Neither the Italians, nor the Irish before them were considered “white” by the English and Germans who preceded them to this hemisphere...in fact, once the Irish became “white”, many or most of them didn’t consider the Italians to be “white”.
And, of course, both of those groups...to which I belong...once they became “white” always had the darker peoples to look down on, even the darker in their own groups.
Such is my own family history.