“Have you seen the difference between us and them?”(p.117)
Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
Walking through the market of Piazza Vittorio and attempting to mentally capture the colors of the fruit, meat, scarves, and vegetables, Souvonnah, Minji, Marissa, and I skimmed the warehouse for an immigrant individual in his/her youth that we could interview about his/her opinions on immigration in Italy. I was a little uneasy at first because I did not want to make the interviewee feel targeted. Browsing around the numerous produce stands, Marissa paused at one and purchased a few onions. The merchant asked us “where are you from?” This was a perfect segue into our interview. We attempted to begin the interview with the merchant but he did not comprehend our English. He called over his friend who was wearing a white apron splattered with blood and without hesitation, we told him we were students in Seattle, Washington in America and we were studying immigration in Italy and asked him if we could pose a few questions for him to answer. Although he was apprehensive at first because of his little knowledge of English, he allowed us to conduct the interview. We were surprised by his proficiency of speaking English and although he was nervous, he told us he had studied it in Bangladesh, his native country. His name is Ahmed and he is a twenty seven year old Bangladeshi who has lived in Rome for seven years. He immigrated to Rome in order to financially support his wife and seven year old son in Bangladesh. As of now, he is a vendor working at the market at Piazza Vittorio selling produce and meat but he is waiting for his documents of permanent residency to go through so he can start his own meat business and obtain enough money to bring his wife and son to Rome. He seemed very happy and had a great sense of humor, telling Marissa that she was very beautiful. He continued to tell us that he is fine with the immigration laws in Italy and that he has a great community here in Rome with 80,000 immigrants from Bangladesh living in the city. His suitability with Italian immigration laws and his satisfaction with his livelihood were surprising to me considering the literature we have been reading in class about the struggles immigrants face in terms of discrimination and governmental policies. In “Law, immigration and exclusion in Italy and Spain” Kitty Calavita explains the integration yet exclusion juxtaposition of immigrants in Italy in that the immigration laws “pull in opposite directions at once, limiting immigrants’ ability to put down roots by denying them permanent residence, while at the same time underwriting ambitious programs designed to integrate them into the social and cultural life of the community” (97). It was enlightening to hear another perspective on immigration and Italy, not one of struggle and marginalization but one in which an immigrant feels a sense of community, home, and hope in his new country. I do not want to over generalize that Ahmed does not have any struggles in his life. We only spoke briefly, for about ten minutes and I can imagine that it must be painful for him to be so far from his native land and from his wife and child. I can imagine that he has had some unrest, discriminatory situations concerning his immigration to Rome and maybe may have disagreement with the immigration laws in Italy but did not wish to share those opinions. However, from the ten-minute discussion we had with him about his experience with immigration he came across as being settled and with hope for his future endeavors.
Upon the end of our interview with Ahmed, we thanked him greatly and wished him lucked with his business and his future plans to visit America. We wandered outside of the warehouse of vendors and discovered that a university was placed right beyond the market. For me, I was more nervous approaching an Italian than an immigrant in the market. I know that stereotypically Americans are perceived as being crude, stupid, and obnoxious so I was worried that if we approached an Italian they would judge me with these preconceived notions. Souvannah and I worked up the courage to approach a young Italian boy who was sitting with his friends. We shyly walked up and questioned “Parli inglese?” He responded by saying “yes, but very little” while pinching his pointer finger and thumb together to signify the small amount of his knowledge of the language. We continued to introduce ourselves and explained our reasoning for approaching him. He agreed to go through with the interview but warned us that his English was not very good. However, as the conversation flowed, his English blew me away. This was one of my first in depth conversations with an Italian speaker and it was so fascinating for me to hear the opinions and intelligent thoughts of someone from a different origin. His name is Luca and he is a twenty one year old student from Rome. We began by asking him, “what do you think about immigration in Italy?” He shared with us that although he believes immigration is good in that it offers many opportunities, the governmental policies in Italy generate difficulty for immigrants to be part of Italian culture. He continued saying that it is hard for immigrants to learn Italian culture because there are so many cultural differences within Italy according to region. Due to these regional differences, he explained that he is different than a person from Naples and it is difficult for the two cultures to understand each other. He said, “we don’t give a chance to other cultures to understand ours because we don’t have a national culture.” This was very eye opening for me and put into context the possibility of why it is complicated for immigrants to assimilate into the Italian culture and hard for Italians to understand the culture of immigrants. He said, “Both ways hard. Italians are not able to have a free mind.” In addition to the regional divides within Italy creating a strain on the understanding of diverse cultures and assimilation, the geographical division between immigrants and native inhabitants creates a burden on the possibility of being able to share cultures. Luca informed us that all the Chinese immigrants are concentrated in one area and the Italians live in another area. Prior to this point I understood that the North and South divide and the “othering” of the southern Italian created a framework of dialogue for the marginalization of immigrants in Italy, but Luca introduced a new dynamic to immigration in that the difference of culture according to region and the difficulty for immigrants to assimilate to particular regions and the lack of a “free mind” in Italians makes the immigration process complex. At this point, I was ecstatic with our interview and the mass of information we were obtaining from Luca. I was not expecting to receive such profound, knowledgeable responses. He continued sharing his opinions on the social view of immigrants in Italy and how people misunderstand stereotypes to be reality. Immigration laws perpetuate stereotypes about foreigners that construct native Italians to understand foreigners as only their stereotypes. Grillo and Pratt reiterate the saying, “An Italian theft is a theft, a Moroccan theft is a Moroccan” which coincides with Luca’s statement that stereotypes will stick, especially to foreign “others” in a new country. As our interview ended we thanked him profusely for helping us, shook his hand, and commemorated him on his excellent English proficiency.
The combination of our excursions, interviews, literate, guest speakers, service learning and the introduction of the many complexities of immigration and national identity in terms of the social, cultural, governmental, and geographical structures are all connecting together within my mind to form an understanding of the relational dynamics in Italy. The quote written by Amara Lakhous struck me because it reveals all of the differences within the country of Italy and how the country does not have one culture, ethnic group, or identity. It is composed of numerous, separate and distinct groups all with different social and cultural customs. There will always be an “us” and there will always be “them” and one’s own national or regional identity is influenced by these differences.
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