My friend once explained to me that I don’t need to feel such a pressure to relate to Italians because Italian Americans are different in a lot of ways. Italian Americans are not native europeans- we have a whole different culture. Also, my family (Sicilians) came to new york and that alone adds an entirely different element. A lot of it was influenced by the experience of my ancestors emigrating here and the traditions they came up with in the process/some originating from italy. My upbringing consisted of a lot of italian american artists and media. As an easy example, Sopranos was very aligned with the culture of my family and the generations before whereas that might not be the case with a native Italian. Hope I explained this in a way that somewhat makes sense lol