Sicilians or Italians??

Question

Could someone tell me why people like my brother in law get offended when someone says he's Italian when he is Sicilian? Isn't it 1 country? I know one is north. Is he just an idiot or do most Italians/ Sicilians feel this way?

If Simon is right then that would answer the question why my brother in law does not get offended if somemone calls him the G word right?

Answer 1

Oh no, it isn't.

Sicily is the ball under the shoe of Italy, figuratively speaking, if you look at the map.

Though they speak Italian, they're quite proud that they aren't Italian.

Answer 2

It's all part of one country called Italy. However, Sicily was basically forced to become part of Italy. They kinda resent that. It's like calling some irishman a brit. Most italians/sicilians in America know which part of Italy they are from and are proud of it. The different regions are vastly different. However, no italian-americans who happen to have Sicilian roots would care if you said they were italian.

Answer 3

Sicilians are a bit different from Italians, but not drastically so. Sicilians speak a language similar to Italian, and are only a little darker and shorter. I don't see what the fuss is.

Answer 4

particularly there are sicilians who evaluate themselves in basic terms sicilians and not italians. As for the discrimination, there has been quite a valuable occasion, the northern league, that appeared down on southern Italy no longer for ethnical/racial motives yet for financial motives, i.e. the north is a few distance richer, the south is a few distance poorer, greater corrupted, a style of greece, and the greater efficient areas of the North (that are between the wealthiest factors in Europe) are ill and drained to could pay/produce for the entire u . s . a .. The northern League replaced into in contact in distinctive scandals presently, so particularly their acceptance has been dramatically lowering, additionally because of the fact they did rather much no longer something of what they promised. additionally understand that for historic motives italians are greater linked to their region/interior of reach factors than their u . s . a ., they lack a feeling of cohesion and collectiveness which you will detect in Germany or France or maybe Spain, life and human beings in, say, Piemonte and Calabria are thoroughly distinctive and that they do look very distinctive worldwide places (evaluate that italian cohesion replaced into found out/imposed and wanted by making use of an extremely few human beings in the better instructions, it replaced into particularly no longer someone-friendly will and led to huge waves of immigration and poverty in the two the north and south).

Answer 5

I know Northern Italians who balk at being call Sicilians...adding that they are the WHITE italians.

I think its colour. Too dark and disliked down in Sicily.

Answer 6

I don't think most feel this way. It is simply one country and most look at it that way.

But to put it in perspective, it's kinda like in the U.S., someone from Arkansas might be considered a Southerner, while a a girl from New Jersey is often referred to as a Jersey Girl. Yet we're all still Americans.

Answer 7

My husband is Sicillian and his family came from the island of Sicily not from the country of Italy. He gets offended to.

Answer 8

It's kinda like Mexicans and Spaniards ... they all speak " Spanish " so down here in Cali ... their all considered Mexican ... the same with Puerto Ricans ... try telling a Spanish person their Mexican ... it doesn't go down too good ... their all proud of who they are and to be compared to another race I guess is offensive ... I don't think it's ever going to change either ... !