Category talk:American people of Italian descent

Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo
I have updated both articles to reflect the fact that both persons are of Italian Heritage. I would advise all to keep a watchful eye on this as it seems that the English speaking peoples of Wikipedia are hell bent on dominating the cultural landscape of America through the utilization of informational sources such as Wikipedia. Comparatively many articles will mention someone of Irish heritage but fewer mention Italian heritage where it is relevant. Datus (talk) 21:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see Nicolas "Cage" Coppola, Frank Sinatra, Quentin Tarantino, John Travolta, Frank Sinatra and Henry Vonda in the list.192.87.123.159 (talk) 14:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

definition
How is this category defined? I mean how do you classify someone as Italian-American? Does it mean an Italian immigrant to the USA, or the child of an immigrant, or simply having Italian surname? Cacophony 03:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Usually it's when someone is fully Italian by ethnicity or has a parent who is fully Italian. Otherwise, people with more distant ancestry aren't included, unless they've shown some kind of identification with that ancestry, like Robert De Niro. JackO'Lantern 22:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Legally (according to Italian Law), if a person had a grandfather or grandmother of Italian heritage can be consider Italian. I mean, up to grandparents can be included in Italian Americans' page. --Doctor01 18:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, we shouldn't just lump in anyone who had an Italian grandparent in here. Someone who is 1/4 Italian is not an Italian-American unless they have explicitly expressed identification with that group. We should use this standard for every group, in fact. JackO'Lantern 18:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the last is a good point.There are cases of people with different ancestry.Think to Giancarlo Esposito.He has a father from Naples,Italy and the mother is an African-American.I think only Giancarlo Esposito himself can define himself.As far as I know he is an American with a rich ancestry:African-American and Italian. About Italian law the last Italian law on the citizenship give the opportunity to Italian citizens who live overseas to pass the Italian citizenship to their descendants until the third generation.But that is just a right to the Italian citizenship but it will be difficult to define an Italian American only considering that law.(citterio 07:10, 25 April 2006 (UTC))
 * Going by the mindset established in the Italian law definition of an Italian-American, wouldn't it be wise to categorize those with even one grandparent in that category. It can be said that a person may be entirely one nationality yet not have had that much of an influence from that, yet we do not question such inclusions.  Why question it is someone is one-fourth when this is established as a definition of the term? Michael 21:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * People should be categorized as an Italian-American if a reliable sourced actually described them as an Italian-American (or "Italian", if they are "American"). Same for any other group. This solves absolutely all qualms or questions about who to include. And it fits in perfectly with Wikipedia's Verifiability and No Original Research policies. I.e. If someone is just described as having an Italian grandparent, it original research for Wikipedia editors to translate that as meaning they are now "Italian-American" if the source hasn't explicitly called them that. Mad Jack 22:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Doesn't having an Italian grandparent translate to being of Italian descent? Michael 22:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. But, does being "of Italian descent" automatically make a person an Italian-American? For instance, a person who is 1/32 Italian is an Italian-American? Really? It would probably be a surprise to them. Since there is no clear consensus on what "exactly" is an Italian-American, only reliable sources can tell us exactly who is. For the most part, I've noticed, most people who are at least half Italian are referred to as "Italian", "Italian-American", or at worst "Half Italian" by reliable sources, so it mostly works out Mad Jack 22:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * And if we have reliable sources for them being 1/4 a nationality, that doesn't count for categorization? That can only be included in the body of the article? Michael 22:51, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, unless the source actually describes them as "Italian" or "Italian American", or they describe themselves as that. I really don't see how it is important to label someone who 1/4 Italian as an "Italian American", especially if no reliable sources have done that. I'm all for ancestry lists and categories and notices about people's ancestry in the articles, believe me, I'm one of the top people who likes doing that kind of research, but it just becomes a little silly and all meaning of the term "Italian-American" and others is lost when we have people in 4 different ethnicity categories (or sometimes more...) Mad Jack 22:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

No hyphen
This category title should not have a hyphen. Badagnani 05:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Joe Petrosino
I recently added an article about NYPD police officer Joe Petrosino to Wikipedia. If possible, I would like it added to the list of Italian Americans. The article can be found here. And003 09:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Sicilians (like Sardinians etc.) are Italians
Why did you create a Sicilian-American list? They are Italian-Americans too. Delete it. Jack 19:29, 3 Feb 2007 (UTC)

Get all subcats on one page
Can a programmer PLEASE get all the subcats on the first page? There aren't that many and it gives the illusion that they just go through the letter "F." This is really not a good situation. Badagnani 04:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Italian Americans in the US Military
I'm not Italian American, (I'm Filipino American), but I grew up around Italians in the Chicago area. You should include a category list of Italian-Americans who served in the US Military like General Zinni, Gunnery Sergeant John "Manila" Basilone, Colonel Henry Mucci, and the first female NASA astronaut Captain Lisa Marie Nowak who went crazy and their contributions in the Armed Forces in the past. Italian Americans in the US Civil War. They have a list of Puerto Ricans that served in the US Miltiary. --Pilot expert 06:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)