Italians were at the forefront of Western culture in ancient times, medieval times, the Rennaisance, and even post-Renaissance in some respects. In American culture (and perhaps in other Anglo cultures, but I do not know) Italians historically faced prejudice despite contributing a lot to Western culture, which I find to be bizarre. How and why did this arise?
Part of the reason that there was a lot of prejudice against Italians in the US was the fact that so many of them immigrated--4 million came over between 1880 and 1920--and many began to see them as a threat to their livelihoods, especially if they worked in blue collar jobs, as the Italians were largely poor and competed for those jobs. It was this perception of a threat to financial security, whether realistic or not, that contributed to a lot of hostility towards Italians.
Plus, theUS was (and still is) largely Protestant, and there was a lot of suspicion towards the Pope, who was viewed as trying to exert influence on the US. As nearly all of the Italians were Catholics, many of them very devout, it was natural that suspicion fell upon them as well.
You can draw parallels between the attitudes towards them then and attitudes towards immigrants now, although, since this borders on current events, I can't really get into that.
I hope this helps
hi! there have been a few threads about this; see these for previous discussions
How did the concept of "whiteness" as a racial identity develop and change over time?
When and how did ethnic groups such as Irish and Italians become "White"?