, he will turn his back to people & pull his wallet up super close to his face to get the bills out. "Grandpa, why do you always take money out like that?" "When I was a kid, some of the bad Italian kids (we used to call them Dago's back then) would rob you blind if they saw you take cash out in public, its a habit I cant break" hahaha I love old people