Karen being Brazilian?

Watching episode 8, and something that came up was Nicola mentioning again that he said to his parents "When you will see her, you will like her.." also Karen mentioning that Nicola "didn't expect her to look like she did" and here have to ask the Italian LIB'ers could it be that there was a concern that she was Afro-Brazilian? I have hear that there is tension around Afro-Brazilian women "coming to take our men" or would it be a case of covert racism...just wondering.