Assorted Comments

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:10 PM -0700 5/21/07, James A. Landau wrote:
>
>I remember reading a report Jack London wrote about the 1906 San
>Francisco earthquake in which
>he used "ghetto" to mean segregated housing for people of a social
>class---I don't think
>he meant blacks, my vague recollection is Irish workmen. Nowadays,
>except in figurative
>or historical contexts, "ghetto" exclusively means a type of
>African-American community.
>It would be interesting to track down how the change in connatation
>reflects changes in
>politics and public perception.

The earlier reference, and perhaps still the salient one then, would
have been for restricted districts for Jews, such as the eponymous
ones in Italy.

LH

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