Initial Proposals For Updating OMB's Race and Ethnicity Statistical Standards

Comments from a Coalition of Italian American Organizations

Who We Are

Introduction

• Our Italian American organizations care a lot about improving racial and ethnic categories and we’re meeting with you today because we feel that the Initial Proposals neglected the unique identity of Italian Americans.
• We hope you’ll consider our recommendations in an effort to make the racial and ethnic categories more equitable, inclusive, and culturally competent.
• This presentation summarizes a wide range of viewpoints on the racial identity of Italian Americans. Rather than expressing our personal viewpoints, we’ve taken an objective approach and pulled extensively from academic literature, law, the media, and everyday conversations. The recommendations are made with this wide range of opinions in mind.

Overview of Presentation

Background:

• There are differing views on the Whiteness of Italian Americans.
• There are statistical differences between Italian Americans and the rest of the White population.

Recommendations:

1. Italians should not be placed within a “White” minimum category.
2. The collection of detailed category data should be required, without exceptions.

Background

There are Differing Views on the Whiteness of Italian Americans

The question of whether Italian Americans are White is one that has puzzled Americans since the early days of Italian immigration to the United States.

While some believe that the label White is a good fit for Italian Americans, others believe that it is a “cruel” erasure and top down “white washing” of the Italian American community.

​

This section draws no conclusions as to whether Italian Americans are White. Race is a social construct, and if society disagrees, there can never be a single answer. But we simply aim to demonstrate the lack of consensus on the subject. It summarizes common strings of arguments on the racial identity of Italians based on (1) government categorization; (2) privilege and disadvantage; (3) physical features; and (4) culture and assimilation.

Government Categorization

Historically, U.S. racial and ethnic categories were based on now debunked racist science that categorized humans into White, Yellow, Red, and Black. Within the White category, there were sub-categories, and “scientists” categorized Italians as a lesser White than North Western Europeans, describing Italians as “dark, short, criminal, and Mediterranean.” This “science” impacted the government categorization of Italians in a variety of ways. For example:

• At the national level, Italians have been legally considered White since first arriving to the U.S. Historically, naturalization records recorded Italian immigrants’ “color” as “white,” “complexion,” as “dark,” and “race” as “Italian.”
• At the local level, in the South in particular, Italians were sometimes categorized as non-White and segregated from certain neighborhoods, schools, movie theaters, labor unions, restaurants, and churches along with African American, Asian, and Mexican community members - though to a lesser degree than those groups.
• There were also failed attempts by the Louisiana state legislature and U.S. House Committee on Immigration to remove Italian Americans from the White category.
• Today, racial and ethnic categories across the country label Italians as White.

​

Privilege & Disadvantage

Privilege and disadvantage play a large role in the way a group is racially and ethnically categorized for many.

​

Historically:

• Because Italians were nationally categorized as White, they could vote, own land, serve on juries, and live with and marry other White people. This wasn’t true for groups like African Americans, Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans.
• In day-to-day interactions, Italians often faced extreme prejudice. This is because around 800 A.D., parts of Southern Italy were conquered by North Western Africans and Italians became of partial African descent. A thousand years later, when Italians began arriving to the U.S. and racism towards African Americans was at its peak, White supremacists used this fact and the one drop rule to associate Italians with African Americans. Italians also worked alongside African Americans in plantations in the South, and some were indentured servants, further tying the the two groups together.
• Politicians, newspapers, books, and movies regularly referred to Italians as racially inferior, describing Italians “undesirable, of the lowest order, primitive, barbarian, uneducated, immoral, physically inept, criminal, of low IQ, kinky haired, and of clear “Negroid” ancestry.” They used derogatory terms for Italians including “white nigg**, white negro, wop, nigg** wop, dago, greaser, and guinea.”
• Italian immigrants were lynched by KKK mobs in several states. Italians are the second most lynched group in U.S. history after African Americans.
• Italians also faced immigration restrictions in the 1920s through the Emergency Quota Act, similar to the Asian Exclusion Act.
• And Italians were placed on house arrest and in internment camps during WW2.

Privilege & Disadvantage

​

Today:

• Class: Socioeconomically, Italian Americans have experienced an upward trajectory. Many Italians have shifted from working class to middle class and from the cities to the suburbs. However, there are questions as to whether Italian Americans are proportionally represented in the upper class.
• Crime: Racial prejudice against Italians relating to criminality has decreased, though some still lingers today. For a period the FBI only investigated organized crime by Italian Americans, though now they have expanded to other racial groups. False accusations of mafia ties have been used against Italian Americans running for office, including Mario Cuomo, Geraldine Ferraro, and most recently Ron Desantis. And studies show that 40% of movies with Italian American characters portray them as mafia characters, even though less than .1% of Italian Americans are in the mafia.
• Intelligence: There is also lingering discrimination when it comes to the intelligence of Italian Americans. Studies show that 29% of movies with Italian American characters portray them as unintelligent. And these stereotypes impact the treatment of Italians in the education system and in their careers.

Physical Features

Physical features also impact the way Italian Americans are racially or ethnically perceived. Using physical features to categorize Italian Americans, however, is complex.

• Though often described as a homogenous group, Italy's history of African, Arab, Greek, Norman, French, and Spanish settlements resulted in a diverse Italian population. Physical appearance can vary from Italian to Italian, including by skin tone, hair, nose, or height.
• Italian Americans can have physical features that overlap with populations in Northern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America. An individual’s views on whether each of those groups is White can impact their views on whether Italian Americans are White as well.

Culture & Assimilation

Another string of arguments for whether Italian Americans should be considered White or Non-White focus on assimilation into White American culture. Several Italian American scholars have argued over whether Italian Americans have assimilated into White American culture.

• Some say Italian Americans have assimilated into White culture, and thus become White, pointing to the loss of the Italian language, marriage with Anglo-Saxons, and a decline in Italian immigration as evidence of assimilation.
• Others say that Italian Americans must give up their ethnic identity and perform Whiteness to be accepted as White, describing Italians as “whites on a leash.”
• Some argue that assimilationists perceive Italian American identity as an “annoying distraction” and some, like the federal government, have used the label White to forcefully homogenize Europeans and erase existing Italian American identity and culture.

Statistical differences between Italian Americans and the White population

Government Employment:

• While 0 U.S. Presidents have been of Italian American descent, 23 have been of Irish descent.
• Italian Americans are underrepresented in 38% of New York city government occupations and 23% of New York state government occupations.

​

Education:

• 37% of Italian Americans in New York City have completed “some college or above,” compared to 51% of Non-Italian Whites.
• Italian Americans, who are 6% of the U.S. population, make up only 2% of the Ivy League, while Jewish Americans, which make up 2% of the U.S. population, make up 20%.
• Affirmative Action programs that treated Italian Americans as an overrepresented “White” group exacerbated these issues. In fact, once Italian Americans sued over this in New York, and won, being recognized as a racial group that faced discriminating and should be protected in affirmative action policies.

​

Healthcare:

• Studies show that Mediterranean people have genome structures that make them more susceptible to certain genetic-related diseases.
• Studies show that Italian Americans are underrepresented in the medical profession, particularly in the most prestigious sectors.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Italian Americans should not be placed within a “White” minimum category

Reasons why Italians should not be placed within a “White” minimum category:

• Color-based categories like White and Black are relics of the past, like Red and Yellow, and founded on debunked racist science, rather than modern socio-political constructs. Though people can personally choose to identify with those terms in informal spaces, they should not be forced onto people by the federal government given their history.
• No research was used to determine that White was the appropriate category for Italian Americans even though the Initial Proposals state that decisions should be based on sound research.
• The identification of Italian Americans as White is not broadly agreed upon and fails to acknowledge the century long debates on whether Italians are White.
• The broad White category masks important statistical gaps between various European groups, preventing Italian Americans from tracking representation and protecting our civil rights. North Western European/Anglo-Saxon Americans were uniquely privileged throughout U.S. history and should not be grouped with others.
• The color-based category White is inconsistent with geography-based categories like MENA and will create messy data. For example, a Middle Eastern person may check both White and MENA, leading to data that is less useful.
• The category White leads certain European respondents to check the category “Other.”

Recommendation 1: Alternatives to the “White” Minimum Category

Alternative minimum categories for Italian Americans in order of preference:

​

No Minimum Categories: Eliminate the minimum categories altogether and only collect data at the detailed category level. Grouping together broad arrays of people is inherently flawed, simplistic, and a concept created by racist science.

European Mediterranean or Southern European: A minimum category for Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, and Greece (as well as Malta, Andorra, Monaco, Vatican City, and San Marino). It could also extend to eastern European Mediterranean countries including Montenegro, Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Mediterranean: A Mediterranean category that would include Southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. But if MENA groups want to be separated from all Europeans, then we wish to respect that.

European: A category for all European countries (i.e. eliminating the label White without changing the grouping). This should only be done if detailed categories are required, without exceptions, or else disparities between European groups will continue to be masked.

Hispanic or Latino: The Spanish conquered Italy for a century, thus Italians could arguably be considered Hispanic. This categorical assignment would likely not be broadly agreed upon.

Recommendation 2: Require the Collection of Detailed Category Data, Without Exceptions

Regardless of where Italian Americans are placed within minimum categories, it is crucial to collect and report data at the detailed category level.

• There should not be an exception to collecting detailed category data due to “burden to the agency.” The benefits of collecting detailed category level data always outweigh the costs of collection. Detailed category data reveals statistical differences that are crucial to ensuring racial and ethnic equity. A similar exception in the 1997 standards was used by most agencies to avoid collecting data at the detailed category level.
• There should not be an exception to collecting detailed category data due “risks to privacy or confidentiality.” Though privacy concerns are certainly valid, they should only impact the reporting of detailed category data, not the collection.

Conclusion

• The Initial Proposals only remedy a small subset of the significant shortcomings of the racial and ethnic categories. Our identity and civil rights are in your hands and we hope you consider our recommendations.
• The Middle Eastern and North African population made similar arguments to ours and you created a new racial and ethnic category to account for their perspectives. Italians have been through a lot and contributed a lot to this country, so we hope you can show us the same respect and consideration.
• We are ready to do whatever it takes to protect Italian American identity and data collection (civil rights lawsuits, legislation, social media campaigns). We really care about this issue. And we would love to have deeper conversations with you about it- you can contact us at mariachiara_parisi@berkeley.edu
• Citations for the presentation and additional information can be found in our 25-page public comment that was submitted back in April.

​

Coalition Member Organizations

Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (comprised of 62 Italian American organizations)

Italian Sons and Daughters of America

National Italian American Bar Association

Italian American Legal Defense & Higher Education Fund

Italian American Museum

Italian American Movement

Primo Magazine

The Italian Heritage and Cultural Committee of the Bronx and Westchester

UNICO National

Italian American War Veterans of the United States

Italian American Committee on Education

Filitalia International

Italian American Political Action Committee

The California Italian American Taskforce

​

New Jersey Italian Heritage Commission

Colorado Italian American Foundation

Italian American Museum of Los Angeles

The Italian American Podcast

Columbus Monument Corporation

Italian American Alliance

Italian American Federation of the Southeast

Joint Civil Committee of Italian Americans

Irpinia Stories

Italian American Club of Southern Nevada

Ohio ISDA Community Foundation

Lt. Det. Joseph Petrosino Association in America

The Italian Cultural Society

The Pirandello Lyceum

Federazione Della Associazioni della Campania USA

Milford Columbus Committee