>>17837907 (OP)If you’re worried about being “bullied in Iowa for being Italian,” you’ve already fallen into the imperial mind trap designed not to keep you out, but to keep you from thinking beyond your skin. Your pigmentation isn’t the issue. The issue is that Iowa, like much of post-industrial America, has been culturally sterilized by decades of economic collapse, Walmart architecture, fentanyl, and school systems that teach nothing but self-hatred and conformity. Whether you’re Italian, Greek, Polish, or Martian, what you’re seeing is the effect of monoculture by finance.
Your ancestors gave the world Dante, Verdi, and Brunelleschi. You’re wondering if your tan lines make you unfit for the corn belt. That’s not insecurity but manufactured alienation, fed by the same mass media that replaced real culture with product placement and identity grifting.
You won’t be bullied in Iowa for being Italian. You’ll be forgotten, unless you remember who you are, and more importantly, what you must become.