Well into the twentieth century, Italian-Americans were not considered 'white'.

More lynching victims were Italian-American than any other group besides African-American, according to La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian-American Experience By Jerre Mangione. This included the largest mass lynching in America's history, of 11 Italian-Americans in New Orleans, March 14, 1891.

"In a series of cartoons of October 1890 [in the New Orleans Mascot] entitled 'The Italian Population,' one panel shows a group of immigrants in a cage being lowered into the river. The caption reads: 'How to Dispose of Them.'" - La Storia

Citing Blood of My Blood: The Dilemma of the Italian Americans by Richard Gambino and Ethnic America: A History by Thomas Sowell, wikipedia states that "in many areas of the South, Italians were 'semisegregated.'"

Even today, if you search for "italian" and "not white" on the web, you'll find various people, Italian and non-Italian, saying Italians aren't white because their skin is too dark, or because they are not "WASPs".

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