Are Italian Americans White?
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- #italy #findingyourroots #ancestrydna #italianamerican #africanamerican #louisiana #italians #familyhistory #genealogy
I sit down with Stephen Cerulli, a PhD candidate with Italian American roots, to dive deep into the complex narratives of the Italian American diaspora. We explore the intricate layers of identity, culture, and the historical context that frames the provocative question: "Are Italians White?"
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You're an effn genius for this ma'am! I spent a month in NY near a section of Italians and I noticed lots of them were dark and had curly, wooly hair like mines. This is golden job well done!
Yes just not sicilians hence why the boot kicks it
@@Bud-E-Yield420batchagaloupes out on the stoop are blonde n blue eyed in the bronx
You cannot conflate sicily with italy.
@@GODHATESADOPTION What's the difference? Not being a jerk when I ask I'm just assuming there's a difference?
As an African American I remember well growing up when someone in my community would identify someone who was not African American, someone would ask, “were they white,” the response would be, no, they were either Jewish or Italian (if that was the case.) And though we understood they had white privilege both socially and more so legally, they were not “white white” folks, i.e., white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP). If befriended, we would jab at them when bantering, “you know you have some Black blood...” Spike Lee played on this theme in “Do The Right Thing.”
One of the most interesting moments in television history was when iconic singer Tony Bennett, an advocate for Civil Rights and one who always gave credit to Black singers and musicians as far as the foundations of jazz as an art form, responded to Johnny Carson in a serious discussion about some racial issues in which he Mr. Bennett stated that he wasn't "white," Carson looking puzzled asked, "what are you then," Bennett responded, "I'm Sicilian." For a few seconds, you could hear a pin drop....
interesting
And thats exactly why we keep getting exploited and keep getting fooled. Theyre white. Those sicilians are just as racist towards us as the mainlanders. Wuit playing. I'm so tired of these 'cookout' invites, and then we wonder how all our movements are undermoned, why the jews get money that should be going to us, and then they never turn to push for our reparations. They are not our friends. We don't have 'allies' stop that. This is exactly what keeps us behind!
Jewish are TURKISH... Khazar Turks.
@flowerforsyte5671 hot debate on that still.some scholars are saying there are no evidence of this. Evidence destroyed probably 😂
Well said
The concept of "being white" is not a thing here in Italy,
or the whole Europe actually.
Nobody feels the need to identify as white that hard like US americans do, nobody is gonna ask you your "race" or ethnicity on documents, it would be weird as hell.
We identify as italians, or even more so as the particular italian region we are from.
That’s part of the melting pot lie
You actually get judged based off appearances by people who think like this
@@bingflosbyand yet a black American, a black Italian and a black south-African are judged differently in Europe. Why? Because they see the country, not the skin.
@@mr.archivityjudged differently by ?
@@Alice-rc2hw by which country you are from, not the skin
@@mr.archivity I've never been treated differently cause I'm from Italy in Europe. Never.
Excellent video. I don't know why you popped up in my feed but I'm glad you did 👍
Just discovered your channel and I love it! Wow keep up the good work it’s so interesting!!!
Thank you so much!! I have a lot to learn still
In Brazil, most of the descendants of Italians (not mixed) are very white, many are blond with blue eyes. Because most of them came from northern Italy. In the USA,the majority came from the south, which is why they are darker.
e verdade. muito obrigado.
Hannibal
Yes very true
Cannibal
@@rogerio22-l3h worked in the coal minds
the modern idea of racism is uniquely a Germanic protestant idea, historically Italians and Greeks are White, ”Una Faccia, Una Razza" - ”One face, one race”. it is a complete hard cope by germanic ppl (nords) or "blondes" to say that Italics are not White, even more so because Italy has never been one "race" in the sense that everyone looked the same.
Not true. Italy had its own flavor for race science and racism that goes far back. Check out the book At the Roots of Italian Identity 'Race' and 'Nation' in the Italian Risorgimento, 1796-1870 By Edoardo Marcello Barsotti. He and I have the same doctoral advisor.
@@frastefano90 Slavery has existed since ancient Mesopotamia.
There was also slavery in Asia against Koreans from China and Japan that lasted 1,500 years
Slavery existed in almost every continent of the world and in many different time periods with a whole bunch of different communities that had nothing to do with color but with social and economic status.
A sad stain against the flaws of human behavior and conditions.
This is an inaccurate statement
WOW!!!
This is one of your most amazing guests who is extremely well versed in American History, and project a masterclass command on the subject.
He speaks with great eloquence, and gravitas, and; from my perspective, is one of your most edifying guests on your platform!
I hope you can have him return as a recurring guest on your platform - because, I think your interviewing skills are real good at: directing and controlling the conversation to extract maximum benefit from his depth, and wide reservoir of knowledge that pours out like water from a firehose!!!
Thank for your always excellent guests and edifying interviews on American History and other topics!
Thank you for the kinds words
In my experience…I have indeed mistakenly identified a dark haired and brown eyed Irishman for an Italian and a light haired and blue eyed Italian for an Irishman. 🇮🇪🇮🇹
both northern Italians & Irish are a mixture of indigenous Celt & invading Germanic. the differences arent that significant.
the indigenous Brits looked more like George Clooney, Sean Connery, Colin Farrell, Russell Brand, Dominic Cooper (Preacher), Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean), etc. than like Ed Sheeran, Prince Harry, Rupert Grint, etc.
the ginger genes come from Germanic & Scandinavian invasion (the latter especially in northern Britain & the Orkney Islands) & was not common amongst indigenous British Islanders.
& of course Rome ruled much of Britain but the genetic footprint from them is relatively small as Britain was considered the “wild west” frontier of the Roman Empire.
of course Brits lack centuries of West Asian & MENA admixture that many southern Italians have, but the base indigenous populations of northern Italy & Britain were fairly similar & despite the stereotype of ginger Scots & Irish, that is not what indigenous Celts looked like.
aaaand of course there is some overlap amongst most Europeans. because their populations are genetically closer to eachother than to any other group.
@@chokloconqueso8446 Joe Montana is an interesting Italian specimen with his blonde hair and blue eyes..I assume his ancestry is strongly Northern Italian..he could pass as a German in my opinion.
When I was a kid I used to think that actor John Rhys-Davies was either Italian or Spanish ..but later I was shocked to learn that he was a Welshman! lol
I think the darker featured Welsh and Cornish phenotypes were more widespread in the British Isles and Ireland in ancient times. Those are good examples you mentioned.
I think in the field of European anthropological studies these folks are often referred to as “ Paleo Atlantid” phenotypes.
Correct I am north italian and irish but 100% celt dna wise@@chokloconqueso8446
@@redbeardsbirds3747us north italians are celtic by the swiss were all blonde n blue eyed
@@redbeardsbirds3747its called black irish my dad is black irish
My father is Italian from calabria. Dark hair and blue eyes. My mother is Hungarian. I never considered mysekf anything but European white
Thats because a nonwhite person does not have blue eyes . Why people confuse Italians for anything other than European is beyond me.
Se tua padre ha gli occhi blu è della zona centrale della Calabria (Catanzaro, Lamezia Terme): lì arrivarono i normanni per combattere le crociate. E poi rimasero
@@Nome_utente_generico che cosa? I no understand
@@jimstultz3345 but there are whites with brown eyes. Them having brown eyes doesnt make them not white. Aborgionals have a entirely different gene mutation which gives them green and blue eyes. This is not shared with europeans who have different eye colors.
@@corilia9529 He (@_QPO) was saying that your father has blue eyes because he is from central Calabria. The Normans arrived there to fight the Crusades and then remained.
I have a somewhat similar experience as yours: Italian (Calabrese) father, Irish mother. His eyes were hazel and hers were blue. All of my brothers and I have dark hair and blue eyes with the exception of one with hazel eyes. My father's family originated in Longobucco (up in the mountains), which is closest to Acri in Calabria, so QPO would probably have the same explanation for me.
Greeks were also discriminated against, being southern Europeans.
Yet Italy and Greece it’s where Western Civilization comes from. Something is amiss
Fantastic video thanks really puts historical application of racial structures versus racial experience in to context
That was really informative. You need more time. Please, have him back? ❤
Still watching but your hair is 🤩🔥
So nice of you! it's slowly getting back its life!
I agree, the hair is looking good.
Even if none of your other ethnic antecedents had an impact, your Italian heritage alone would definitely explain the beautiful waves and texture. Looks great both ways but nice to see the natural beauty of your hair. (From a half Calabrese Italian-American)
Hmm I know Italians who say they ARE not white straight up
Same here. I consider myself white despite being olive skinned Italian descendend. One of my fellow 'olive brother' Italians (his family is from Sicily) that lives in my area considers himself brown. We're about the same skin tone. Regardless, race is a social construct. I'm happy the the guest being interviewed pointed that out from recollection.
@@paulemerick8661what does “white” mean anyway?
@@capoislamort100 In the basic and broad sense today it would mean at least European descent but also commonly used to connect/associate to describe how most Europeans have fair skin. This doesn't always match the association as there are outliers with some European groups such as Italians many of whom do have olive skin.
Danielle,please bring this young scholar back. He is like you and this young man is telling the truth.
Thank you
Thank you
Trash content. Italians trying to label themselves as not white is laughable. Race is a spectrum, and Italians have always benefited from white privileged, just because they suffered internal segregation and an internal caste system doesn’t mean they were not white.
Ask an Englishman from 1700 if he’d rather his daughter marry an Italian or a black man…
I loved listening to Stephen. I have studied race and racism for years, and I grew up African-American in the Jim Crow South. Therefore, my knowledge about the subject is both scholarly and experiential. Stephen explains the topic in a way that most people should understand. He speaks truth in a way that takes the scariness out, which allows the listener to drop inhibitions and think about that this all means for us today. That is what I like most about him.
I am one of your viewers who was unsubscribed without my knowledge, so I have missed a bunch of episodes. I would encourage you to do some delving into the pseudoscience of race and the pseudoscientists who promoted it - people like François Bernier, Robert Boyle, Richard Bradley, Lord Kames, Carl Linnaeus, John Hunter, Charles White, Buffon, Blumenbach, etc. That is just a few of them. If you have already done this, can you please direct me to those episodes? I would appreciate that.
ARE YOU LIGHTSKIN OR DARK SKIN?
Most scientists reject the concept of race, including the American Medical associations and most geneticists. People's appearance is a result of where they live. Closer to the equator darker skin. See Dr Nina Jablonski.
@@jabbarinnewyork7778 That depends on who's looking.
perfect@@hwgray
Boy!..this is really excellent content, and Mr Cerulli with his critical grasp of history, Italians of the diaspora and a strong three dimensional view of history in the west with respect to race as a construct, capitalism and it's structure makes for a very informative session. Hope to see more of him. Excellent video.
Thank you!
It’s entirely wrong on multiple premises. Mainly being that diaspora Italians didn’t see or understand whiteness. They saw things in terms of power and class. Southern Italian Americans just swapped out “trying to align with northerners” to “trying to align with anglos”. This is a cultural trend that existing on the peninsula that predates the very concept of whiteness and seen throughout the dozens of ethnicies and cultures on the peninsula.
This trend isn’t even specific to the US as a near identical culture of “winning over the hegemony” occurred in diaspora Italians in South America arguably in cultures with a less contentious history surrounding race when compared to America.
Overall a very poor analysis and too forced. Needs some work
Edit: typo and spelling as English is my second language
@@Leonard-nb7jk I would have to disagree with that being I know northern Italians that would call southern Italians or more specifically Sicilians as "Eggplants" I will not use the name. So in Italy there was some ethnic and regional differences, especially between north and south which goes back a long ways.
@@nagone11 that’s exactly my point, ethnic and regional discrimination predate the concept of whiteness, the discrimination against southern Italians has been ongoing for centuries. But during that time period southern Italians would always choose to associate themselves with what they viewed as their northern brothers above non italian foreigners. Emulating the hegemonic discrimination. The trend just continued in an identical fashion once southern Italians moved to the US, swapping northern Italians with anglos.
Interestingly enough, southern Italians that move to northern Italy also act this way.
It’s less about race and more about preexisting culture. Framing it around race is ahistorical
@@nagone11 I’m Italian but was born in Guatemala and we had the same thing happen here, it’s less about whiteness and more about latching to the hegemonic power for protection.
"White" is used as a description of a skin tone. My mother is italian (Sicilian) and looks similar to her " white" freinds. The thing is italians can look just as white as any other white person or some can be olive/ tanned because in southern Italy there are some people that can have up to 20% North African / middle eastern admixture. My brother took a DNA test and had 2% middle eastern admixture. This is largely due to muslim invasions of Sicily. Now genetically Italians cluster closer to other Europeans than any other people. " white people" are just a mix of Europeans that came to America and identified as " white" so yes Italians are "white people" all though some (mainly southern italy/ sicily) can have admixture.
White is not a description of skin tone. There are many northern Chinese, northern Japanese and Korean who are whiter skin tone than most Northern Europeans, but they are not white.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on this, back when being white was a requirement for naturalization to U.S. citizenship. They ruled that someone had to be of European or Middle Eastern descent and have Caucasian features to be considered white. Bhagat Singh Thind, who was Indian (and Indians are Caucasian by the scientific community), was deemed “not white” because the “common man’s understanding” of Caucasian is European or Middle Eastern. Similarly, Japanese and Chinese with white skin tone were also ruled “not white” because the Supreme Court relied on “white” meaning Caucasian.
I love the hair. FYI my male cousin asked who you were. I explained. He said, “she couldn’t see the Black?” He saw it immediately. Where we are from you would have been seen as Black or mixed race immediately. Not White.
Thank you! Im getting used to my hair again. Hahah, youre cousin is hilarious. Im in my winter skin right now :D
She doesn’t even look black at all, just stop
Great guest & discussion. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it!
His emphasis on the difference between American chattel slavery vs slavery around the world is so refreshing to hear because one of the main dismissive, gaslighting deflections when it comes to addressing American slavery with Black people is, "get over it, everyone had slavery".
Chatteł słavery in fact existed throughout much of the globe, to say otherwise is mistaken. If a chiłd was born to a slave they were also a słave, this was true not just in NorthAmeríca.
100% and it’s one of the most important historical developments in the construction of the US race system.
@@GhostSalColonization of the Americas made it race-based. This is a historical fact. At best this comment misses the point. It’s an apologia.
@@GhostSal you're proving my point by refusing to recognize the differences & leaning into the, "it happened everywhere" narrative. Everywhere didn't enslave based on race & then breed their slaves like livestock, like the Americas did.
@@frastefano90 Race was the excuse used, it wasn’t the reason for it. Before it was race, the excuse was religiøn.
This was another good one! He hit home with a lot of history.
It truly boggles my mind that Hialeah, Fl which is working class Hispanics, is considered the whitest City in the country - 92% of Hispanics in the City identify as white. I know Hialeah well and know that most people have some mixed heritage going on having ancestry from several regional Latin American countries - not just Cuba. This suggest to me that there is a lot of racial ambiguity going on regardless of the truth and reinforces the view that “white” is merely a social construct fostered by the original “white” ruling class which even today is having tragic consequences.
Nobody ever defines white, they write all sorts of things to explain one scenario or another, without definitions, so as always, the reader can assume what they will, according to their understanding. Under the definition of European ancestry, as defined by the US Census, Cubans are white, there are plenty of civil and ecclesiastical records to that question. But Cubans are also Hispanic, which the US Census defines as an ethnicity. And ethnicity is not defined as race, but as culture in the census. On a person by person level, each family has their history, and may differ in backgrounds, so broad assumptions do not say anything other than what a broad assumption is meant to say. There's a part of history that also sprang from Europe, which includes Southern Europe, Cubans largely originating in Iberia, but not limited to Iberia as generations moved to the Americas. Spain encouraged and allowed the many groups from different origins to marry, and that is different than the British understanding across history, which did not allow that. Long story short, white is a social construct, regardless of what individuals believe, or what may or may not be popular to think. Biologically, there is no such thing as races of humans, just the one human race. So in the end, whatever people think, is their business, right or wrong, most don't care to be nuanced, be it due to bias, or lack on ability to understand. It's very simple.
White supremacy grants honorary whiteness to those who worship them and join in hating black ppl ,but like always will betray their ' friends ' in the end . Thus you have the border situation ,ask those ppl if they are white or not .
@RT878 are you cuban? Are you Afro cuban?
Hispanic is not a race. Not even an ethnicity. It's a made up american term
Hispanic is NOT a race or ethnicity. In fact I don't even really consider Spanish-speaking Americans truly Hispanic.
Being Hispanic really boils down to one's relationship with Spain and for this reason I why I say Penelope Cruz, Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz Jr are more Hispanic than you're average American that identifies as Hispanic.
There's a big difference between northern and southern Italy; economically, culturally, and linguistically. Without acknowledging that first, it's hard to address your question.
Absolutely agree!
In the US those regional differences begin to matter much less by the 1920s
Black or white? Egyptian immigrant fights for black classification
Hefny
July 16, 1997
Web posted at: 4:22 a.m. EDT (0822 GMT)
From Correspondent Joan MacFarlane
DETROIT (CNN) -- An Egyptian immigrant is suing the U.S. government because they've told him he's white when his entire life he's been black.
Mostafa Hefny was born in Egypt and has always been proud of his Egyptian culture and his African ancestry. But when Hefny immigrated to America, the U.S. government told him he was no longer a black man.
"I was not told by Immigration that I was white until I passed the exam for citizenship and then I was told I am now white," he explains.
Hefny initially laughed when told of his new racial classification, but he's no longer chuckling. He recently filed suit against the U.S. government to get his race classification changed back from white to black.
"It hurts me. It definitely hurts me," Hefny says. "It hurts me because I am unable to reconcile my reality as a black person."
He's on YT I think, that's because the US govt classifies Anyone born in North African as "white" very very silly indeed.
These days you can check whatever box you want on the surveys, they're not going to correct you. But if someone else is writing down your information, you might get stuck with whatever they peg you as
Bingo ,i ask the owner of this channel how it is that obviously dark ppl who are immigrants get to be pretend white and she acted as if she didnt know . They allow these immigrants to claim white to keep their majority in this country while the real whites are dying out ,and to also keep native blacks in check . Its just another web of racism that ppl claim it doesnt have anymore .
the reason for that the guy knew he was going to be treated as black based on his appearance.
That's because if you look the history up of North Africans and middle eastern in America when they first got here they fought to be classified as white because it was easier to immigrate. The census might make a change in 2030 though. They might make MENA ( Middle Eastern North Africans) there own racial category.
I'm learning a lot about European culture through your channel. I always wondered why "white people" (as we black people see you all) do not talk about their experiences with race, ethnicity etc in the American context.
Go watch Dane Calloway as well
Some talk about it, some don't. Generally, in my experience, the older the people are the less they want to talk. Believe it or not (and I find that most younger people do not believe it) there was a lot of discrimination against European immigrants in the early part of the last century. Back then there were no equal opportunity laws, no fair housing laws, no "press one for (language), and if you didn't speak English, you were in a bind. One reason that you used to see in northern cities organizations like Sons of Italy, Polish Falcons, Slovak Sokol, Croatian Fraternal Union, Slovenian National Home, and others was that they could find people there who could give them some help. Lots of those groups provided life insurance to members, which was not always easy for immigrants to get, and it could be expensive.
Because of the discrimination, many people were told not to talk about their origins. I know people whose families changed names and even churches in order to "fit in" and suddenly, with an anglicized family name and attendance at a Protestant congregation rather than a Catholic or Orthodox Church, they had no problem getting a job.
In my own case, I tried looking onto some of my families' origins and found that some of the older relatives wouldn't talk. I heard, "We left for a reason, let it be." There were some bitter conflicts in the "old days" in Europe and some are still continuing today (for example, Ukraine and Russia). People who made it to the USA wanted to leave all of that behind them.
As people of the later generations intermarried, they gradually dropped the traditions and languages of their ancestors. There used to be an event in a town in southwestern Pennsylvania called "Nationality Days" and there were booths selling food and crafts from each group, and often performances by a band or dancers. The newer generations had no interest and the celebration died. The groups that I can remember included Greek, Italian, Russian, Carpatho-Russian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Polish, Scottish, German, Slovak, and "American Negro" - that was the name on their booth. I am sure that there were others but those are the ones I can remember.
Thw white concept is purely american. They get confused when the blonde blue eyes spanish or Italians show up. To the american standard, the "whitest" as the Polish, Croatians, Czechs etc are not white because they dont speak English or they are not protestants
Europe is made up of about 50 different countries. Most of those countries contain several different native populations. So there are hundreds of different ethnicities with history between them. There is racism in Europe and there was a lot of racism in the past. To you we probably look the same but the differences are real and have many times led to wars and genocides. It was the same thing with native American tribes and African tribes. We're no different.
@@chesterdonnelly1212Not to mention that most of those ethnic groups were forced to homogenize with the nationalisation movements in europe. Their languages were often prohibited and their customs ridiculized
The social construct of race was created and written into legislation in America. Most European non English immigrants were identified by their country of origin. It wasn't until later that other European colonizers and then later immigrants, assimilated to a white identity in order to take advantage in the prosperity that America offered white MEN! They also inherited the racist practices towards black and non-white people. Italian Americans included themselves in these practices because they could pass as white, despite still facing discrimination from.other European Americans. The social construct of race was also used to disrupt any potential uprisings of ethnic groups.
Bingo. I
I knew someone from high school who came from Greece. He had a mediterranean berid phenotype. He was constantly bullied for it by two classmates and was often called a “mongrel”.
I had to look that up!
We Sicilians are proud to be "mongrels", certainly! In fact, in Sicily, we define ourselves exactly like that, and I'm not joking. You could ask any Sicilian of this self-terminology, that is: "razza bastarda (bastard race)" or "bastardi, di razza (bastards, purebread)" haha
But it's a figure of speech, anyway, because we are evolved enough to know that there is only one race, and that is the human one.
We are of mixed Mediterranean genetics, in reality: South European, North African and Middle Eastern.
Greetings from Italy, ciao-ciao!
Where the hell did you go to highschool? Alabama? Like sure, ppl in my own area may feel hard pressed to call a dark skinned sicilian a white man, especially if he's from there, but they wouldn't call him a mongrel. He'd just be "ethnic" or "foreign."
White is the American way to say the Caucasian Race. Italians are 100% Caucasian.
There are only 4 races in the human species. Caucasian (White), East Asian (Yellow), Sub-Saharan (Black), Aboriginal (Brown).
Race isn't all about skin color, because there are some people within each racial group with varying skin colors. Race is about skeleton, skull shape, hair, odor, genetic behavior patterns. If your skeleton was found at a crime scene, forensic professionals would know your race from observing your bones and skull.
Race is not ethnicity. Within each race, there are a bunch of ethnicities. Example being East Asians (Yellow) are Thai, Korean, Mongolian, Japanese, Chinese, and Native American. That's right, Native Americans are genetically East Asian.
There are some races that are mixed. Example Indian people especially is southern India, they are Caucasian & Aboriginal mixed. The people of Mexico, South/Central America are Caucasian & East Asian mostly.
The Caucasian Race are the indigenous people's from Europe, North Africa, Middle East, Northern India, and parts of Central Asia. All of these people have the same skull and very similar dna that clusters together. So yes Italians are "White", but no they are not Anglo-Saxons, different ethnic group. Within Italy though Northern Italians, especially on the border with Austria, they look more "german" ethnically than than Southern Italians. Southern Italians look more Arab & North African ethnically.
You do known that some decided on the term for race and made up the different groups. Why do you think an asian person is label yellow when there skin is not the color yellow and the same is true for the other races.
@@EyeOfTheWatcher I agree, color's are a human social contruct. Race and Ethnicity though are absolutely real. All of the race and ethnicity science from the late 1800's is very accurate. Their data matches dna genetic distance mapping today matches what scientists were talking about over 100 years ago, well before the discovery dna. Anthropology isn't new, they could tell by looking at bones back in the 1700's if it was a European or African person. They even knew back in the 1800's that all humans originated in East Africa and branched out and migrated around the world. Scientists from 200 years ago were just as intelligent as they are today, they just have more information today.
Caucasians are not white, that would be Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. They are now using Caucasian interchangeably for white since so many Americans are mixed. Caucasian comes from the caucus region. But if having Spanish/Hispanic is not considered white, why should Italians...blonde, blue eyes is much more common in Spain than Italy.
@@KR-bh8vj Google "the Caucasian race" you knucklehead. 😂
North Africans are not Caucasian, pls stop
They bundled us into “whites” in the U.S, because anglos knew they didn’t have the majority in the world. They needed as many “whites” as possible. If you look at ethnicity/racial groups in the U.S. it’s a very sinking feeling noticing they didn’t include Italians or Greek or Portuguese or Turk, (southern Europe) as well as most of the Mediterranean/middle eastern countries as their own group. They bundled us all into “white”. And broke it down as,
(2021)
White 58%
Hispanic and Latino 19%
Black 13%
Asian 6%
2 or more races 3%
American Indian 1%
Very valid point. African Americans would have had a lot less political influence if the one drop rule had not been instituted. Now that the white elites see that the white majority may be tenuous, they are allowing categories such as "mixed" , with the hope of fracturing the black political bloc.
Lol no, they did it simply because Italians are white, not to increase any numbers.
By the way, the first people to categorize people as white were actually Spanish colonists, not Anglos. They are the people who started it with their own casta system, hundreds of years before Anglo-Americans started putting people into boxes.
@@darrellm9915lmao they 100% did it for political reasons sweetheart bc the Arabics are also listed as white 😂😂😂
@@delgi9551 There's no proof they did it for political reasons. Italians are white, because they are of majority European descent, which is what being white means.
Arabs are only listed as white in the U.S, not the entire world. Most would not consider them white, since they aren't European.
Hispanic latinos are white too most of them.
Danielle, thanks so much for bringing Stephen to us. This was very informative and interesting content. The presentation did a great job of illuminating the nuance that makes up the intersection of race, equity, geography, geopolitics, cultural/language assimilation, access to education, external assignment of race and likely more that I'm missing. It wasn't so much that this information was new to me, but more the power of hearing two well-intentioned, well-informed and OPEN MINDED people having an energetic dialog that brings context to the nuance and creates a tapestry of another slice of the American Pie. Without history and interpretive context, we a destined to repeat our mistakes. Bravi. Siete entrambi grandi. ❤🇮🇹🇺🇲
Thank you
This whole debate about Italians being white or not is totally an American thing to discuss, Italians were the perfect type of immigrant in Brazil and Argentina, European and Catholic, it didn't matter if you were from Veneto or Sicily you'd be considered white. Particularly in Brazil, the political elite believed that whitening the population would bring progress to the country.
It is 100% a US thing because race is so ingrained into the US is organized. Not to say Latin America doesn't have its own forms of racial domination.
@@frastefano90 It's so because the anglos believed they were the only white people on the face of the earth and that, as Protestants. they were a kind of chosen people. More than a racial domination was a racist one.
@@frastefano90no its a US thing, because this country was settled by "superior" white ethnics who debated the whiteness of italians against their own. This was not a thing in Mexico or Peru. Had the Dutch colonized Peru, those same italians would also have their whiteness called into question.
The Southern Italians were not classified as White. They were a dark tone and were considered "colored". Many married White women and were reclassified as White and so are their descendants.
Yes, it's an American thing with race. Europe had a religious issue that later became racial.
@@meb777 Considered by the KKK? Maybe you've seen too many people who call themselves Italian, but are dark, because they have ancestors from other areas of the world. You should take a nice trip to Italy, but with someone who can tell you who is Italian and who isn't.
Stephen Cerulli Phd: Thank you for sharing your research and outreach.
Emphasis on how you connect cause and effect of economics and social conventions.
Thank u
@@frastefano90thank you for being Danielle's guest/ resource person. I hope you return to the channel & discuss other similar topics with her.
@@frastefano90hi. Have you ever been to Italy?
@@giulioBonati Yes. Most of my mother’s family lives there. I even spent extend time there as a student and backpacker.
@@frastefano90 so you are Italian by both side. May I ask where in Italy? (Sorry if I sound inquisitive)
Home ownership no longer creates "generational wealth." Today, with property taxes rises all the time and insurance rates shocking and unpredictable, home ownership is often a burden not a gateway to financial freedom.
It is changing indeed. In the end, I go into historical contingency a bit.
Inheriting a house I still think would set people up a lot better. We just need to get back into the mindset of remembering homes are to be lived in first and foremost, not just a thing to buy and sell. If people have children they shouldn't expect them to move out just because they reach adulthood, they should expect the home to be passed down from generation to generation so their family doesn't have to worry about where they are going to live.
Only paying 1000 a year in property taxes is sure is cheaper than paying the same amount every month renting.
General wealth as a concept has a lot of misconceptions, people think it goes back to słavery (whích ended in the 1800s).
Except back then life was very hard for the majority of people, liife expectancy was much lower and just about everyone lived in poverty. The average worker made $16.00 a week in the 1800s, working 12 to 16 hours a day. Some trades made as little as two dollars a week and workplace safety was basically nonexistent.
What is an example of expenses back then?
* 1 bag of flour $1.80
* Small measure of potatoes daily at .17 per day $1.19
* 1/4 lb of tea .38
* 1 qt milk .56
* 1 lb cheap coffee .35
* Sugar 3 1/2 lb $1.05
* 1/2 ration meats per week $3.50
* 4 lb. butter $1.60
* 2 lb. lard .38
* Dried apples for treats .25
* Vegetables .50
* Soap, starch, pepper, salt, vinegar, etc. $1.00
* 2 bushels of coal $1.36
* Kerosene .30
* Sundries .28
* Rent $4.00 week
Total $18.50
(This example is from the book Bread and Roses).
This family spent $2.50 more a week than they made and had nothing left for entertainment, clothing, doctor visits or emergencies. During the Industrial Revolution and before, even children were employed. Working 12 to 16 hours a day, six to seven days a week, often employed in very physically demanding dangerous work.
@@GhostSal Good point. I think "generation wealth" is probably a made up term used in academia. Even "wealthy" aristocrats who inherited vast estates would often fall victim to changes in fortune.
I feel Italians have had some of their culture appropriated by Northern Europeans because of their contributions via the Roman empire. In a lot of media they represent ancient Romans as British or Germanic in appearance. Rarely do they cast the ancient romans with real Italian looking people. Because of this I myself thought Italians looked more Northern European until I started seeing more media with actual real Italians. like White Lotus season 2, The Equalizer 3 and more. I was surprised that a lot of real Italians look ALMOST like Middle eastern, Spanish and North African people. Again I reiterate "almost" They certainly didn't look British and Germanic like the representation I was used too. White washing history by making the ancient Roman's look North European and not Mediterranean, in my opinion was a very big tool in fueling white supremacy as Rome is often romanticized and praised. By making the ancient Romans look North European, it made people in extent worship and praise Northern European features.
The Italians that look like Spaniards are the handsome white Italians like Al Pacino and Sylvester Stallone who look like the man in my avatar ..they probably have Celtic and Germanic and Iberian roots.
I agree, as someone with Italian heritage and proud of the history, I’ve grown tired of seeing Brits play ancient Romans. I’d really like to see Italian actors filling these roles.
"handsome white Italians"? That's the white supremacy I was talking about. All Italians look handsome and pretty. Whether they are more Northern in appearance like Leonardo DiCaprio (who is Italian mixed ) or brown / Mediterranean in appearance like Alessia Cara. Just as all people, of all races and colors on this planet are handsome and pretty. Also, even if Al Pacino and Sylvester Stallone did happen to have some Germanic DNA, They don't look British or German. They clearly look South European, distinctively different in appearance from the North Europeans they have play as Romans in the movies and all media representations. @@asturiasceltic3183
"handsome white Italians" ? It seems you place "white Italians" on a pedestal. I would argue all Italians are handsome. Whether they are more northern in appearance like Leonardo Dicaprio, who is Italian mixed. Or more southern Mediterranean in appearance, like Alessia Cara. Also, Sylvester Stallone and Al Pacino don't look Germanic or British even if they have traces of it in their DNA. They clearly look South European, Distinctively different than the Northern Europeans they have play and represent as Romans in movies and art. @@asturiasceltic3183
@-asturia "handsome white Italians" ? It seems you place "white Italians" on a pedestal. I would argue all Italians are handsome. Whether they are more northern in appearance like Leonardo Dicaprio Who is Italian mixed. Or more southern Mediterranean in appearance like Alessia Cara. Also, Sylvester Stallone and Al Pacino don't look Germanic or British even if they have traces of it in their DNA. They clearly look South European, Distinctively different than the Northern Europeans they have play and represent as Romans in movies and art.
Stephen explaining the origins of the concept of race should be unilaterally mandated curriculum.
Johnny Cash was attacked for “having a Negro Wife”. (First Wife, Roseanne’s Mom.) She was Sicilian.
Her mother was a mulatto or quadroon that passed for an "ethnic white"
And SHE reminded me of Eartha Kitt. She could have passed for Eartha's sister.....
I think there's more to her story racially.
@@RaiRaiBrown You can see the Black in her, whatever the story. Old World or New, but it's still there......
It seems counterintuitive that this idea of whether Italians are white is even a thing. They formed the Roman Empire, and one of their members discovered America the fact they were ever looked down upon is very puzzling. People have been and still are too concerned with race and color and miss the point that we are all a part of one race, the human race!
Italians didnt discover america there were ppl already here ..my ppl . And clearly you dont know the basis of white supremacy which is anglo saxon ,not all europeans fit that group that came from england so no italians are not really white and a lot are mixed with black since the moors conqured italy for hundreds of years thats why they dont think italians are white
If they aren't white Manifest Destiny gets blown to shreds.... Christopher Columbus was most definitely the most famous Italian Merchant - even though my own Choctaw Ancestors tell of stories of the Nvhullo (Vikings) that predates the landing on Modern Hispanola.
I’ve been saying that for years. Why were the direct descendants of the Romans persecuted to begin with?
I see someone didnt like my comment 😆
Italians did not discover America, Christopher Columbus did under the Spanish Crown, the Catholic Monarchs. And he discovered it for Europe, regardless of people already living there. For them, it was a discovery, that simple. Nowhere in the Spanish literature since 1492, did Columbus nor the Spanish exclude the fact that people were already living in the places he discovered (anything you know today, is due to them writing it down). They wrote endlessly about the Natives, write down their languages, preserving it til this day. But they also believed in marrying the natives, legally allowed, and had many descendants, countless of which alive today. In the US, there's a British understanding, different than the Spanish, so everyone is tainted here with uneducated notions over race, meanwhile, the Spanish world incorporated all people. If you go to the records on familysearch, you can read for day, and years, the documents account marriages, births, and deaths, all humans, mixed in every combination.
Stephen repping Stamford Ct! My town.
East side in the house
@@frastefano90 lol Springdale too 😀
Glenbrook in the house!
Italians (southern Italians specifically) didn’t fight to be whíte, we fought to be accepted (the result was then being seen as “whíte”).
Read A Great Conspiracy against Our Race
Italian Immigrant Newspapers and the Construction of Whiteness in the Early 20th Century by Peter Vellon. Whiteness was a crucial part of that acceptance process
@@frastefano90 Not from our perspective, perhaps from theirs but not for us. Columbus was the posterboy that was used to push for acceptance (I made a video explaining what happened and why).
@@GhostSal Just watched. It has many issues.
First, Italians were initially welcomed in NOLA. Dixie's Italians by Jessica Barbata Jackson is a great place to learn about this. It changed as time went on.
Secondly, the first Columbus Day had nothing to do with the New Orleans lynching. Anglos celebrated Columbus in the 1790s, and the Irish and Northern Italians in America were in the 1860s. T. Kubal covers this in Cultural Movements and Collective Memory.
Do you realize Harison also paid reparations? And this did not establish Columbus Day; it was a one-time proclamation.
Linking it to the lynchings is a lie promoted by national Italian American organizations, especially Basil Russo's ISDA and COPOMIAO.
@@frastefano90 You weren’t paying attention to the video, I said PresHarrison made it a one time proclamation and was later made an annual holiday.
@@frastefano90 Anglos didn’t really celebrate Columbus before that, they may have written about him and held a gathering but that’s different than actually celebrating him or celebrating Italian Americans.
The White race is extremely diverse. This is why I get annoyed when people say something is not "diverse" if it's too White . It's an insult. We have all the diversity we need.
White as a race is a moving pendulum. Starts with Wasp and slowly expands to Irish, Italian, MINA, latinos, and mixed raced. It’s become diverse primarily for political and social reasons not common heritage.
There is Racism but no Races. Races are Horses, Dogs, Cows and Sheep breed by Humans to fulfill different Purposes.
That last sentence was kinda... 🚩
@@amazinggrapes3045 how so?
@@MeadeSkeltonMusic white supremacist talking points.
A guy who worked in my building years looked kinda mixed so i asled him he said he was mostly Sicilian and that many are mixed with black! Hmmm wonder how many Sicilians are mixed given how close they are to Africa.
And you believed him?
If he was mixed “błack”, that’s probably from here, in the southern US Sicilians and błack people intermarried in the beginning (when Italians started coming over).
In Sicily you do have some Moor influence, which varies town to town and family to family, but the Moors were mostly Arábs (not błack). Most Sicilian DNA has some Arab influence, some have Norman influence, Spanish influence, Greek influence and direct lineage with Ancient Romans.
I have Sicilian ancestry, I live in NJ, my parents are originally from eastern Sicily and I still have several relatives there. My family did a 23 & me, it was over half MENA, and nearly 10% SSA. The MENA was Egyptian, Levantine, Samaritan, Algerian and Maghreb. The SSA was mainly Sudanese and Ethiopia.
@@ToxiCisty SSA is not common at all in Sicily, Ethiopia might come up on rare occasions but that’s from Italy going to war with Ethiopia and having a presence there for a little while (not from them coming to Sicily).
@@GhostSal ya I haven’t really seen many Sicilian results with similar SSA as my results. I have seen equally as high MENA however it’s usually closer to 15-30% but occasional there’s significantly higher amounts. I thought I’d have more Greek, I think it’s just that 23 and me count Greek In southern Italian or rather clump it in or mis-identify it.
Very interesting video, well done.
Excellent video!
Glad you liked it!
Occhipinti is the surname of Sicilians on my mothers side,the name means painted eye, alot of blue eyes auburn haired ppl in that line of relatives.
The 1924 act limited immigration to a quota of 2% of the existing population already in the country. Simply put if we had 100 Italians living in America the quota would allow 2 more. The problem with this formula is that even though it was 1924 and the 1920 census was available, they purposefully used the 1890 census.. Most Italians immigrated after 1880 but Italian immigration exploded after 1890....using the 1890 census was a very convenient way to keep America WASP, specifically blonde hair and blue eyes.
Bingo!
More Southern Italians left after that was passed, than came in.
Very intelligent young man. I was the first one in my family to graduate HS and that was in 1980. My mom 11th grade, dad 6th grade. Great video!
Thats really amazing
The guest stated "Why is there a need for a race" . Same as saying what does it mean to be "White"
You set up a system based on the hierarchy of skin colour. And separate these skin tone classifications into racial categories. You have White at the Top and Black at the bottom.
This was set up to practice racism. Noting more, nothing less.
Does anybody else agree that in the summer you get treated like shit compared to the winter when your skin is fairer?
Im in my winter skin right now since it is February and winter in Nashville. If I dont wear sunscreen in the summer I get pretty dark and thats when I started getting weird questions from strangers😆
My neighbors were Lebanese and going to Florida, no problem. Coming back from Florida after getting dark from the sun, be careful driving through the South in the 1960s.
@@nemomarcus5784same!!! Lebanese Missourian since the turn of the LAST century.
@@Carina-23im italian and irish but i dont burn just bronze while my black irish dad turns to a lobster my blue eyed blonde italian mom turns brown/gold
@@Carina-23 real italians are celtic so...
Can you do black Canadians? We have quite the American history intertwined with Canadian history.
I would love to learn about that history! Any specific thing to look into?
@@nytnsure, do a presentation on how the black Canadians invented hockey 🏒.
No just like Spaniards, Greeks, and Portuguese Europeans we look too diverse for any of these reductive American racial labels. I’m not even dark Italian and I’ve been discriminated against once, as well as asked about my race various times.
yep, greeks alot of them are very brown and even sometimes can be confused for being a mestizo mexican. Spaniards have African moor blood and just a look at the iberian women with that blood shows the distinction between them and Anglo european/ germanic european. And italians in some ways is more closer to Middle east and turks than Western europe. Whiteness is a social term for Western germanic europeans
Agreed. I think my country of America has caused mass confusion with these racial terms of white and black. These boxes are so constricting and have erased the cultures of so many in the process. I believe Mediterranean is its own thing, and we should have the right to write down Mediterranean and not white.
Totally, I have both Portuguese and Italian in me and am generally not too dark but do put on a really dark deep tan. My hair is even blond tinted due to the Welsh and Dutch in me. When I so much as tan, people will ask about my ethnicity all the time. I once went through a phase where I dyed my hair black and was often taken to be either Native American or Latino and even experienced unwarranted attention from law enforcement a few times. It was just insane! It really made me question a lot of what I had always thought about race, privilege, and identity.
Poles and Irish are not Mediterranean, therefore do not have the likelihood of looking non-white, yet were discriminated against. Furthermore, Irish were once considered less than black! @@joeyscribbles9803
Mediterranean. Exactly! @@LostNFoundASMR
This was a phenomenal discussion! I would love to have heard the outtakes and sidebars. 😊
So if whiteness is a social construction, how can we change that and become the "colorblind" society that is desirable? Is the "melting pot" ideal dead? We all came from somewhere, and we are all Americans. What I mean is that the desirable end should be that nobody has an advantage over others because of race, national origin, religion, color of skin, height, weight, hair texture, and on and on and on. (I'll call these "personal attributes.") I believe there will always be economic stratification, as that has existed since ancient times. However, being economically advantaged and in a privileged position doesn't mean those people individually or as a group are inherently better - or the poor and less fortunate are inherently inferior and worthless -
than others, like we observe with the value judgments made because of a person's or group's personal attributes.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Content of character: what a person actually does rather than what society thinks the person or group does. Actions are important, both for what the individual does and achieves and how they are looked at and judged in society. We are not animals, programmed to have particular responses to various stimuli. We as a nation need to go past the animalistic thinking that is cleaving our nation based on unsubstantiated and unjustified perceptions of people due to their personal attributes.
This century, I am considered to be white. The groups my forebears originated in, including Jews and Italians, weren't always considered to be white. I didn't change it. What did?
I think there are places we can point to to draw pluralist ideas from. In the US we have Cooperation Jackson as a great example. They argue to truly challenge racism, we have to strenuously challenge other forms of domination.
Very intelligent questions you ask. How we change or dismantle the social construct I believe first we the people most stop addressing ourselves as colors but instead by our culture and heritage examples Dominican, Italian, German, Nigerian etc and on all forms and everyday conversations, we also must demand these changes from the law makers. And to answer your question when Jews and others became white first after Bacon Rebellion and numerous laws prior to that only Anglo British was white
First off, kudos to Ms. Romero and Mr. Cerulli. It is inspiring to see younger Italian Americans taking their heritage seriously beyond Nonna's meatballs or mob movies.
Just a few quickie comments:
a) Columbus--True regarding our national organizational leaders ("if you don't back the Columbus issue 100% they don't recognize you"); however, the subject of Columbus is as nuanced as Italian American history. As scholars like Carol Delaney have discovered (by actually reading his journals, unedited and un-cherry-picked), Columbus was actually a force for good, particularly within the degraded context of colonialism. He is being used as a straw man by multiculturalists to taint Western Culture.
b) Ms. Romero also points out that our leaders shouldn't be putting all of their bocce balls in the Columbus basket. Also true. They have failed (Cerulli's apt word) in using any of their wealth to build a solid intellectual foundation to perpetuate the study of It Am culture.
c) The comment by the African American woman below as to the Italians' "in-between" status is apt. We may have succeeded economically, but we lag behind culturally (Hollywood stereotypes) and the powers-that-be (WASP's) do NOT consider us one of them.
Incidentally, kudos to her for pointing out Tony Bennett's work on civil rights. I'm not sure Bennett identified himself as Sicilian, though; his people were from Calabria, I believe. Other Italian Americans also worked for civil rights, including Frank Sinatra, the Catholic priest James Groppi, and social justice activist Mario Savio, leader of the Free Speech movement. Ditto many Italian American writers like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Diane DiPrima.
d) For more information, visit: www.stereotypethis.com
First of all, it would be interesting to know how many times this boy has been to Italy (since he believes that there are parts of the country inhabited by blacks or mulattos or strange transitional mutants) and how many Hispanic ancestors he has. He told us that he has Italians and that he considers himself Italian, but he probably also has different origins (as would be normal, given that he is sixth generation).
If you ask yourself what purpose it would serve, I'll tell you straight away that it would serve to understand the personal problems that influence his vision about Italians.
Secondly, when I hear your historians talk, I break out in hives. It's as if they see the world with only one eye. From a certain date to a certain date, according to them, Italians stop emigrating to the USA because the USA no longer wants them. As if what was happening in Italy in the same period counted for nothing and as if all Italians always wanted to constantly go to the USA. Guys, you're getting a little crazy. Yours is not the best country in the world. There were periods in which people didn't emigrate from Italy because there was a dictatorship that prevented it Then other periods when there was work here and others in which there was no work, but it was better to emigrate to Germany or France or Switzerland than to the USA.
All of this occurred regardless of U.S. immigration regulations.
What you really didn't understand is that the emigrants were forced to leave due to economic conditions, but they all wanted to return home at the end of the experience. Going to the USA meant not always being able to, because it was too far away. So, it was a desperate option. As soon as absolute desperation ended, the closest option (in Europe) was preferred. Furthermore, don't take into account that there has been a very strong internal emigration in Italy.
Maybe you should talk more with real Italians and not always tell it between fifth and sixth generations, mixed with other ethnic groups.
I have done a few interviews with Italians who are from Italy, and a few more are coming this month. Since this video was about the Italian AMERICAN experience, it seems more prudent to talk to people who identify and/or study the Italian American experience.
Also, regarding your comment "What you really didn't understand is that the emigrants were forced to leave due to economic conditions, but they all wanted to return home at the end of the experience. "
Stephen said the same thing almost verbatim in the video.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
Interesting that you call a 33-year-old man a boy... As for your question, I have lived and studied in Italy; half of my mother's family lives in Italy. If you actually listen to the interview, which, based on this comment, you didn't, or you lack listening comprehension (I lean towards the latter), I laid out several different opinions on the subject. But what does that matter? I guess no one is a real Italian like you! PS All my ancestry is from Italy. And, even if it wasn't, that should not matter.
@@nytn I've heard what he said, but he continues to see the problem with one eye. An emigration relationship is made up of two parts, two interests and two different legislations. Both must be studied simultaneously.
@stephencerulli2041, Im only a halfsie! What do I do? :D
@@giorgiodifrancesco4590if you want to go home feel free
Cerulli couldn't explain it better! We're thrilled to have him in our 1st episode on air on Feb 21st, stay tuned!
There are more Italians in South America than in the US.
True, many in Argentina and Brazil
You rock.
I would like to know how people from other caste-oriented countries deal with these questions. Caste, casta, race, ethnicity, tribe, etc.
Forever, i am finding so many people quickly learning the advantage of distancing themselves from those who were trafficked here. It hurts.
Spain invented the entire concept of white with their casta system. Before that, no one called themselves white. For the most part, Italians were considered white since they were European.
@@asturiasceltic3183⋅ Spanish people didn't called themselves _blancos_ ("whites") in colonial context. They called themselves _Españoles_ (Spaniards).
I love watching your content 👏
benefiting from ¨whiteness¨ doesn't mean you are white. there are/were jews that have changed their last name in order to pass for white and benefit from ¨whiteness¨/white privilege in order avoid antisemitism/racism, but that doesn't mean they are white. and there have also been black people etc that have passed for white and benefited from ¨whiteness¨/white privilege but that still doesn't make them ¨white¨.
Lots of interesting points. I think he does simplify the issue of northern vs. southern Italians being treated differently, and being seen as different, racially, in U.S. history. Those Italians who were considered white enough to be U.S. citizens in the 18th century and earlier, were almost entirely northern Italians; they wouldn't have looked at southern Italians as their equals in that time period. The notion that "everyone from the Italian peninsula is equally Italian, and the equal of every other Italian" is a modern idea that is in the current Italian constitution. It was put there to help unify the country, by legislating the erasure of regional and local differences and prejudices. I don't think that we can talk about the experience of northern Italians in early America, and extrapolate from that to argue that southern Italians and Sicilians have always been considered white or "close enough" to white throughout U.S. history. I think the idea of Italian-Americans in general (encompassing the earlier northerners and the later southerners and Sicilians) starting out as nonwhite/"worse than the N****" and becoming "whites on a leash" (from one of your recent videos), is a much more accurate description.
The financial/getting loans issue that he talked about, was an improvement largely due to A.P. Giannini and his Bank of Italy (which became the Bank of America): he founded his bank initially because no banks would do business with Italian immigrants. It was only because of B of A's success that other banks changed their practices towards immigrants; I don't think that we can attribute that financial success because of bank loans to Italian immigrants' whiteness, though! It should come as no surprise to find that Giannini, although born in California, came from parents who immigrated from Genoa, i.e. northern Italy. He didn't have that southern Italian racial bias to work against as he rose in financial property (his father came to California during the Gold Rush and made enough to buy land and start a business, so that's where the basis of his fortune came from).
I went into regional differences a bit in the unedited version. That said by the 1920s those started meaning much less and now days means even less (in the US)
Also southern Italians were able to immigrant and become citizens before reconstruction. A contingent of Southern Italians fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War as the 6th Regiment, European Brigade.
@@frastefano90so did many Mexicans 😂 so that still is a flawed argument
There are still Chinatowns (27:20) that "are slums" (his words) because there are still hundreds of thousands of poor Chinese immigrants coming to the USA each year, not because of some great prejudice against Chinese people. And one needs only to visit the suburbs of New York City to see how Asian immigrants, and indeed immigrants from Europe, Latin America, and Africa access the middle class (the "indicators of whiteness," according to Cerulli) within a generation.
Arthur ave is pristine n pure
yea that guy was terrible
How many Italians have or want to return to Italy?
If you visit Italy it is so clear that Italians are very European and yes, very white.
Absolutely agree.
I visited Italy many times, they are white people
I would bet that neither of you visited the south of Italy
I am a northern Italian and I can tell you that, in many cases, it is not possible to distinguish a northern Italian from one from southern Italy just by physical appearance.@@michaelk4740
Then you should visit Norway or Sweden
Italians also used to get murdered by KKK in america and are not culturally white
Italians are Mediterranean white but not aryan just like Greeks and Turks as well as Iberians. Most Italians in America nowadays are very mixed too so you have to consider that.
Excuse you. We're not mediterraneans we are Atlantic in the Northwest Spain hun.
In Northwest Spain our closest relatives are the Irish. It was us who invented the entire concept of whiteness with our caste system. Before that nobody called themselves white. And we are not associated with Greeks and Turks. Our founding fathers were visigothic and Celtic, fool
.
@@asturiasceltic3183 Northwest Spanish are closest to Southern French, Spanish and Portuguese not Irish. Irish are closest to Scots, English and Welsh.
@@jackieblue1267 our closest relatives are the Irish. Even the Irish Times and scientists acknowledge this. There's a trillion scientific articles on this. Our DNA is closest to the Irish and we are a Celtic Nation and there's nothing you can do about it.. even the Irish invite us to bagpipe during the New York City Saint Patrick's Day Parade. You obviously have not done your research and know much about Northwest Spain
@@asturiasceltic3183 Genealogy and population genetics is a hobby of mine. I've read all the latest studies and done all the dna tests.
it was said that Africa began south of the Pyrenees
The purest and oldest of all living Europeans are the Basques .. so scientifically and historically you're wrong so you need to stop quoting little Napoleon who said that to degrade his enemies in the South that were Spaniards who are more closely related to Irish and Germans with over 90% having no Middle East admixture except for the south in Andulucia.
I am proudly basque...and proudly oen of the original peoples of Europe way before the blended French
@@Neoyorchese Yes, you are a purebred thoroughbred like the Basques are known to be.
@@asturiasceltic3183 lol i dont know though, just that the Basque were some of the first ones on the land...
Yeah the man in my avatar looks so African..Eye roll
Great video, lol think I shared it with like 4 people lol
I appreciate that so much!
I am a 'terrone', I took a DNA test and I am roughly 76% european 24% middle eastern. I don't consider myself fully white but I don't identify as brown either. If I had to choose in a census I would probably pick white.
Many Cubans like Marco Rubio score 92% European and go under the Latino category and represent the "brown people". The Irony!!! 😂😂😂
There is no such thing as "fully white" unless you come from a Nordic or Scandinavian culture. Having a Middle Eastern heritage makes you mixed.
Rubio does check Latino but he also select white as a race and Latino as ethnicity. As the gentleman stated these are social status so when his ID was read 📚 everything was 👌 the people are ignorant of the social status of the USA Government placement of people. So skin color is a bias but it the clarification of what is Caucasian which are mid light brown folk to white Gov. Classification
Why identify with an anglo american label? Why identify with a crayon color?
@@ceasarandrepont1243 That said Hitler.
White is a skin color, not a race. Latin peoples, Anglo Saxons, Hungarians, Slavic peoples, Greeks, Turks are the Caucasian race. There are differences in skin color among these peoples, probably because of the climate, the peoples in the north are whiter than those in the south
this guy is a snoozefest.
he needs to come off the sadiddy “PhD candidate” chatter & come back down to earth.
also, there is no such thing as “Hispanic passing” as Hispanic is not a race & ethnicity is not phenotypically evident.
could he pass as “Hispanic”? sure. Antonio Banderas IS Hispanic & he is white European. Pitbull is “Hispanic” & he is a self-identified “white Cuban.” David Ortiz, on the other hand, is JUST as ethnically “Hispanic” as all of the aforementioned people, but racially would NEVER “pass for Hispanic” until he opens his mouth. the same can be said of his teammate Manny Ramirez, Zoe Saldaña, Cristina Millian, Celia Cruz (RIP).
what ppl mistake as “looking Hispanic” is little more than conforming to one’s subjective stereotypes about what a “Hispanic” looks like & DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU LIVE & what “Hispanic” groups have settled there, it’s unsurprizing that there would be overlap between two MENA admixed Mediterranean populations (Iberia & Italy).
but if this kid were to walk the streets of Peru, Bolivia or Guatemala he would not pass as a local because those groups are overwhelmingly Amerind moreso than Mediterranean & there is nothing Amerind about Cerulli.
could have been a cool conversation but i think this kid, like most products of academia, was too busy genuflecting to the DEI crowd, focusing more on sounding smart & emphasizing how empathetic he is to the Black American experience than discussing the /Italian/ experience.
For something so boring, you sure have a lot to say =p. Also interesting that you come to a talk about race and are mad about it being about race.
"there is no such thing as Hispanic passing'
What term would you apply to a person who is not per se Hispanic but is assumed to be in the right context?
As an Italian American, I want to thank you for your help in my ongoing secession from the white race.
Sicilians ? Dark but call themselves white
Al Pacino is pasty white. My dad looked like him and Germans thought he was German. I look like my dad and I've seen Hitler hugging someone who looked identical to me for his breeding program
Not all sicilians have dark skin , there are a lot fair skinned
As a black woman, I’m so happy to hear your guest explain American slavery. On a previous video, your cousin said “everyone was slaving everyone“, which is extremely deeply offensive because chattel slavery is completely different. Saying what she said is like comparing a slap in the face to being beaten to death. They are both assaults, but one pales in comparison to the other. It’s also insulting that Italians are deeply offended by a word that associates them with Africa. Those are your roots. It’s like self hatred to be upset about it IMHO. TBT, everyone is a little bit Black- Check your DNA. Having said that, it’s still important to talk about these things. Your guest is well informed and understands white privilege and it’s important that white people hear that from white people.
he did a great job!
White privilege doesn't exist
This guy speaking seems very liberal bias, in his historical narrative of history.
I’m not a liberal. Curious what makes you think that?
@@frastefano90 maybe I’m using the wrong word, but I think many would disagree that race is just a social construct, or that the immigration act of 1924 was just racist, was slavery really changed as worse when Europeans and USA got involved?
@@jimmyh7529 The overwhelming consensus among the sciences and humanities is its a social construct. This argument is based 1) the Human genome project 2) historians tracking the construction of race over time. Neither of those deny phenotypical differences either. If 1924 was not racial then why were northern europeans able to immigrate in much larger numbers than the rest of the world? It is not that Europeans made slavery worse, it was always bad. It was that Europeans made slavery racial.
@@frastefano90
Wasn’t there a quota on almost all countries? Also wasn’t northern Italian more literate and economically sufficient then southern Italians? You don’t think it had more to do with preserving American culture then strictly southern Italians looked darker? There were many from Eastern European countries that had a quota to. I guess my challenge is that is this really considered racist? You have millions of people you want to assimilate them.
I agree
Excellent work! Good scholarship presented. Please bring him back.
Thank you!
Thank you! Will do!
Overall, I agree. I found it quite insightful though with more questions still in examining the Italian/Italian-American identity and experience in America. Thank you Danielle and Stephen for making that podcast interview. It was worth watching.
The problem is most are confused what white in america actually means. White in the states means anglo saxon or related aka western europe and mainly the british isles. It doesnt include anyone from eastern or south europe etc. Italians are white but you are just a different ethnicity within the white group. As are the french who are a different ethnicity to the english and so on. But what's happened is you have allowed one ethnic group to dictate whiteness to everyone else and they have to conform to that idea of that group's idea of it despite having different cultures and different approaches. While there are similar things you all do as a racial group there are nuances that make everyone different and unique because of the sub groups within the racial group. And the joke is the group dictating things aren't even truly native to their country of origin either since the real english was bred out due to invasions from various empires and armies in europe. They confused about what they are yet you allow them to dictate to you descendants of the roman empire which they and america bases half of its concepts from like buildings, art and political structure. Why for example does a british/anglo american play a roman on film and tv when it should be an italian/italian american actor? Some think the romans had english accents when english itself is based on latin which last i checked originated from italy. So when you have that sort of dynamic within your own race then add another race into it more problems arise.
The English were not bred out. Anglo Saxons and French mixed with the population there, English today still cluster with Irish, Scots and Welsh. Also Italians, Poles etc were always considered white legally in the US.
You were bred out thats why your nation is known as the mongrel nation of europe. The only people native to the area that aren't hybrids are the scots, the welsh and the irish. And no italians were never considered white in the states as it was a haven for hybrids who think they real anglo saxons. Theres enough evidence on this including the video itself so stop wasting my time.
American English the way we speak it is made from the Iroquois/ Algonquin languages per -Noah Webster! #Niiji
Yes they were bred out through successive invasions. That's why they have the nickname of the mongrel nation of europe. Rewriting history aint going to change that. And italians and polish people were legally and socially not accepted as white in america until WW2. That's why several changed their names to english ones in order to survive.
He stated that white is a social construction many times.
It's a reality and a behavior and action in full effect. A category that has been fought and maintained by each new generation to date.
The obsession with race will be the end of this planet . We refuse to learn the lesson that Universe has tried to teach.
Love is what matters.
Unless we achieve this, we are finished .
Love is alright... Respect is better 👍
❤ this channel
Italians are absolutely white. White people are a combination of a few ancient populations that all have a single origin. The ancient populations that comprise ALL white folks were European Hunter Gatherers, Neolithic Farmers, and Steppe Pastoralists. Depending on where people are from in Europe, they will have different amounts of ancestry from each of these three groups. Italians owe a larger share of their genetics to Neolithic Farmers, with Sardinians being almost entirely from the group, with very little admixture from other groups. Generally, the further north that you move in Italy, the larger the Steppe component will be. Nearly all white people, including Italians, speak an Indo-European language because of our Steppe ancestors. Being white is NOT a social construct... it is shared genetics and shared history of a people. Learn your history.
LMBO that's lies honey. Italians do not look like Nordics you look Middle Eastern.
Very interesting.
Hey, so I apologize in advance if this sounds mad offensive, this is just from my own experience growing up between Brooklyn and Staten Island from the early nineties into the mid thousands.
I'm only up to 5:27 of the video, and it's interesting that the travel to and from Italy is noted within both of your families so adamantly, because italian-americans, rather American born of Italian descent that strongly identified as American elsewhere in the Northeast had called families like his "Geeps". It was a derogative statement, but not in the same vein as calling someone a guinea or a dago is, rather it was from my impression, calling someone an optimistic immigrant with no direct care for allegiance to the U.S. . Now those families that my immediate own had opinions of such have obviously proven themselves better throughout the years, but the sentiment still stood. I can compare it to the scene in The Rocketeer movie, at the end when the mob goon is faced against the nazi and he proclaims how he's a lot pf things, but ultimately he's an American at heart. The offense likely was likely in how it may have been seen as a snub to keep going back and forth when you were given a new life here in the states.
I really really enjoyed reading this. I am going to look into that term more and ask my dad about it. Thank you!
Enlightening discussion 👍🏾
no but yes, italians are a admixtured mediterranean group. there is "white" italians who descend from germanic whites(which is what white is for) but the mixxture makes them somewhat iffy. Due to whiteness being based on Purity. hence this discussion in the first place
Plus its been proven through some studies like haplogroup studies how italians are more closer to other meditereanneans, turks than western europeans.
The mediterranean race doesn't exist, like the mediterranean ethnicity. Western europeans too are not a same cathegory. So, what are you saying?
@@giorgiodifrancesco4590 They can be classified into one group since the people who are in the mediterranean are so tied together in terms of genetics.
@@2nerC9 Ahahaha. No. A Maghrebian isn't an european. Neither genetically nor in terms of physical appearance. I see them every day when I pick up my sister's son from their school. We are used to seeing them and we know very well the difference. Of course we are all men and differ in DNA to a small extent, but that's another matter.
As for the Middle East, which is on the opposite side to the Maghreb, you just need to see the images of Gaza on the news to understand that they are not European. The only ones who, in some cases, can pass for European are the Lebanese, but not all. As for Turkey, it is large and inhabited by different peoples. Some are similar to Iranians, some are similar to Iraqis, some are similar to Europeans and then there are many mixed lineages with the Turkic-Mongolian element.
The Greeks are Europeans. Some southern Italians can be mistaken for Greeks, in terms of physical appearance, but this does not mean that they have identical DNA to current Greeks.
Instead, Spaniards are very different from Italians, both in terms of DNA and physical appearance. In a crowd of Spaniards in Valencia, I spotted an Italian couple at a distance, long before I heard them speak Italian.
Yes, a DNA study led by Oxford discusses what you said. The Northern lineage is Celtic/Germanic and Southern lineage is Ancient Romans whose ancestors were the same ancestors as the Greeks. Two separate lineages and different genetic characteristics.
@@GhostSal It's a little bit complicate. There is a prehistoric base too, derived from the fact that central-southern Italy was a place of refuge during the glaciation. At the end, a part of the same population flowed northwards and began to differentiate for climatic reasons.
Furthermore, Roman and Greek DNA still exists in the North, in specific areas (this was ascertained from samples coming from native people, not children of recent southern immigrants to the North).
The Roman paternal Y lineage is predominantly R1b and is called "Italo-Celtic".
Critical Race Theory, CRT, addresses this continuation of the exploitation of racialized labor, in part, it explains the huge chasm in wealth between the whites and blacks. There has been a huge effort to discredit CRT because it shines a light on this inequity. The inequality is not limited to wealth, it extends to the justice system, education and other areas.
This is so on point!!!!
Very informative thanks
Tony Soprano was racist against blacks and didn't allow Meadow to date the half eggplant guy but at the same time he told Dr. Melfi that he didn't consider himself to be white because his family had the balls to stay Italian, unlike his neighbour Cusimano who Tony's old man would have called a wonderbread wop.
The half eggplant guy had the balls to be a Wonder bread wop!? Che gente, sti Americani!
@@lucianomezzetta4332 Tony said his neighbour Dr. Cusimano, who was a highly educated and assimilated Italian-American, would have been categorized as a Wonderbread Wop by his old man.
Maybe you watched too much television.
@user-zb6tb6ur4p That kind of reminds me of when John Gotti and his crew were sitting in the back room of their social club eating Chinese food and joking about Jo Jo Carazzo telling the Chinese guy to stop mentioning his name even though he himself was decked with all sorts of gaudy jewellery engraved with the words "Jo Jo".
I consider myself white because I have half of my Ancestry from Prince Edward Island, Canada and Quebec. My mother is of Sicilian Ancestry which doesn’t include a lot of northern African and Arab ancestry but I don’t connect to those cultures so I consider myself white.
Lmao you look Hispanic
I like this guy. He's very knowledgeable to be so young.
I am a lot older than I look =p
When you're studying to get a PHD..you'll be pretty knowledgeable.
@@frastefano90i think institutionalized or indoctrinated might be the word...
Cool interview...One thing that I always ask is how come Italians are not regarded as Latin Americans. Technically one can say that you guys are because of just the language and stuff. Just like a lot of Haitians are known as latinos as well. Even though many of them reject that for a lot of reasons, I just don't understand why a lot of Italians aren't Latin Americans based on that Same with Louisiana creoles and when I say Latin, I don't mean race. I mean just as a culture because To be Latino is more of a culture than it is a race. There are a lot of different races that are latin. I Have a Southern Italian friend whose dad was really dark to the point where they were calling him the In word when she was a little kid,
There is no "Technically" in any of this to do with race or ethnic origins, when it comes to how one person views others compared to another. It all depends on whatever each decided. Categories can be broken down from a broad general overview, to more nuanced ones. The US census says one thing, and people may think another, meanwhile genetics disqualifies them both, as explained in the Human Genome Project literature, which most have not, and likely won't ever read.
@ESCAGEDOWOODWORKING I understand what you mean, but it's still a trip. When I think about that cause I study a lot of stuff like this. Even when you talk about romanians , technically , they could be latin americans as well , just with Language, even though they don't ascribe to a Catholic or Western Catholic faith, most of them are orthodox Christians which are more Christians of the East, which I'm one of those even though I'm not Romanian and I'm completely different culture from them, but it's just interesting how. A lot of that stuff is broken down and then I know some people could say they're not latin american quote on quote But then again when you really think about it, what is that if you get technical about it, it's a strange thing. I hear what you're saying thoughbut Then again, it kinda goes to the powers that b and I think that's what Danielle is trying to address when it comes to just the definition of that stuff like this. I've been studying for years. So I understand some of the question even though I have different views. When it comes to maya approach And that's pretty much because of where I am and where I'm coming from. But interesting points but it'd not just individuals it's group that's how culture and subcultures are created
@@Shadowbannddiscoursebut there not tho they dropped ALL their culture and languages immediately to be an "American" or "white" (the italians Portuguese french) you lose your pass after that
@wigsplitter777 I didn't mean that as a pass I'm just saying based off of history and culture and yeah.. its a trip . And they did become what you said..
As a man who has some Italian heritage from Louisiana. Some Italian depending on where in Italy they came from were considered people of color. Northern Italy was of German descent, and the very tip of Italy or the boot were people of color because of the Northern Africans.
Actually is not much North Africa but more Middle East, specially coming from Anatolian farmers and converted Jews.
@@simonecostantini892 Yes, that is true but the MOORS of North Africa conquered all the Mediterranean areas, especially Spain, Greece, and of course Sicily. Let's not forget the Aghlabids, who too were North Africans, and then the Fatimids who too were North Africans. This is why many Italians who came to Louisiana were considered Creole and not Anglo-Saxon nor Waspy White Protestants.
To me, the fall of the Roman Empire caused these different identities to exist. Southern Italians as of very recent have DNA linked to Greeks and north Africans. Thank You Hannibal Barca. lol
North african DNA is relevant in Sicily and Sardinia, outside of these regions is quite low.
In Greece is even lower.
@@simonecostantini892 Let's not forget some of the Greek Islands that had North African influence like the Island of Crete.
People use "white" as a general descriptor of European. Italians that have an olive skin completion are still European and are therefore referred to as "white" in that context. Either way, Italians are of course Caucasian the same as all other Europeans.
And if we are discussing who is Caucasian, we have to also include all of India!
Not all Italians have olive skin there are a lot of Italians that have very fair skinned
My mother was 100% Italian. She had blond hair and blue eyes. I'm gonna say "white".
She would be a tiny minority of Italians, even the ones from the north are not Germanic or Scandinavian looking. Italians are Europeans and white, but when you live in an anglo society obsessed with whiteness, racial supremacy etc they will always want to be at the top of the pyramid of whiteness.
8-9% of Italians are blonde.
that's not how it works.
@@Carina-23
Italians were not white.
Just because someone has blonde hair and blue eyes, it doesn't make them white.
The only whites were WASPs.
I say that as someone who's mostly of Anglo ancestry, but with a bit of Italian ancestry not long ago.
@@Carina-23
When did I say there wasn't?
But anyhow, the MENA ancestry that Southern Italians carry is not from sub-Saharan Africa, it's from North Africa.
Great discussion.
For the love of God, Italians are European. It's that even a question?
My 100% Italian dad had 30% North African/Egyptian/Iranian DNA. so, for some of us, yes.
Italians are a mediterranean etnic group.
Well, it was the locations where his DNA matched the highest amount of the population most recently. Which was still interesting to me!
I am curious after listening to the video. "I would like to know when did your Western Europeans start to adopt the white race category?"
Birth of a White Nation is a fascinating book on race in America that begins with an exploration of the moment in time when "white people," as a separate and distinct group of humanity, were invented through legislation and the enactment of laws. The book provides a thorough examination of the underlying reasons as well as the ways in which "white people" were created. It also explains how the creation of this distinction divided laborers and ultimately served the interests of the elite. The book goes on to examine how foundational law and policy in the U.S. were used to institutionalize the practice of "white people" holding positions of power. Finally, the book demonstrates how the social construction and legal enactment of "white people" has ultimately compromised the humanity of those so labeled. Jacqueline Battalora was born in Edinburg, Scotland and lived in Antwerp, Belgium for six years before her family relocated to Victoria, Texas. It was this experience of attending high school and middle school in Victoria that informed her understanding of race in America. While she is currently a lawyer and professor of sociology and criminal justice at Saint Xavier University, she is also a former Chicago Police officer. She holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University and has been engaged in anti-racist training since the mid 1990s. Publisher's website: http: //sbpra.com/JacquelineBattalora
During European colonization of the Western Hemisphere. I go into that around 12:15.
Your question should be. What does it mean to be white?
They are pretty much white people. They are not all anglo but still caucasian nevertheless. They are not North Africans either, even tho they look sort of similar or somehow related.
It always depends on what the people in charge felt like drawing the white line at, as if you look at one of the supreme court cases the supreme court ruled that an Indian, man who sued, was Caucasian but not white. To me it seems as the black population grew, the the different groups label as white increased just to insure that the black population never got to the point that he was majority anywhere after enslavement was over.
Italians don't look like north africans, with the exceptions of few individuals and mainly in Sicily, and have very low north african DNA.
@@EyeOfTheWatcherFACTS padding their numbers, and an Egyptian man( non Arab) sued saying he wasn’t white!
* Black or white? Egyptian immigrant fights for black classification
Hefny
July 16, 1997
Web posted at: 4:22 a.m. EDT (0822 GMT)
From Correspondent Joan MacFarlane
DETROIT (CNN) -- An Egyptian immigrant is suing the U.S. government because they've told him he's white when his entire life he's been black.
Mostafa Hefny was born in Egypt and has always been proud of his Egyptian culture and his African ancestry. But when Hefny immigrated to America, the U.S. government told him he was no longer a black man.
"I was not told by Immigration that I was white until I passed the exam for citizenship and then I was told I am now white," he explains.
Hefny initially laughed when told of his new racial classification, but he's no longer chuckling. He recently filed suit against the U.S. government to get his race classification changed back from white to black.
"It hurts me. It definitely hurts me," Hefny says. "It hurts me because I am unable to reconcile my reality as a black person."
My sister had her blood checked out We are southern European from Sicily