Even today this is interesting topic. Where I grew up in Rhode Island it's about half Italian and it's a given there that Italians are white. Different from the Irish, German and what have you in nationality, but certainly not race. In Rhode island if you were to say to someone "you aren't white, you're Italian" you may very well have a fight on your hands. However, here in California I can't tell you how many so called Italians I've heard say "I'm not white, I'm Italian." Granted, CA is a strange place. I've also heard Irish claim they aren't white here. Like you can get whiter than an Irishman. It all comes down to definitions. What is "white"?

Someone who is Caucasian. Both Italians and Irish would fall under that category. Maybe when they say they aren't white, it's because they consider "white" to mean WASP's. But that's just a case of them changing the definition of the term.

I've met Sicilians that were as dark as some people from India and then saw some that were as white as Germans. So it all depends. I look at facial features instead of skin when judging what culture someone is.

Southern Italian is not really white, especially Sicilians having Arab-African and Spanish blood.

Alot of people say we are all of Mediterranean descent. And do to climate changes and the areas we come from, our skin color adapted. I'm an Irish-American and we came to the US before the Italians and we weren't considered white by the wasps and other Americans. I'm not saying this in a racist mannar at all, just stating fact. The irish were called ni**ers before blacks were when we first migrated here. The same thing happened to the irish that happened with the Siclians and Arabs. The Irish were invaded by the spanish, hence the term black irish. There's alot of Irish with dark skin, eyes, and hair. I myself am blued eyed with dirty blonde hair and have been olive skinned my whole life. When it's all said and done be it your Irish, Italian, or any nationality, all our ancestors have gone through this if you read back far enough

Yeah, that's the Black Irish though. Black Irish are mostly from an area called Galway. That's where the Spanish landed. But even the Black Irish have more white features and not as tan as than say a dark Southern Italian.