What Italians really think about Italian-Americans

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Fascinating discussion! I went to Italy with my Italian American friend, and he was clearly disoriented by Italy. He's a New Jersey Italian American, so lots of ethnic pride, maybe even a little swagger about being "Italian." I suppose he might have expected instant resonance and a confirmation of some root identity. But that's not what he got. For one, I think the Italians were more fascinated by me, a black American, as a true exotic (as American as can be, but BLACK!)—this was 30 years ago—and for another, I sensed they were standing on caste as Europeans first and foremost. Americans in general had no comparable standing in culture or sophistication, and Italian Americans less so. And I learned from another Italian friend why that was: the Italians who emigrated to America generations back were typically southerners—Sicilians, Neapolitans, Calabrians. The prejudice against them from northern Italians was (and I'm told still is) quite pronounced and blatant. One friend told me her Italian American parents made an unpopular marriage because the father was Sicilian and the mother was from a proper northern family. I think many ethnic white Americans who go back to the old country hoping for a kind of spiritual reset or cultural affirmation run into this same disillusionment: Quite frankly, the countries they derived from couldn't care less. I've heard the same from Irish American friends about Ireland, German American friends going to Germany, Swedish American friends, etc. There are YouTube channels charting the shock of thwarted African Americans who relocate to African countries. I suppose the moral is, nothing will teach us how American we really are except leaving home. What's funny about this is, to the people of all those places we go in search of roots, they don't see us by the divisions we elevate among ourselves. We really do all look alike to them, after a fashion—all American, both wildly naive and overconfident, as ignorant about who we really are as we are about where our forebears originally came from.

As an American of Italian descent, I can say that Professor Coniglio's explanation is very consistent with the stories I heard from my Italian grandparents, who arrived in the 1910's. I always had the feeling that Italian culture moved on from the period of the Italian diaspora, whereas the American concept of what it means to be Italian was frozen. Very interesting video.

A little random anecdote from a Sicilian person born and raised in Sicily: there is this story, in my family, of a cousin with myopia who couldn't afford glasses. Having emigrated to America, she finally managed to buy some and was so enthusiastic about them that she started sending them as gifts to her relatives who remained in Sicily!

Thanks for a very informative and interesting video. I’m a typical Italian-American whose grandparents came from southern Italy. My grandparents were determined to assimilate and didn’t speak Italian at home and wanted their children to speak only English. The only part of their culture that they maintained was the food. I married a woman who was born in Italy but grew up in the USA. Her parents spoke Italian at home and maintained close ties to their families in Italy. In many ways they never assimilated. I learned about Italian culture from my in-laws and I learned how most Italian-Americans, including myself, know practically nothing about Italian language, history, and culture. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting my wife’s relatives in Italy and spending time with them in their homes. It’s given me a completely different perspective than you can get as a tourist. I’m also learning Italian as a way to connect with my roots. I’m somewhat embarrassed by my fellow Italian-Americans who proudly proclaim that they are Italian when they are often so ignorant about Italy.

Wow thank you all for this video and conversation! I’m a Black American and I learned so much about Italian and Italian American Culture. I didn’t know that an Italian invented Bank of America and the telephone. Lots of people from other parts of the world may not understand why people somewhat forsook their culture from their homelands after arriving in America. This video is correct, we had to assimilate into to America for survival. Either we lost money or were killed if we weren’t like the Culture of America 😔.

What Italians think about Italian Americans isn't any different from what other groups of immigrants to America think about each other. That include Mexicans vs Mexican Americans, or Japanese vs Japanese Americans, or Nigerians vs Nigerian Americans, or Somalians vs Somalian Americans, or Thais vs Thai Americans, or Chinese vs Chinese Americans, or Koreans vs Korean Americans. There are cultural changes which results from Acculturation when different cultures take on a unique culture which is not totally one culture, but a diversified one..

Love this! I have my Italian citizenship through my grandfather and this spring I reconnected with Italian cousins in my grandmother's little village in Basilicata. It was a home coming! I now live in Italy part-time and feels like coming full circle.

I confirm what professor Luca Coniglio said. I am from Veneto and the Venetians who emigrated almost all went to Brazil. Many of them in the southern states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. In Brazil the Talian language is recognized which in reality is not Italian but originates from the fusion of the dialects of northern Italy with the predominant component of the Venetian language. Venetians can speak easily with Italian-Brazilians by speaking the Venetian language and them Talian language. I remember when I was a child, letters from Brazil occasionally arrived at home from people with the same surname who were trying to find their origins.

The wealth of information that Professor Luca shared here is its own whole new series. When he spoke of the Italian-American "culture" being more Southern Italian than any other region of Italy I was so intrigued. It made me want to study Italian immigration and the reasons for it. An additional interview with him would definitely be a great idea. Thank you, Danielle, so very much for another wonderful video. ❤ P.S. I LOVED the Sopranos and felt a little hurt hearing about how the series is viewed in Italy, but I totally understand.😉

When he said that he never found an Italian in New York whose family was from north of Rome, I felt that because I AM a 2nd generation Italian-American whose family came from northern Italy, and like he said, I never find people with family from the north like me. It makes me a little sad that I can't speak in Italian with Italian-Americans in New York because either they can't speak Italian at all or they speak in a dialect from a different region that I don't really understand.

You should do an episode about Italian migrations to Latin American countries like Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, ect and how the Italian cultures influenced parts of Latin American culture.

I knew about 100% of everything he talked about. I did a ton of research while I was learning Italian. Plus my Italian friends would tell me about their culture.

I’m From the Dominican Republic. I took an ancestry test, and it showed that I’m 19% Italian and it says I have relatives that lived in the apulia region of Italy. I also have distant Italian cousins who live in New Jersey and Long Island. I never met my paternal grand father, but I believe he was predominantly Italian. My father doesn’t even know that he is literally half Italian.

Fantastic interview. My family on my mother’s side are Argentines of Northern Italian descent. I didn’t know too much of the Italian diaspora until I started watching your videos.

From Italy, near Milan. I agree with the Professor that you would enjoy reading some Italian and specifically Sicilian history, going back to Ancient Roman and Greek times, but also the Renaissance period, when the Dukes of Milan were richer than the Kings of England (as witnessed for example by Shakespeare, who spoke of "the fashions of proud Italy"). Modern Italian history is more controversial, but in the last two hundred years, despite many mistakes e.g. World War II, Italy has progressed from being a collection of mostly poor regional states to its present status as one of the G7 powers and certainly the leading Mediterranean country, if we exclude France, which is only partly Mediterranean.

My parents got me Italian citizenship as a child. It was easy. They raised me both Italian and English!

I remember when I was a student studying in Rome and one of my classmates who the time American always talking about how Italian she was unfortunately, I have to be around when an Italian told her is that you are not Italian you know very little about our language or culture in our customs and that you are an American with Italian ancestry but you're not Italian. I felt sorry for her because he took the air out of her bubble. But I've also had to experience with some African Americans to go to Africa and learn that they are not really African but people of African descent because they're not a member of any particular tribe or group that govern to the societies for the most part still! We really should not fool ourselves into thinking that we are part of societies that we have been long separated from and only have a wisp those cultures exist in our everyday lives.

It’s the same with every ethnicity we have to accept that we are Americans!

As an 2nd generation (NY State) American of Italian origins currently living in Southern Italy (Guardia Sanframondi, Benevento, Campania), I found this fascinating. Thank you!