Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US black) the Italian area of a US town.

1932

Tampa Red ‘You Can’t Get That Stuff No More’ 🎵 You know that place on Dago Hill, the law took the gal, and the liquor still / Now you can’t get that stuf no more.

(US) a derog. name for anywhere other than white, Anglo-Saxon countries; e.g. southern Europe, Latin America, the Orient.

1901		R.H. Sherard Cry of the Poor 47: For in this quarter the lowest types of humanity from every corner of the globe congregate and jostle — Kaffirs, Lascars, Greeks, Orientals, and tutti quanti — Dagoland in its dirt and bestiality.
[1911		Proc. of Southern Commercial Congress III n.p.: Latin-America is even now frequently referred to in the press and otherwise as a ‘dago land’ ].
1912		Treuth (Brisbane) 20 Oct. 5/4: [headline] Roscommon Ramps. / Bull Beef from Dagoland. / Chousing the Customs.
1937		Aberdeen jrnl 19 Aug. 6/3: It is embarrassing for the film makers who want to sell their films in Germany, Dago-land, China or Egypt.
1944		Durham University Jrnl Apr.-June 111: The old residents say to me, as they will, ‘There is no such country as the Orient, there is only Dagoland’.
1976		(con. 1896) S. Hayden Voyage (1977) 156: Which ships were from [...] northern Europe and which hailed from Dagoland.
1994		J. O’Connor Secret World of the Irish Male (1995) 214: ‘Send him [Mexican football player] home to Dagoland in a coffin,’ suggests the Liverpool man.
1998		Stella Street [BBC-TV] gray: I hear you turned over a bit of porridge in Dagoland. pam: Now come on Gray, if you want to know about that, read the Sunday papers.

1. Italian red wine, usu. Chianti; thus the cheap, home-produced red wine made by Italian families and merchandised, during Prohibition, by Italian gangsters.

1896		S.F. Call 25 Aug. 13/2: Frederick Ekenberg drunk a third of thirty-three gallons of ‘dago red’ [...] in three days, and died.
1899		E.S. Wilson Sugar-pine Murmerings 81: ‘Here, have another glass of “dago red” to keep your spirits up,’ said Tony.
1905		Arizona Republican 16 May 6/2: Each got seven days for drunkeness [...] incited thereto by several bottles of dago red.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 318: Cardinale set a fat fiasco of wine on the table [...] ‘Bettern Dago Red, eh Meester ’Erf?’.
1928		R. Carr Rampant Age 223: There’s a wop down on Vine Street puttin’ out dago red for three dollars a gallon. One helluva wallop in the slop, too.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Too Much Pep’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 633: Eating spaghetti and drinking dago red.
1944		‘F. Bonnamy’ A Rope of Sand (1947) 106: They were dewy eyed and silent over their bottle of dago red.
1953		F. Paley Rumble on the Docks (1955) 294: Some deep dark cool cellar with some bottles of dago red in it.
1963		A.S. Fleischman Venetian Blonde (2006) 171: Jamie got tanked up on dago red.
1973		Galton & Simpson ‘Christmas 1973’ Steptoe and Son [TV script] They’re knocking out some Dago Red down the supermarket.
1977		S. Stallone Paradise Alley (1978) 215: Lenny poured his date a glass of homemade dago red wine.
2001		N. Tosches Where Dead Voices Gather (ms.) 272: Only George Raft among them could boast an authentic tributary of dago red in his hereditary bloodstream.
2011		T. Pluck ‘Freedom Bird’ in Life During Wartime (2018) 2: [H]eaving crates of ‘cheap dago red for the spaghetti and meatball joints’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 40: The paisans quaffed dago red.

2. any cheap red wine, usu. drunk by alcoholics.

1901		F. Norris Octopus 163: He’s full of bad whiskey and dago-red.
1910		E.A. Walcott Open Door xii 146: You know I’m [...] pleased when the meal can be washed down only with diluted ‘dago red’ [DA].
1923		‘Gila Monster Route’ N. Anderson Hobo 195: [They] deprived themselves of their daily bread, / And sluffed the coin for dago-red.
1934		T. Minehan Boy and Girl Tramps of America (1976) 154: The dehorn on top of Dago Red has made him drunk but friendly.
1937		‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 205: The other guys in the mod were taking a bath in a couple of gallons of Dago Red.
1945		R. Service Ploughman of the Moon 209: Me, I’ll eat turkey an’ wash it down with dago-red.
1958		W. Motley Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) 266: ‘Good dago red!’ she announced.
1977		A. Brooke Last Toke 70: How you likes to buy youself a whole barrel o’ dago red?
1990		J. Wambaugh Golden Orange (1991) 176: You’re real smooth and sophisticated [...] Like dago red in a fruit jar.

red wine.

1906

Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Sept. 4/7: The ole woman got willin’ on their ’air an’ poured Dago sauce over their Buckley and Nunn blouses.

(US) the Italian, Mexican or Puerto Rican area of a US town or city.

1889		Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 24 Feb. 9/1: Dagotown [...] still flourishes in all its pristine glory [...] down by the railroad tracls, this blot upon the city’s purity [...] Italians, negroes [etc.].
1892		Occidental Medical Times VI 576: From here we went to what is known as Spanishtown and Dago-town, the home, but not the sunny one, of the Mexican and Italian.
1900		Bismarcvk Dly Tribune (ND) 7 May 2/4: There was a Sunday row in Dago-town yesterday. Several of the Italian laborers [were] a little worse for liquor.
1905		Raven VI 18/2: That charwoman we brought over from Dago-town last night reminded me of her.
1916		Word Co. Indep. (Minot, ND) 13 July 11/4: Marhsall Ulrich and County Constable Wilson were called upon to clean up Garrison’s ‘Dago Town,’ [...] which finally ended in a carving bee, with Jacob Peters the sole victim of the Italian method of warfare.
1927		F.M. Thrasher Gang 8: Here is a Polish colony called by the gang boy ‘Pojay Town,’ in contradistinction to ‘Dago Town’ described above.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 25: Negroes predominate; then there are Italians here in this section called dago-town.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 57: Dago Center; Dago Town n [C] Italian or Puerto Rican community in an urban area.