Ariana Grande-Butera is an ethnic Italian American and of 100% Italian ancestry. (noting a
slight semantic difference between Italian ancestry/descent and
Italian-American.) Like most Italian-Americans,
there’s little doubt she grew up with a very strong sense of ethnic identity
out of both feelings of pride and having grown up as a small and constantly endangered
ethnic minority within the US.
She speaks the Lingua Francas of where she grew up Florida-English and Spanish,
as well as, her ethnic language Italian. She is studying French,
which is also a Latin, or romance, language.
While learning English in the heavily ethnic
Anglo/African/Anglo-Germanic American US
is essentially unavoidable, she would have no doubt felt closer ties and easier
connexions with fellow Latin peoples growing up. And growing up in Florida with
its heavy Spanish
population (as a former Spanish territory), it should be self-evident why and
how she also learned the closely-related language of Spanish while growing up
and why she took easily to it. As should be apparent as well, she grew up
Catholic. There is a strong connexion betwixt Latin cultures.
Italian ethnicity(s) and identity is a bit of
a complicated topic when it comes to regions/dialects/languages and so forth,
just note these are significant to Italian identities. Southern Italy is
generally a recipient of far greater prejudice than Northern. it may also be
worth noting that Southern Italy also has quite notable Greek ancestry.
Now, what’s
the relationship? You may have
noticed that Spain and Italy are Latin and Mediterranean neighbors. In fact, Latin (capital L) spread from
what is now Italy into Spain, both with population movement and local adoption.
The countries have a very strong connexion and intertwined history, very much
akin to what you see betwixt Spain and México.
Now let’s clarify some things:
(1) She is not Italian, but an American of
Italian ancestry. (2) Mexicans are mainly mestizos, but a significant minority
of them look European, with their main European impute being Spanish, and
Spanish people are phenotypically very similar to Italians, so she easily
pass/looks like someone from Spain. (3) Ariana Grande looks typically Italian.
People might perceive her as “brown” because of the tan and makeup which gives
her an exotic look. Remove it and she looks like a standard Italian girl.
Do you have other explanations? Send in your
comments.
