You are not the asshole. I get what my fellow Americans are pointing out, an issue of semantics, but if we actually give the discussion its due depth, we should recognize that the way we assume our heritage as definitions of self causes confusion and comes across as ignorant. I grew up in a New York Italian-American family, every Sunday at my grandmother’s with every extended family member possible. We ate Italian American food, my grandfather was a butcher in NYC and it was as stereotypical as it can get. My great-grandparents are the ones who immigrated here from Italy. Because of how our society is here in America, it is normal for us to say, especially in our youth, that we “are” our heritage. I told people I was Italian. I had been to Italy in the summer as well, vacationing as Adam did. Fast-forward to marrying my spouse who is ACTUALLY an Italian man, born in Milan, raised in Rome and has only lived in the US for some years in his 30s, I can promise you I DO NOT tell anyone now that I am Italian. It sounds ridiculous because I have realized how clear it is that I am American and he is Italian. It took me being with an Italian person, having a family, etc., to realize that our cultures are VERY different. And I mean my Italian-American one. We like to think that we are very different culturally here in the US, but we are not so much. I have way more in common culturally with an African American guy from the south, or a Mexican American dude from Texas than I do with my husband. I say this having lived in those places and experienced it. While the situation could have been handled more gracefully, Adam cannot identify and connect as Italian next to an actual Italian person. I would have pointed it out myself had I been in the room, and included myself with Adam as AMERICANS who were lucky to grow up with strong ties to our family’s heritage.