March 2024 The Racial and Ethnic Categorization of Italian Americans

Among the really interesting topics contained in the weekend of the second annual meeting of the Italian American Future Leaders, which I attended as a mentor last January, was one that caught me a little unprepared. Two friends, two young women who divide their lives between Italy and the United States, two lawyers who are members of the National...

Within the Italian-American community, there is an ever-present concern that younger generations simply aren’t interested in their Italian heritage, a sentiment echoed among the older generation like a haunting refrain. The question, “How do we engage the youth” has been asked time and again, but until now, no one ever cared to answer it. Last Janu...

What do YOU use to answer the question on race and ethnicity on the U.S. Census? The Federal Government has recently undertaken a reexamination of the “Federal Standards on Racial and Ethnic Data Collection”, and as a part of that process, they have invited communities across the nation to weigh in on how they are counted.   To some in our communit...