Biography

A ghetto (Italian pronunciation: [ˈɡetto]), often the ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, typically as a result of social, legal, or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of the ghetto appear across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people. The term was originally used for the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy, as early as 1516, to describe the part of the city where Jews were restricted to live and thus segregated from other peoples. However, early societies may have formed their own versions of the same structure; words resembling "ghetto" in meaning appear in Hebrew, Yiddish, Italian, Germanic, Old French, and Latin. Ghettos in many cities have also been nicknamed "the hood", which is colloquial slang for "neighborhood" after it is shortened to 'hood.