West Virginia Newspaper Shares Reader’s Awesome ‘Kill Everybody’ Voicemail

[silverweb]

5. "WithOut Papers"

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]The way I heard it, during a mass migration of Italians through Ellis Island into the U.S. many years ago, many of the immigrants didn't have birth certificates or other forms of documentation, so their forms were stamped "WOP" for "WithOut Papers." The nickname stuck as a perjorative for Italians.

I don't know how accurate this version of the story is, but I'm sure someone else here at DU can verify or otherwise clarify.