The anti-Italian slur "Wop" is short for "without papers".
That's a false etymology. The Online Etymology Dictionary and other sources have it deriving from Neapolitan slang -
guappo - "dandy, dude, stud." Using a word like that to describe my Italian-American friends would have been worth my teeth, if not my life, back when.
I grew up in a Catholic household in Suffolk County on LI. My Catholic high school used to organize bus trips to Albany, pre-
Roe v Wade to protest and lobby against the legislature's liberalizing abortion laws. I'm no longer affiliated with a church, and vote Libertarian, but the abortion issue has kept many faithful Catholics identified with the GOP.
