When Italians Were 'Black'

And The Hidden History of How and Why That Changed

Italians, particularly Sicilians, began immigrating to the US as early as the 1830s, which was well prior to the unification of Italy itself.

Those who immigrated before the 1860s should not have even been classified as Italians, as most of them didn’t even speak standardized Italian but a dialect of their native region. Regions like Sicily, that were…