Why do people still call these celebrities Italian even thought they were born in the USA?

[Anonymous]

Why do people still call celebrities like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Robert De Niro, John Travolta, Alyssa Milano and Sylvester Stallone italian even though these people were born in USA?

[DryGermanGuy]

Americans are almost obsessed with this notion of ancestry/family roots. I have read a statistic that some ~20% of US-Americans identify as "German-American" even when neither them nor their parents speak a word of German or ever were in Germany. Shrug...

[Asker]

Trump has german grandparents I think

[DryGermanGuy]

Two on his father’s side. His mother was of Scottish descent. When Angela Merkel visited the White House, Trump made a big show of mentioning how German he was. Her scoff to that is legendary. 😂

[Asker]

I believe White American are technically European Americans and black Americans are African Americans
American is their citizenship but European/African is their ancestry dna. Like white skin and black skin are both European genes. Also blue eyes and Afro hair which can be found among a lot of white and black Americans who were born in the USA

[Asker]

Black skin is an African gene but white skin is a European gene

[strateguy632]

probly can't bear to admit u. s. has anything good. but they are American

[menina]

Ouch 😬😬😬

I don't understand either. Their ancestors were Italian but they aren't. I guess they're proud of their ancestry.

[kylee2437]

Being born in the USA doesn’t mean they can’t appreciate their ancestry. They are still Italian even born in the USA.

[ODC2112]

Because as the sociologist Moynihan wrote, the melting pot is an invention that the American elites like to believe, but it never existed. America is a segregate've and self-segregating mosaic in which the ethnic groups of origin are maintained over time and are preserved and if you are non-English, you are still a citizen of another category.
Immigrants of Italian origin are not considered Americans like the others. As much as they are labeled as Italian. Then the thing is quite superficial, since only those with an Italian surname are labeled Italian, people like Bruce Springsteen, Bradley Cooper, Susan Sarandon, Kate Walsh, Sean Penn, Alicia Keys, Kate Hudson do not have an Italian surname yet they are Italian-American like and more than many others. Similar things happen even with stage names like Steeve and Liv Tyler, whose real surname is Tallarico, or Nicolas Cage, whose real surname is Coppola, or Hulk Hogan, named Terrence Bollea.
Some of them, such as De Niro, Turturro, or Lady Gaga, are also Italian, i. e. they have Italian citizenship.