Italy: Cultural Differences In American Culture

Have you ever wondered how much different other countries cultures are from our American culture? Health care providers have to be aware of these differences, because we will work with a vast amount of cultures and in order to provide the best care for our patients we need to be aware and accepting of those differences. Italian culture is similar in ways to Americas, but like any other culture there are still differences. Working with people of a different culture and lifestyle than us can be difficult. “Italy’s history goes back a couple of thousand years; one of the first civilizations to flourish was that of the Etruscans, between the eighth and second centuries BC”(Italy: History, 2015). “Italian peninsula later became the center of Italy’s

Italians are loud boisterous people they are expressive and animated when they speak. “Interruptions are to be expected when carrying on a conversation with an Italian, and there is rarely a moment of silence in fact they tend to become uncomfortable when their is silence”(Italy:communication style, n.d.). Appropriate conversation to talk about with Italians “in the workplace include Italian history, architecture, art and culture, sports, food and wine, and current events”(Italy:communication style, n.d.). They do not like to talk about “religion, politics or the Mafia these are considered to be a negative stereotype, but they are quite keen to speak about their families”(Italy:communication style, n.d.). Italy shares most of the popular holidays like christmas and new years, but they also have holidays that are particular to their Italian culture. Italian holidays include “The Epiphany which is one of Italy’s popular holidays it is celebrated on the sixth of January and it originally symbolizes the birth of christ. It is considered to be the end of the Christmas season: it is, literally the twelfth day of christmas”(Holidays in Italy, n.d.). “Epifania tutte le feste porta via is the saying, and it roughly translates to Epiphany takes all the holidays away”(Holidays in Italy, n.d.). Italy has many different holidays that they celebrate in their country such as: Liberation day, May Day, Festival of the Republic, Ferragosto, All Saints and all Souls’ day, The Immaculate Conception, Feast of St. Stephan, and many other feast days that are important to Italian culture. Italian traditions consist of going to festivals, and celebrating their culture, and