Italian Diaspora

Salve! My father and immediate family came to the United States from Catania.

Recently I have been speaking online to other Italians to practice my language skills. And when I told some Italians from New York where we were from they said Sicily was not Italy and I was not Italian but Arab?

Is this a common sentiment? And why still after multiple generations (I assume - they were very American sounding otherwise) would they say this? I didn’t understand because of course I’ve been back to Catania and stayed with my family I was shocked someone would say they were not Italian and I’m sure they would be surprised too