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They have a whole host of more important issues to worry about.
In my experience, mostly they simply view them as Americans, period: a hundred+ years is a long time and Italy is a country of contemporaries. Ask Indro.
Going on a fourth generation now, virtually all Americans of (remote) Italian descent have 100% assimilated, with some lingering memories of certain foods and verbal expressions that, if they never existed in Italy at all, were limited to a small nook or have been long forgotten.
In my experience, wherever one goes, the golden rule prevails: act like a human being, you'll be treated like a human being, treat others as you want them to treat you.
Sure, there are jerks too everywhere, but for the most part it's a steadfast rule, has been for thousands of years.
I'm not Italian but I live there. I would say that Italian Americans are not really thought about much in Italy, especially where I live in the North. Like Bale said, they are probably viewed as Americans.
In the south it might be different as emigration has been important and still is a thing. There might be more links between people from Calabria / Sicily and Migrants in North America, but I wonder how true this is.
People I know here being linked to the American continent are more linked to relatives in Argentina and Chile.
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In terms of Italian Americans, the US media has always been fixated with the Italian Mafia, especially the five families in NYC and Al Capone in Chicago.
The Italian Mafia is hated by many Italians and is certainly not potryayed in the same light as US films an d edia potray Italian organised crime.
Furthermore in most countries, Italians are not responsible for the vast majority of organised crime, and you have all kinds of gangs, indeed the Turkish and Kurdish mafia controls the heroin trade in Europe, aided by the Russians, whilst the Romanians are often responsble for ATM fraud, and the Albanians now control a lot of the sex trade, which was once controlled by the Maltese. The Columbians control the cocaine, and the Chinese gangs along with the Russians and other East European gangs control a lot of human trafficking.
The truth is the Italians are no more involved in organised crime than many other countries in Europe and across the world.
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Originally Posted by easthome
I would suggest that like most of the world Italians think of 'Italian Americans' as nothing more than 'Americans'!
I also find it rather strange that American families that have been in the US for numerous generations would still cling to a label whether it be Italian American, Irish American, African American etc etc, when in fact everyone else just sees them as Americans.
I also find it rather strange that American families that have been in the US for numerous generations would still cling to a label whether it be Italian American, Irish American, African American etc etc, when in fact everyone else just sees them as Americans.
Do people in Italy still "cling" to labels like Venetian, Sicilian, Roman, etc., even though "everyone else" just sees them as Italians?
I know that Australians of Italian heritage can annoy their Italian relatives by landing in on them without much notice, often at a time of the year which can be quite inconvenient. Such as September when everyone is getting back to work or school. The younger ones or their non Italian partners tend to speak no Italian at all so they have the need to be escorted around in the company of anyone in the family who is fluent in English.
Americans, I realise, are probably less inclined to do this is September. However when we were on a tour a long time ago, pre internet days, our guide told us about some of their America clients who would go and visit the distant Italian relatives and expect that they would be living in poverty and come back quite upset when they had realised that they were just as well off as they were.
Hopefully there is much more knowledge both ways these days with all the communication available. However we have certainly been called Americanos, which they explain is a generic term for the diaspora. I suspect the most common attitude to Americanos used to be bemusement and annoyance of the lack of awareness of current conditions in Italy. And perhaps curiosity as to why these people spend so much money on travel rather than fashion!
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