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[quote=Anonymous]The term prep / preppy derives from preparatory schools, not WASPs. There are Catholic preparatory schools (Georgetown Prep comes to mind  :)) and it's hard to argue it's not a "preppy" school.

WASP refers to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Technically this includes the hillbillies of West Virginia as well as the old East Coast Episcopalian / Congregationalist / Presbyterian establishment. I'm aware that WASP was invented by a Philadelphia writer named Digby Baltzell in reference to a stratum of affluent old money Philadelphia families who made up the city's establishment - both Episcopalians and Quakers. The reality is that WASPs were never as so monolithic or rigid a group of people (plenty of old money American families listed in the old social visiting books and members of the various clubs and residents of the preferred areas were of German, Dutch, Danish, Irish heritage - and more commonly a blend of all northern European backgrounds) and the term really referred to a set of values and lifestyle practiced by a particular stratum of Americans.

While Catholics were certainly quietly discriminated against, you also found cases such as old Catholic families like the Carrolls of Maryland, who were "accepted." Or the Creole families of Louisiana. It really came down to how ethnically Catholic you were. (I once knew someone who referred to herself as WASC - white, anglo-saxon Catholic for her family were one of the original Maryland Catholic families, and they'd always been members of the major Baltimore clubs and institutions).

To reiterate, preppy is not so perfectly synonymous with WASP that it cannot be used to refer to people of Catholic backgrounds or, especially these days, non-white backgrounds. Preppy is a lifestyle moniker and has always been (not all graduates of prep schools are "preppies," for example).

[quote=Anonymous]

Catholics are not preppy.[/quote][/quote]

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