> Italians also weren't considered "white" for a while in early US history, I believe.
No, we weren't. And it's complicated. Half of my family is from southern Italy, and their skin is olive-brown. I've seen southern Italians being mistaken for middle easterners several times. Little surprise, as southern Italy was conquered many times over the course of history, by various Mediterranean peoples. But we gloss over this, and equate Europe with whiteness. Italian and Irish diaspora in the US benefit from this new classification (I'm actually unsure of when that change happened), and aside from my great-grandparents (who were immigrants), that side of my family was generally welcome wherever they've moved within the US.
No, we weren't. And it's complicated. Half of my family is from southern Italy, and their skin is olive-brown. I've seen southern Italians being mistaken for middle easterners several times. Little surprise, as southern Italy was conquered many times over the course of history, by various Mediterranean peoples. But we gloss over this, and equate Europe with whiteness. Italian and Irish diaspora in the US benefit from this new classification (I'm actually unsure of when that change happened), and aside from my great-grandparents (who were immigrants), that side of my family was generally welcome wherever they've moved within the US.