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It wasn't easy being a Sicilian American growing up in Kentucky, where your either White or black.. Nothing in between. Kids and still people this day (I'm 35) asking me "what are you" I look and act different from most people I've encountered through life, I'm used to it now but still I would love to be around people that are like me.. I guess I should be in new York or something.
Sicilians aren't white?! My high school calculus teacher was Sicilian. Dark brown skin, darker than many hispanics but he was considered white and most hispanics not.
Yes West Virginia is interesting. There were a surprising number of Italian non-chain restuarnts around Fairmont, WV. Also Wheeling has an Italian festival every year apparently.
i believe that marlon brando was not of italian descent - the name brando was derived from "brandau" and is of german origins. but due to some of the roles brando played, most notably don corleone in the godfather, it's commonly assumed that he was italian. having a surname ending in a vowel probably added to that perception.
the other info you provided is spot-on, though, and quite interesting.
Henry Fonda was also not Italian.
However, Winona Judd, Ashley Judd and Rosanne Cash ( Johnny Cash's eldest daughter) are.
All names ending in "O" are not Italian. Many French names were changed. Some Norwegian names end in "O" also.
Other names, notably those ending in vowels "I" and "A" are Eastern European.
The cuisine of Italy differs greatly from region to region. The cooking of some regions is hard to find in the United States. For example, how many Italian American restaurants serve true Sicilian cuisine, with caponata (a sweet/sour eggplant appetizer) and pasta alla sarde (pasta with sardines) on the menu?
The cities of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton PA have many Italian decended people who are from the North of Italy.
Many identify with the Tyrol. Italian Americans there have fair to medium fair skin, blonde, red, medium, and light brown hair, and medium to light eyes.
The cuisine there is less tomato sauce and more white sauce.
If it hasnt been said yet, the Upper Penninsula of Michigan....Italians as iron and copper miners. Some of the best restaurants up there are Italian.
Another outside-the-box location:
Kentucky.
A small urban Italian immigration to Louisville...working in the food trade and living in the old Haymarket neighborhood east of downtown (which they shared with Eastern European Jews, Lebanese/Syrians, and a the remanants of an earlier German immigration)....eventually one of these Louisville Italians became the Congressman: Romano ("Ron") Mazzoli.
Italians out-in-the-state:....miners in Appalachia and mechants/peddlars (like the Louisville Italians)...also going into politics (two or three Lexington politicos over the years were Italian).
Then, in Nothern Kentucky:The Italians of Newport.., which is directly across the river from Cincny. The Italians in Newport had some unsavory Mafia ties, which led to an infamous regional reputation as an open city/sin city place back in the 1940s/50s.
Being in Newport and neighboring towns feels a LOT like being in some older Northeast US place.
Yes West Virginia is interesting. There were a surprising number of Italian non-chain restuarnts around Fairmont, WV. Also Wheeling has an Italian festival every year apparently.
I believe that Bluefield in southern WV has an Italian festival too.
My parents and I moved to the United States in the late 1980s from Puglia, when I was a kid. We always stuck around the Philadelphia area, since we had some extended family cross over the Atlantic a couple of generations back, and so we had some semblance of relatives here. I decided to go to South Carolina for college, and there was the first time that I realized just how few Italians were in the area. Meeting me, they all asked if I was Mexican first. Italian markets were few and far between, and the selection of Italian products and deli meats in the grocery stores was much smaller and more expensive.
I ended up in Northern Virginia, where there are quite a bit more.
On the other side, are there any traditionally heavy Italian areas such as the northeast, that have areas without a lot of Italians.
This is also true. I am originally from Long Island NY. I would say that no less then 50% of people on Long Island claim to have some Italian heritage. Even if they are 1/4 Italian they self identify as "Italian" and pretty much forget what the other ancestries are.
I am not at all Italian, and while I grew up with this strange behavior, it never ceases to amaze me.
What is strange to me is that these people make "being Italian" sort of like a hobby.
When a non Italian in the North East marries into an Italian family, they can pretty much expect to give up any vestige of their own heritage and religion.
The kids will be raised "Italian", frequently named according to "Italian" traditions and raised in the families faith. Most Italians on Long Island, the NYC boroughs, and Northern New Jersey, are Roman Catholic. However, in past thirty years, many Italians in that region (not most but many) have converted to either Pentecostal Churches or Episcopalian.
There is an Italian American Pentecostal denomination that can be found in the North East that until recently, conducted all services in Italian. ( Pentecostal Christian Assemblies).
The other think that I have noticed is that many Italians in the North East - seem to venerate the worst parts of Italian culture - yet know nothing about Italy, art, music, or the more refined and higher segments of Italian culture.
Many, sadly seem to fixate on organized crime, macho culture ( diminishing women) gym culture, car culture, and a general low regard for education.
Having lived in other areas of the country now, I realize that many of these traits are particular to southern Italians who are second third and fourth generation who live in the Long Island, NY Metro area.
People who are Italian American who are from the West, Mid West, Mid Atlantic, and South, do not seem to share these traits.
And, I should add, that not ALL Italian Americans from Long Island are this way.
Northeastern Ohio (i.e. Youngstown, Cleveland, Akron and even Columbus) have high concentrations of Italians. WV as well. Oh, and Florida, presumably transplanted from the northeast.
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My high school calculus teacher was Sicilian. Dark brown skin, darker than many hispanics but he was considered white and most hispanics not.
