What is the least "WASP" city in the United States?

[Crawford]

The old line Eastern WASP accent seems to have disappeared (I think?), suggesting the decline of WASP numbers/influence. Maybe some old ladies in Greenwich or wherever still talk like that?

Or perhaps that old accent in TV/movies (think Thurston Howell in Gilligans Island, Frasier Crane in Cheers, or any movie with Kathryn Hepburn or Cary Grant) was affected, like Fran Drescher in the Nanny. No one actually talks like the Nanny.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Docere

Eastern or Southern European First Ancestry (2013)

Baltimore 295,326 10.7% (18.4% of NHWs)
Boston 888,794 19% (26.2% of NHWs)
Buffalo 328,114 28.9% (37% of NHWs)
Chicago 1,648,338 17.3% (32.2% of NHWs)
Cleveland 487,689 23.6% (33.4% of NHWs)
Detroit 740,856 17.2% (25.6% of NHWs)
New York 3,868,519 19.4% (40.8% of NHWs)
Philadelphia 1,104,131 18.3% (29% of NHWs)
Pittsburgh 646,667 27.4% (31.8% of NHWs)
Providence 471,889 29.4% (38% of NHWs)

Probably most but not all Ashkenazi Jews declare an Eastern European group, but others are leaving it blank or writing a religious response that falls under "other."

About half of whites in the NYC area are either Jewish or Italian American, and it's probably the only metro where a majority of NHWs are not of northwest European ancestry.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Or perhaps that old accent in TV/movies (think Thurston Howell in Gilligans Island, Frasier Crane in Cheers, or any movie with Kathryn Hepburn or Cary Grant) was affected, like Fran Drescher in the Nanny. No one actually talks like the Nanny.

The Fran Drescher accent is dying out, but there are plenty of people still around that talk like her. Most of them are age 50+, though.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The Fran Drescher accent is dying out, but there are plenty of people still around that talk like her. Most of them are age 50+, though.

Yeah, there are people who talk like Fran Drescher, but not like her character in the Nanny. That was a cartoonish exaggeration, way beyond the working class white ethnic New Yawk accent.

Similarly, not sure if that old-line upper-class WASP accent was really a thing, or highly affected.

[JMKeynes]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, there are people who talk like Fran Drescher, but not like her character in the Nanny. That was a cartoonish exaggeration, way beyond the working class white ethnic New Yawk accent.

Similarly, not sure if that old-line upper-class WASP accent was really a thing, or highly affected.

Jews in NY, LA, and Boca have a very unique accent. Take Josh Atlman on Selling LA, for example. No one will confuse him with someone named Smith in any respect, including his accent.

Jews that are more assimilated into mainstream society in places like the South or Midwest tend to speak more like everyone else.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, there are people who talk like Fran Drescher, but not like her character in the Nanny. That was a cartoonish exaggeration, way beyond the working class white ethnic New Yawk accent.

Similarly, not sure if that old-line upper-class WASP accent was really a thing, or highly affected.

To me the character wasn't that exaggerated... at least not in the later seasons. I think she was cartoonishly loud but her enunciations sounded pretty on the mark IMO. Now Annie Potts' version of Janine from Ghostbusters was cartoonish and doesn't sound at all authentic to me.

Also, I do sometimes catch that old New England WASP accent (the Roosevelt accent), but it's usually someone in their 70s/80s or higher.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Or perhaps that old accent in TV/movies (think Thurston Howell in Gilligans Island, Frasier Crane in Cheers, or any movie with Kathryn Hepburn or Cary Grant) was affected, like Fran Drescher in the Nanny. No one actually talks like the Nanny.

Yeah, the "Mid-Atlantic Accent" was an affect which came from attending elite private schools. Elites who went to public school did not have it. It had roots in the 19th century, but reached its zenith between the 1920s and 1940s, and then promptly vanished after World War II except for some weirdo holdouts like William F. Buckley Jr.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The Fran Drescher accent is dying out, but there are plenty of people still around that talk like her. Most of them are age 50+, though.

She's 64 herself, so it fits.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The old line Eastern WASP accent seems to have disappeared (I think?), suggesting the decline of WASP numbers/influence. Maybe some old ladies in Greenwich or wherever still talk like that?

Or perhaps that old accent in TV/movies (think Thurston Howell in Gilligans Island, Frasier Crane in Cheers, or any movie with Kathryn Hepburn or Cary Grant) was affected

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Also, I do sometimes catch that old New England WASP accent (the Roosevelt accent), but it's usually someone in their 70s/80s or higher.

Originally Posted by eschaton

Yeah, the "Mid-Atlantic Accent" was an affect which came from attending elite private schools. Elites who went to public school did not have it. It had roots in the 19th century, but reached its zenith between the 1920s and 1940s, and then promptly vanished after World War II except for some weirdo holdouts like William F. Buckley Jr.

It's interesting that the "Mid-Atlantic" accent was entirely made up. You had to actually learn it so that you could sound sophisticated, communicating to others that you were from "good stock".

It seems that a number of literary figures were the holdouts... George Plimpton, Gore Vidal (also weirdos) are two others I can think of.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

Isn’t that based on absurd tropes though?

That's how sitcoms are/have been, though...

Remember the nosy yenta neighbor on "Bewitched," Gladys Kravitz? Her husband's name was even Abner. I never got into "Friends," but wasn't one of the guys a stereotypical neurotic Jewish New Yorker?

Originally Posted by eschaton

Huh?

2. Tons of Jewish people are pretty much indistinguishable from Western Europeans. Think Natalie Portman, Seth Rogan, Jason Schwartzman, Jessie Eisenberg, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Wynona Ryder, etc.

Well, I don't know about that...

[pj3000]

^ Jesse Eisenberg above could easily play an Irish guy and no one would think twice about it.

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I never got into "Friends," but wasn't one of the guys a stereotypical neurotic Jewish New Yorker?

Yup, and another was the stereotypical dumb, macho Italian New Yorker.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yup, and another was the stereotypical dumb, macho Italian New Yorker.

And the third dude was the generic white American idiot.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

That's how sitcoms are/have been, though...

Remember the nosy yenta neighbor on "Bewitched," Gladys Kravitz? Her husband's name was even Abner. I never got into "Friends," but wasn't one of the guys a stereotypical neurotic Jewish New Yorker?



Well, I don't know about that...

Pale skin, blue eyes, medium brown hair. Aside from his hair being curly he doesn't look particularly Jewish. I knew guys in England who looked like him.

Edit: Justin Timberlake basically has an Afro and as far as I know is not Jewish.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Edit: Justin Timberlake basically has an Afro and as far as I know is not Jewish.

Wikipedia says his dad was a "Baptist church choir director" in Tennessee, so I'm gonna say, probably not Jewish.

[destroycreate]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

Admittedly, Henry Hill was half Irish.

I feel like NYC Jewish + Italian culture always seemed super similar...anybody know why this is?

[Crawford]

NYC secular Jewish + Italian culture has similarities. They arrived in the same general era, lived in the same neighborhoods, and naturally intermarried.

Much of the South Shore of Long Island, from the Queens line way out almost to the Hamptons, is an Italian-Jewish (and sometimes Irish) mix. Massapequa is jokingly called Matzoh-Pizza.

They aren't exactly the same. Secular Jewish culture is probably more matriarchal, Jewish upward mobility/educational attainment was a bit stronger, and I think the Italians were a bit less assimilationist. Secular Jews moved out of the "old neighborhood" faster than the Italians, probably due to higher economic/social mobility. Canarsie and Bensonhurst are stereotyped as Italian (or formerly Italian) neighborhoods, but they were both probably more Jewish than Italian pre-1970's.

Nowadays they're politically pretty different, but both groups were pretty far left pre-1970. Radical socialist and communist views were mainstream, especially pre-McCarthy and pre-Civil Rights era.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Pale skin, blue eyes, medium brown hair. Aside from his hair being curly he doesn't look particularly Jewish. I knew guys in England who looked like him.

Edit: Justin Timberlake basically has an Afro and as far as I know is not Jewish.

In this pic, he looks a lot like a random German footballer.

[Docere]

Jews seemed to leave the city and old neighborhoods faster. I think NYC's Jewish population peaked in 1957. Italian American population probably peaked around 1970, given lower mobility and postwar immigration from Italy.

Since the 1970s, the Jewish population has changed enormously, with FSU immigration and rapid growth of the Orthodox. Hasidim were mostly postwar immigrants, but their numbers were pretty small in the 1950s in a city with 2 million Jews.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Wikipedia says his dad was a "Baptist church choir director" in Tennessee, so I'm gonna say, probably not Jewish.

Yeah, I don't seriously think Justin Timberlake is Jewish. But he's absolutely someone who...looks kinda Jewish. Probably more Jewish than Jessie Eisenberg, TBH.

[JMKeynes]

There’s no mistaking the Jewish look. You can dress them in sweater vests and khakis, and yet, no one will be fooled.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Pale skin, blue eyes, medium brown hair. Aside from his hair being curly he doesn't look particularly Jewish. I knew guys in England who looked like him.

Maybe those guys need to to do their 23andme.

Give him a few years, and he'll start looking like Mel Brooks:


Seriously though, I've known people who thought they weren't Jewish at all and then they did their DNA and they were like "Whoa, I had no idea!" and I was all like thinking 'really? Duh.'

Same have happened with some Latinos I knew; it never occurred to them that they might be descendants of conversos or crypto-Jews, or even that they had North African ancestry.