I picked up Umberto Eco’s Inventing the Enemy,
a collection of his essays in an Italian-American
bookstore, which called itself “a Cultural Hub”
in Boston’s Italian-American section, where I
had breakfast with my wife; me: eggs over easy,
two bacon strips, wheat toast with jam, coffee;
my wife: eggs Benedict, half my bacon, coffee,
no toast, just a bite of mine (carbs, her enemy),
in a restaurant friends recommended, not easy
to find because everything is Italian-American
in Boston’s North End, or almost is, at least I
thought so, the bookstore as a “Cultural Hub”
advertised on its bookmarks, “a Cultural Hub.”
A register girl was drinking a Starbuck’s coffee
and was talking to my Italian-American wife. I
began Eco’s first essay, “Inventing the Enemy.”
My novelist friend, Ed Falco, Italian-American,
once asked if I knew New Orleans, The Big Easy,
was a mass lynching site of Italians. The Big Easy.
Italians. Largest in U.S. history. That cultural hub.
1891, height of anti-Italian immigration. Americans
didn’t like a trial verdict—over beignets and coffee
plotted revenge for killing police chief. The enemy?
Eleven Italians lynched, on March 14, 1891. No, I
didn’t know. When my daughter went to Loyola, I
loved mini-vacations with my wife in The Big Easy
like we were doing in Boston. In Inventing the Enemy,
Eco says outsiders become targets of “cultural hubs”
by the powerful to hold onto power. Sipping coffee
in the Café du Monde was where “real” Americans
planned lynchings, or, like El Paso’s “real American”
shooting twenty-two in Walmart, Trump’s invaders. I
didn’t know, I knew beignets and chicory in a coffee,
just as I didn’t know Eco. Inventing the enemy’s easy:
criticize Trump, you’ll see MAGA burning StubHub
tickets to NFL games—or Taylor Swift be the enemy.
Eco shows power uses “Americans,” in The Big Easy
or Boston’s North End where I was in a “cultural hub,”
and skin doesn’t have to be coffee-black to be the enemy.
a collection of his essays in an Italian-American
bookstore, which called itself “a Cultural Hub”
in Boston’s Italian-American section, where I
had breakfast with my wife; me: eggs over easy,
two bacon strips, wheat toast with jam, coffee;
my wife: eggs Benedict, half my bacon, coffee,
no toast, just a bite of mine (carbs, her enemy),
in a restaurant friends recommended, not easy
to find because everything is Italian-American
in Boston’s North End, or almost is, at least I
thought so, the bookstore as a “Cultural Hub”
advertised on its bookmarks, “a Cultural Hub.”
A register girl was drinking a Starbuck’s coffee
and was talking to my Italian-American wife. I
began Eco’s first essay, “Inventing the Enemy.”
My novelist friend, Ed Falco, Italian-American,
once asked if I knew New Orleans, The Big Easy,
was a mass lynching site of Italians. The Big Easy.
Italians. Largest in U.S. history. That cultural hub.
1891, height of anti-Italian immigration. Americans
didn’t like a trial verdict—over beignets and coffee
plotted revenge for killing police chief. The enemy?
Eleven Italians lynched, on March 14, 1891. No, I
didn’t know. When my daughter went to Loyola, I
loved mini-vacations with my wife in The Big Easy
like we were doing in Boston. In Inventing the Enemy,
Eco says outsiders become targets of “cultural hubs”
by the powerful to hold onto power. Sipping coffee
in the Café du Monde was where “real” Americans
planned lynchings, or, like El Paso’s “real American”
shooting twenty-two in Walmart, Trump’s invaders. I
didn’t know, I knew beignets and chicory in a coffee,
just as I didn’t know Eco. Inventing the enemy’s easy:
criticize Trump, you’ll see MAGA burning StubHub
tickets to NFL games—or Taylor Swift be the enemy.
Eco shows power uses “Americans,” in The Big Easy
or Boston’s North End where I was in a “cultural hub,”
and skin doesn’t have to be coffee-black to be the enemy.