An Italian American is an American of Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and American dual citizenship. Italian Americans are the fourth largest European ethnic group in the United States (not including American ethnicity

American ethnicity

American ethnicity differs from United States nationality. An individual's nationality is American if he or she is a national of the United States of America. The circumstances under which a person is ethnically American are less clear....

, an ethnonym

Ethnonym

An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...

 used by many in the United States; overall, Italian Americans rank seventh, behind German, Irish, African American, English, American and Mexican).

About 5.5 million Italians immigrated to the U.S from 1820 to 2004.