This isn’t necessarily for you, usernamesaredifficul, because I assume this history is more familiar to you. I just wanted to dump for anyone who wasn’t aware.

Italian-American is an identity distinct from Italian, but also more specific than American more broadly. Italian-American culture comes from people who immigrated here prior to the unification of Italy. So all these people had distinct ethnic identities but were treated as a monolith and found community (physical and social) in each other as they established themselves here. That’s why what Americans call “Italian food” has little to nothing to do with traditional Italian food. It’s food that poor Italian immigrants came to use as staples. That’d also why a lot of Italian Americans will pronounce foods in a specific way that Italians never would. Those pronunciations have been passed down by people who arrived here prior to the unification of Italy and therefore prior to some major phonetic shifts in their particular dialect would have occurred.