# Do you think Sicilians look like Middle Easterners/North Africans, and Latin Americans? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 9, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623 "2012-06-09T15:12:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/61 "2012-06-15T16:55:26Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > I guess I’ll pick the last one (Puerto Rican, Mexican, etc) > > For a long time I thought Mario Lopez was Italian (I didn’t quite grasp (and still probably don’t) the whole Italian/Sicilian thing) rather than Hispanic because he looked similar in skin tone and hair to one of my childhood friends and his family. They were only a gen or so removed from living in Sicily and still had many relatives living there, and even went there for vacations occasionally. > > Yeah, Mario LOPEZ’s last name should have been a clue I was way off. But his first name MARIO, well, Mario is an ITALIAN plumber, right? > > :smack::smack::smack::smack: Mario Lopez looks half Asian to me, or something. I always thought he looked kind of Hawaiian if anything, or Filipino. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/62 "2012-06-15T19:23:29Z")
The whole Italian/Sicilian thing is that Sicilian civilization goes back much deeper in the past than in Italy. Sicily was a notable center of Hellenic civilization back when the Romans were still living in caves and hitting each other with clubs. Again, Sicily in Islamic times was, like Spain, a leader in restoring civilization to Europe when Italy was in the Dark Ages and ruled by Teutonic barbarians. Sicily was a Greek-speaking land ever since practically the dawn of its history and didn’t switch to speaking an Italian dialect until the 13th century AD, after the Muslims had been kicked out and they had to bring in Italian peasants to work the estates. Sicily became part of Italy only recently in history (1860), while its own history over the span of 3,000 years has been mostly apart from Italy and receptive to influences from all the other Mediterranean lands. Sicily is a big island situated smack in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Anybody who crosses it is going to wind up there. The whole Italian/Sicilian thing is Sicilians not wanting their own distinct identity to be obscured just because of joining Italy. ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/63 "2012-06-16T03:52:05Z")
There are also Middle Eastern and North African influences in Sicily that are far fewer in other regions of Italy. Rural Sicilian folk music sometimes has a Middle Eastern sound to it and some of the food has similar influences (couscous is a native origin dish there just like in Morocco and Tunisia). ---
**Author:** ![Syme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@Syme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syme)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/64 "2012-06-16T06:40:15Z")
> [@gunnergoz](#): > > I’ve wondered about that too and then I have to remember that other cultures and countries (notably Hispanic ones in South America but also to some degree the French) have had a long history of slavery in their past too, but now mostly do not seem to have quite the same issues with race as we still suffer from in the US. > > If I had to put my finger on something in American history and culture as a root source for this racism, I’d have to guess that it began with the racial prejudice and intolerance that came with the religious beliefs of some of the earliest English settlers in America; a quality which lives on today in some Americans, whether they acknowledge it or not. Well, the Spaniards mixed with the Natives, hence our “mestizos” and “mulatos”. When one is born in such a society, where there is gradient of ‘color’ one is not aware of a clean Black and White divide. In my homeland we never had slaves imported from Africa, so we are in the majority mestizos but not mulatos. We never had reservation or practiced genocide in the scale of the Anglos in North America ---
**Author:** ![gunnergoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e95f7d/32.png) [@gunnergoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gunnergoz)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/65 "2012-06-16T18:46:02Z")
> [@Syme](#): > > Well, the Spaniards mixed with the Natives, hence our “mestizos” and “mulatos”. > > When one is born in such a society, where there is gradient of ‘color’ one is not aware of a clean Black and White divide. In my homeland we never had slaves imported from Africa, so we are in the majority mestizos but not mulatos. > > We never had reservation or practiced genocide in the scale of the Anglos in North America Trust me, America (the USA) has seen lots of mixing with both natives, slaves and anyone else close at hand. And we too have our “gradient(s) of color;” some people debate if Obama is “black enough” to be black. However, unlike most Latin American countries, the USA has that history of religious bigotry, mostly Protestant or splinter religions, that the largely Catholic countries of Latin America seemed to miss out on. ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/66 "2012-06-18T22:20:40Z")
I wanted to make a similar thread to this but this one didn’t go over well and I’d hate to be criticized for doing so. Kind of a follow up question. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/67 "2012-06-18T23:00:50Z")
I recently hired a young engineer right out of school. He’s of Sicilian heritage. He looks like a young Frank Zappa. ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/68 "2012-06-18T23:02:35Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I recently hired a young engineer right out of school. He’s of Sicilian heritage. He looks like a young Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa, too, is Sicilian. So it makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/69 "2012-06-18T23:45:54Z")
> [@the\_apples\_fell](#): > > Half of my family is from Sicily. One side is from Messina and most of the people on that side have typical Greco-Roman looks. On the other, from Palermo, I have some relatives who are blonde and blue eyed and could pass in Germany, and others who look like you took them out of a bazaar in Palestine. My ancestry is mostly from the British Isles and Germany and I’ve been told I look Slavic, specifically Polish or Ukrainian. I met a woman in the US who was struggling with English, but she looked perfectly Anglo. I couldn’t exactly place her accent and suspected that she was a Francophone, but when I asked her it turns out she was from El Salvador. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/70 "2012-06-20T08:59:36Z")
A hundred years ago, Sicilians in America were not considered white. We were colored. At some point we got shifted into the white column. I think it was around the time of the First World War. Our racial status had to change after the [famous picture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Big_four.jpg) from the 1919 Paris Peace Conference of the very Sicilian prime minister of Italy, Vittorio Orlando, hobnobbing with the Great White Fathers themselves—_on an equal footing_. After that it was no longer possible to categorize Sicilians as nonwhite. Well, that’s my hypothesis anyway. To me, this matter just goes to show how arbitrary and empty of any real meaning is the categorization of people into separate races. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/71 "2012-06-20T21:45:35Z")
Hell, my maternal grandfather didn’t consider Sicilians white until at least the 1960s or so, possibly into the 1970s. My mother was making plans to marry my father, and was rather haughtily informed that WHITE girls didn’t marry EYEtalians. ---
**Author:** ![Juju\_fruit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@Juju\_fruit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juju_fruit)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/72 "2012-07-13T20:00:58Z")
I am half Sicilian, half northern Italian…well, it is a mixed bag in my family. I got the super Sicilian genes. Aka I look like I could stand in a photo from the old country and you would think I was the sibling of my grandfather (I look more like his sister than he). Whereas others in my family look more greek, northern,fairer etc. again, my grandmother is sicilian as well…and she has dirty blonde hair and blue hazel eyes and her nose is not roman or rounded… My aunt and I were leafing through a national geographic and we saw a pic of this turkish woman, we both thought she could be our twin. I am not tall or short. I have dark auburn hair and hazel eyes…thick lips and olivish skin. My nose is strong and aquiline and I have almond shaped eyes. I have been to sicily and Italy twice…I couldn’t tell you the difference between the two regions in terms of how the people look from one place to another. :rolleyes:🆒:rolleyes: Btw the whole race or ethnicity obsessions we Italians and Sicilians have has nothing to do with the history of this country. Italy was not a unified country until 1861, and so the different regions built a specific sense of pride etc. people rarely guess my Sicilian ethnicity. Only once has anyone got it right on the first try…it was a random creeper on the st. Who asked…are you Brazilian or sicilian? ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/73 "2012-09-20T18:33:34Z")
Just something I wanted to add to the thread that is genetically based. From a genetic calculator that someone I know has provided, it places Sicilians genetically closest to; 1. other Southern Italians, obviously 2. Ashkenazi Jews 3. Greeks 4. Sephardi Jews 5. Northern and central Italians 6. Cypriots 7. Balkans (Bulgaria, Serbia, etc) 8. Turks, Lebanese 9. Canary Islanders and then after that comes everyone else. Roughly these are the closest. But then again my topic here was about phenotype not genotype. But just some info and perspective 🙂 K10a Sicilian\_D (Dodecad) 99.9 S\_Italian\_Sicilian\_D (Dodecad) 98.1 Ashkenazi\_D (Dodecad) 96.9 Ashkenazy\_Jews (Behar) 96.0 Greek\_D (Dodecad) 93.1 C\_Italian\_D (Dodecad) 92.9 Sephardic\_Jews (Behar) 91.8 Morocco\_Jews (Behar) 89.9 Tuscan (HGDP) 88.2 TSI30 (HapMap) 87.6 O\_Italian\_D (Dodecad) 85.9 Cypriots (Behar) 85.8 North\_Italian (HGDP) 82.1 N\_Italian\_D (Dodecad) 81.2 Canarias\_1KG (1000Genomes) 78.9 Baleares\_1KG (1000Genomes) 78.2 Murcia\_1KG (1000Genomes) 78.1 Bulgarian\_D (Dodecad) 77.7 Bulgarians\_Y (Yunusbayev) 77.5 Lebanese (Behar) 77.3 eurasia7 Sicilian\_D (Dodecad) 99.9 S\_Italian\_Sicilian\_D (Dodecad) 98.5 Ashkenazy\_Jews (Behar) 98.0 S\_Italian\_D (Dodecad) 97.4 Ashkenazi\_D (Dodecad) 97.2 Greek\_D (Dodecad) 93.7 C\_Italian\_D (Dodecad) 92.3 Sephardic\_Jews (Behar) 91.9 Morocco\_Jews (Behar) 90.4 O\_Italian\_D (Dodecad) 88.7 Tuscan (HGDP) 86.1 TSI (HapMap) 85.1 Cypriots (Behar) 81.9 OTHERS\_D (Dodecad) 81.6 Bulgarian\_D (Dodecad) 79.1 Bulgarians\_Y (Yunusbayev) 78.5 North\_Italian (HGDP) 77.6 N\_Italian\_D (Dodecad) 77.3 Romanians (Behar) 76.5 Lebanese (Behar) 75.4 world9 Sicilian\_D () 99.9 S\_Italian\_Sicilian\_D () 98.4 S\_Italian\_D () 97.9 Ashkenazi\_D () 97.6 Ashkenazy\_Jews () 97.6 Greek\_D () 94.2 C\_Italian\_D () 92.2 Sephardic\_Jews () 92.1 Morocco\_Jews () 90.9 O\_Italian\_D () 89.7 Tuscan () 86.9 TSI30 () 86.1 Cypriots () 82.7 Bulgarian\_D () 81.0 Bulgarians\_Y () 80.1 Romanians () 79.1 North\_Italian () 79.0 N\_Italian\_D () 78.7 Turkish\_D () 78.4 Canarias\_1KG () 76.4 ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/74 "2012-09-21T01:55:04Z")
I’m a quarter Sicilian but I seem to have gotten more than a quarter of the genes. Once in a great while someone will ask me where I’m “from”. In college a nice guy from Brunei asked me what my mother tongue was. Two really stupid kids in the 5th grade thought I was Iranian, plus when I was in Japan a couple of Iranian guys came up to me asking where I was from. I have blue eyes, so that throws people off. ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/75 "2012-09-21T02:42:37Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > I’m a quarter Sicilian but I seem to have gotten more than a quarter of the genes. I am half, and I look fully Sicilian. I’ve been mistaken for, in order of frequency; Greek, Bulgarian, Lebanese, Jewish, Turkish, Armenian, Serbian, “Eastern European”, “Middle Eastern”, Argentinian, Cuban. Everyone and their mother either thinks I am Greek, Bulgarian, or Lebanese. I am surprised people just don’t think Italian.. but then again most Italian Americans are mixed with other things and it shows. ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/76 "2012-09-22T05:08:44Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > For a long time I thought Mario Lopez was Italian Not sure if now is the appropriate time to answer this since I am months late, but I’d say the Native American part of his ancestry is quite evident (remember Mexicans have Native American ancestry). ---
**Author:** ![TurboNuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f19dbf/32.png) [@TurboNuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TurboNuke)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/77 "2012-09-23T15:18:04Z")
My friends parents are from southern Italy. So he is 100% Italian. He looks a lot like Osama Bin Laden. Hes gotten a lot of ribbing about it over the last ten years. He has a big nose but its not shaped like OBLs. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/78 "2012-09-24T11:28:40Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Let me put it this way. My mom is of mostly Irish ancestry. Because of her my complexion is considerably lighter than my pure Sicilian dad. Nevertheless, I’ve had this conversation countless times: > > Stranger: Where are you from? > Me: Cleveland, Ohio. > Stranger: No, no—I mean where are you _really_ from/where are your parents from? > Me: My parents were both born in Cleveland too. > Stranger: No, you don’t get what I mean… ::flustrated:: > (Oh, I get what they mean all right. They’re too shy to come right out and say I look non-American, foreign, but that is exactly what they mean.) > > Because I’m tall and a shade lighter complexioned than Mediterranean olive, I’ve often been taken for an Afghan. Other times people have convinced themselves I must be an Arab. I’ve had Arab guys hit on me by saying “'Scuse me, miss, but are you Arab?..” It was fun to tell them to leave me alone in Arabic. I’ve had a white American guy get all up in my grill and tell me “You people should go back to the Middle East. You people are ruining everything.” > > Huh, my ancestors have been in America for a good 300 years, probably longer than any of his, and I’m directly descended from Revolutionary War veterans to boot (I have not seriously thought of joining the DAR, no thank you. My very Democratic grandmother and mother also made fun of the idea in their day). But nobody ever believes I’m American. My, but what a weird world this is. It’s an easier world to deal with if you don’t assume malevolent intent from people who are merely curious. You know what they mean, so, by intentionally not answering them, you’re the one being rude, not them. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/79 "2012-09-24T15:31:40Z")
Can I use the thread as an excuse to post some of my favourite music? Yes, I can as it is bucketing it down here in the north of Italy and I need some of the sunny memories. So [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTcBZQ1povE&feature=bf_next&list=LLyplEcWutT5DealYCxRYr1g) are some Sicilians singing in Sicilian. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![the\_apples\_fell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@the\_apples\_fell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_apples_fell)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623/80 "2012-09-25T01:19:52Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > Can I use the thread as an excuse to post some of my favourite music? Yes, I can as it is bucketing it down here in the north of Italy and I need some of the sunny memories. So [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTcBZQ1povE&feature=bf_next&list=LLyplEcWutT5DealYCxRYr1g) are some Sicilians singing in Sicilian. 🆒 Sounds similar to some Greek music. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-sicilians-look-like-middle-easterners-north-africans-and-latin-americans/624623.md?page=5)