bleechers's Blog

As a full-blooded Italian-American (although I prefer just plain old “American”) I’ve become comfortable with being labeled “white.” Although, I’m not quite sure what that means. Where I grew up, we didn't consider anyone "white." You were Italian or Polish or German or Irish or Jewish. I still don't consider myself "white."

Right after graduating from UNCG I applied for a position with a bank. On the application I was asked to check a box for race. I asked the bank representative which box I should check.

She said “white.”

I asked her what that meant… “People of European descent,” she responded.

“What about Hispanics; they’re of European descent,” I noted.

“Well, Anglo-Saxons then,” she added.

“But I’m not Anglo-Saxon.”

“What are you then?”

“I was born just outside of Philadelphia. You can’t get much more ‘American’ than that.”

“I mean, if you’re not Anglo-Saxon, what are you?” she pressed.

“I dunno, my mother was born near Bari, Italy, and my father’s family is from Naples. We’re not Anglo-Saxons; neither are the Greeks; neither are the Slavs. Italians are actually genetically closer to the Greek and Lebanese people than to Anglo-Saxons. Over the last two thousand years, just about every ethnic group from Africa to the middle east to northern Europe has been through Italy. It's interesting that-”

“Well then I don’t know what box you should check.”

“Oh, OK. I’ll just check ‘Other’ and write in ‘Mediterranean’, does that work?”

“That will be fine, sir.”


Needless to say, I never received a call from that bank. I’m not sure if that was because they were “Anti-Mediterranean” or if they just weren’t interested in a smart-mouthed 22-year-old American from Philadelphia.