blog assignment #7

The past eight weeks of my stay here in Rome, my view of Italy has changed dramatically from what it was before coming. One issue that is very complicated and always up for discussion is the authenticity of something that is considered Italian, what and who is Italian? This can only be supported by the definition of culture and how it is a social construct that is not static and is always changing. Describing an Italian, especially a Roman, is probably very different then what it was 30 years ago than what it is now. In the past few decades there have been some major events that have and that are still happening where the result is reshaping Rome and Italy altogether; issues such as education, immigration, and the definition of the youth. These are all changing and it’s hard to say what is authentically Italian and what isn’t with the integration of the recent diaspora of migrants coming into Italy. Each issue is different and is happening on its own pace, although they are all intertwined with one another creating one web that I feel is what is “Italian” now.

Immigration has been a major issue impacting everything across Italy. Immigrants and refugees have been coming into Italy as they ultimately come looking for better opportunities for themselves and their families. This has been a recent occurrence but there is a certain group that has been over looked but has shown a presence for over 500 years, the Roma. Commonly mistaken and stereotyped as gypsies the Roma community has been completely other’d from anything Italian. But for how long they’ve been in Italy? It has to be long enough for native Italians to become accustomed to the their presence, isn’t that Italian? Immigrants and Roma both affect the education system here in Rome and Italy after the law that was passed to have students required to attend school, regardless of their legal status. The integration of their children is now being incorporated to Italy’s curriculum with Italian language and religion classes. Another aspect with the schools is the diversity of the classroom with all these students now apart of it; the next generation of Italians will be diverse. There has been some debate over this though, Gelmini has recently passed decrees effecting migrant students as one of the regulations is to have the demography of a classroom to not exceed 30% immigrant student.

Outside of education, the presence of different non-Italian communities is very well known. Another group that was oppressed by Italians were the Jewish. Here in Rome, home of the Vatican, the Jewish community was forced to live in a certain part of town which was literally walled off from the rest of the city, the Jewish ghetto. Although now the walls are gone, for the most part, and new buildings have been put up the Jewish community still congregate in the common area of the ghetto as their synogog is still located there. According to our tour guide at the synogog, other than religious difference, the Jewish community has completely integrated into Italian society. With the Vatican and the Jewish synogog, another place of worship for another group is the Muslim mosque. With members of the Islamic faith growing, Rome is actually home to Europe’s largest Mosque, although there were rules to completing such a project; it couldn’t be in the city walls, could not be higher or seen from St. Peters, in Vatican city. As the mosque is a place of worship for more immigrants of such faith, our tour guide there did mention a small group of Italian Muslims coming there. One problem that I am noticing here in Rome is that there is a presence of Chinese immigrants here, but no temple of any sort.

This could be a sign of the Chinese being sojourners and do not plan to consider Rome a home for them. With our visit to CARITAS today, another example of how the Chinese community here in Rome is not trying to integrate as most elder don’t speak Italian. But with a group a volunteers there has been an effort to incorporate the Chinese. This subject is very comparable to the history of the Chinese in America, as they first came strictly to work and planned to return with their earned money but with rules and taxes imposed on foreigners the Chinese could do nothing else but stay and live their lives there.

With all these conflicts with the diversity of Rome, I feel this is affecting the youth in different ways. I feel they are most tolerant to these recent changes in reshaping the definition of national identity of Italy, or they must not care. But it will only continue to change with all the controversy in north Africa and with more eastern European countries seeking better opportunities in Italy. So to answer the question: what and who is Italian? To me, all of this is. When I was first accepted to this program the only thing I could think about Italy is a hefty Italian with a big mustache speaking with his hands at a pizza parlor and “giodos” and “giedettes” from MTV’s Jersey Shore. But now, if I had to describe what and who is Italian, I’d say the native Italian walking around with shiny puffy jackets, the Bangladeshi vendors at the market in Pizza Victtorio, the Chinese selling clothes outside of the market, the Africans selling bootleg purses, the refugees at St. Paul’s are all Italian in my eyes. I feel language is a big factor to identity, as one can learn customs and traditions through the language. Italian is no different and a person knowing and speaking it regularly is only going to become more and more to the generalization of an Italian.

Critical incidents from 21/2 readings

“Return”
This story follows a character returning to her to her place of upbringing, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I don’t feel that her being of mixed race, not even of Cambodian decent, was a critical incident. There was one quote that caught my attention, when thinking about what we’ve learned in class. “It was natural to think about the crocodiles, their unseen and furtive presence was, however, well-known by the inhabitants of the area (p.31, paragraph 3).” When I thought about this quote, all I thought about was the Roma community of Italy, as they are on the backdrop of Italian society. The following paragraph of the quote talks about a method farmers used to kill the crocodiles, this again I felt was a very rough comparison to the Roma, how Italy has “other’d” them, even though they’ve been inhabitants of Italy for centuries now.

“Give Me Back My Coat”
I didn’t really get this story. One question is what did the character go through to make him decide that death was the only way out? But reading it a second time, I don’t think the character wanted to actual kill himself but to feel belonged. I say this because he kept talking about all the different ways he could of killed himself but he always had a reason not to do it that way. Also he went to the bar to have some last drinks with some people and then there was the one person that the main character could be envious of, the person with the job interview and took his coat. This here I interpreted in the way where he wanted to see if the person succeeded that’s why he wanted to have his jacket back from the person after they are done using it.

“Light Beer and Peanuts”
Identity seemed to be a major part of this story as the character went through her own issues involving her identity throughout her life. I feel the reason she ended up the way she did was because how she was brought up; her father said she had nothing to do with India and her mother was trying to keep her from looking Indian. What I wanted to know was why she went back to India when she told herself that she wouldn’t. Also after visiting India, how did she feel and did anything change for herself after returning at an older age, able to understand more?

“The B-Line”
Although this was shorter than the rest, I felt it had a lot to say. “Far from the forest, the lion cannot roar like it used to (p.55, paragraph 1).” This quote expresses how immigrants and refugees go through, as they are far from their country and are usually never able to be what they were in their new homes. In some occurrences it could benefit emerging cultures as they are able to create a new identity for themselves and/or their cultural background. Or it can do the opposite and just reinforce stereotypes.

“The Beggar”
Up to now, this story has been my favorite out of the selection of stories in the book. I enjoyed the way the author connected the words that each person gave in the story. It easily gave imagery to each one of them, even though there wasn’t a lot given and the beggar was blind. What was interesting was the name of the church the beggar went to, the Church of Consolation, and the only words he was getting from there were very oriented. This could tie with the hegemony of Rome, the Church. Home to the Vatican, Rome is very church oriented and I feel that has hindered the progression of tolerance towards the immigrant community.

blog assignment #6

When people hear of Trevi, they automatically think of the fountain. Trevi’s main focal point is the fountain; it is one of the main attractions to see when coming to Rome and to be honest, the same went for me. All I knew was that it was the largest fountain in Rome and the person in the middle of the fountain is Neptune, the god of the sea. The first time I was there it was very astounding, I came to Rome by myself and a few days before the program started so I was just walking about and seeing all the sights on the map. All through my walks I came across fountain after fountain and it was nice to see them compared to back in Seattle. But then I walked over to the Trevi fountain and it was something else. There were flocks of people everywhere and I could tell that this was a tourist trap as there was a ton of gelato shops, souvenir shops, pizzerias and restaurants there.

The assignment for this blog was for my partner and I to go to the rione and interview people in the area; at least one resident and one visitor. We came across a couple who looked like tourist and to find out later they were visiting from Sweden. We asked questions about if they knew anything about the area and why they chose to go there. Standing in the pouring rain, the first response was that it would have been a lot better if it weren’t raining. But besides the rain, they said that they enjoyed the area though they came pretty much for the fountain and didn’t know anything else about the area. They didn’t know anything about different rioni in Rome. I would have to agree, as I didn’t know anything about this until going into more dept with my studies here in Rome.

Getting out of the rain, we stopped into a gelato shop and spoke to one of the employees. She was actually an Albanian student here in Italy but has been here for 10 years. She is studying international relations and has only been working at the shop for a little over a year. She was able to help us by giving us a different perspective of the neighborhood. All the businesses around the fountain cater to tourist and knowing that they can capitalize from this, things are usually marked up. Another way these businesses were making money was the employment they were hiring. Our interviewee told us that usually immigrants work in the businesses around Trevi because they pay less. According to her, there isn’t a lot of places for someone to live in Trevi, its more businesses and for the ones that are there are expensive. She doesn’t live in Trevi because she said it cost too much to live there. She also said that in the historical area, it’s all expensive but everyone want so live there. She didn’t know much about the area other than that. We tried to find someone else but it was pouring down rain and not a lot of people were out other than tourist.

Reflection on readings 14/2/2011

After reading the introduction and asssigned short story, I did have a lot to agree with what was being said. In the intro, I really enjoyed the quote of a migrant leaving three mothers. The third mother being the mother language is, in my opinion, very true when looking at a language other than English. To make a long discussion short, it’s easily analyzed by how the expression of one’s self is articulated; in English there is three ways to say it; me, myself, and I. In other languages I’ve studied (Khmer, Japanese, Spanish, and Italian) there’s only one way to say “I.” I feel this is what makes learning English as a second language difficult. Although these short stories deal with immigrants in Italy and they are dealing with native tongue of Italy, not English, the connection is when one has to leave their mother tongue where it’s only a part of what they are leaving.

In the short story titled Salvation, I feel that the main character of this story had a reason to leave his “mother country.” He came to Italy for work and once home he was confronted with hosting distant relatives who were also seeking food, shelter, and work. With the incidents that happen as he helps out fellow migrants, he decides to stop helping them and lies to the next one saying that they must convert to Christianity if they wanted to come to Italy. After reading this some questions come up; who helped him when he got to Italy? Is it a cultural obligation to help distant family members? Who’s considered family members? All in all this story gives a point of view of a fight between sacrificing social status and order against an obligation to help fellow country folk.

blog assignment #5

Naples is a city just before the foot portion of the country’s resemblance of a boot. On the coast of the Medderiterian Sea, it is one of Europe’s major ports and brings in an influx of goods, such as fresh seafood and abundance of counterfeit purses. One of the group members told me about his past experience to this city and to sum it up, he was telling me the same things the required readings had about Naples; to watch out for the Neapolitans (not the ice cream, it’s a the term given to the residents of Naples) driving habits, and the trash. He did also mention the pizza, he told me “Naples has the best pizza in Italy.” Then in our pre-trip class, we met our tour guide who himself was a Neapolitan, taking much pride in his city and only talking good about Naples. So when it was time for us to leave, I was pretty excited; I was going to see a southern city of Italy and eat some good pizza.

I guess living in Rome started to get to me as I forgot all about skyscrapers, the Roman skyline is pretty much all the same level except for the Vatican off in the distance (no building in Rome can be taller than St Peters). Coming into Naples that’s the first thing I noticed was that there were skyscrapers, nothing like the US but they were noticeably high. Later to find out that not a lot of people chose to work in those buildings and prefer working in the old business district. I was actually impressed walking to our hostel since we got to walk down the main strip where all the busy hustle and bustle of any big city was centered at, clothing shops as far as the eye can see and on the sidewalk street vendors selling anything to get a few bucks. This gave me a “homey” feeling, even though back home I hardly spend any time in downtown except to transfer buses. I think it was the construction because Seattle seems to be forever repairing its roads. I did start noticing the garbage though, it was piling up on the sides of the roads and overflowing out of the garbage cans. Alex told us in the pre-trip meeting that Naples does have a problem with trash and the cause of it was because of the North bringing it to Naples, this could be just a north-south rivalry but besides that, there was a lot of trash.

Comparing Naples to Rome could become a hassle as what we learned from Alex on his tour as it was coming from a pro-Naples’ opinion. From my experience walking around the city was that Naples is somewhat like Rome, it has it’s history, it has it’s historical sites, and Naples also has its own black market also known as the street vendors selling bootleg purses. I didn’t notice a presence of the church, they were there but it’s nothing like Rome. The easiest way to put it is comparing each city’s skyline, like I said before nothing can be taller than the St. Peters, so the church is literally higher than any other building. Another aspect of the church presence in Rome is how they used to only allow “Catholic immigrants” and sex isn’t really talked about publicly. I don’t about the immigrant issue down in Naples, I didn’t see any Chinese, but I did see a couple Filipino stores/businesses around our hostel but the sex thing was different, as Alex told us from the castle “it’s what Neapolitans do” when he was telling us about the “fuck park.” The Roma community was also something different from Rome’s, it Rome it is very common to see members of the community around the city. In Naples, I can’t remember if I saw any, we were suppose to see a demonstration in Square of the Plebiscite, a major square where all the protest and demonstrations happen in, but the leader of this was not in town. We did get to see a Roma camp first hand during our stay in Naples, which was very interesting to say the least.

Most of the group decided to stay over the weekend and travel around the area. Saturday, we pretty much spilt into two groups and one going to the island of Capri and the group I was in took a bus to the Amalfi Coast. This is a spectacular experience as the bus took us long roads right along cliffs of the Medderiterian and dipped down to towns that were along the water. We were able to get off and get back on when ever, the stops we made were in Maioro, Amalfi, and Sorrento, all beautiful coastal towns and the ride getting to each of them was just as good. Sunday, all of us went to Pompei to see the ancient city and all the dogs that roamed around there. On our way back there were some mishaps but we all got back to Rome safely. All in all, Naples was a great trip and I enjoyed every bit of it but I’m really glad to be back home…. In Rome.

blog assignment #4

“When you are an immigrant, many doors are closed. Well, yes, some, some are open – but they are hidden. Without help, I can’t find them.” Edgar

Consider what doors are open and closed here in Italy for immigrants and for youth in general in terms of education? How do you compare these to the doors in the united State? What are you basing your opinions and perspectives on?

When speaking of contemporary Italy, immigration is a relatively new phenomenon, as its occurrence has only been happening for just over two decades. With this, immigration’s youth come into play as they are changing the Italian education system. Just like the United States, Italy has “doors” that are open and closed for immigrant students. As there are commonalities and differences between the two nations, it is well known that the opportunities for a migrant student are marginalized.

The main difference is the way school is taught in both countries and how students in general are treated. By high school, an Italian student should know the path he or she would like to take career wise as high school is tracked into certain categories. In America, high school is where a student should consider a pathway and it is more a means of preparation for higher education, where there, he or she will pursue the selected pathway. Though the choice for the student to opt out of pursuing higher education is present in both countries, as a college education isn’t pursued by all. Another similarity is that both countries have an age where the student themselves has somewhat a choice to continue schooling in general. The age for compulsory education in Italy is 16 and in the United States the age is 18, after this the obligation of the decision for school is up to the student. Although in the United States, it is required by law for a student to attend school until 18. But enforcement of this is different in all areas, as a student could opt out before 18 but is just considered deficient of the requirements for a diploma. The reasons for one the stop schooling can be similar or different for both countries but they are both present as the rate of high school graduates is never 100% of the class.

But the problem for immigrants was having a student in the American or Italian education system; there were problems about the student’s background, language and integration of the student into the dominant society. For student’s immigrant backgrounds it wasn’t until 1994 when a law was passed requiring all students, whatever their documentation, must go to school in Italy. Later in 1998 another law was passed where it protected language and culture, as it had to be respected by the school system. In the United States a similar law was passed after the Ply v. Doe case in 1982 that made it so all undocumented students have the right to an education and no one is allowed to question their legal status. In both countries these laws gave an opportunity for immigrant families to send their children to school to obtain an education. Although the difference with this is that in Italy the student must go. But in the United States, the student has the right, meaning they can but don’t have to go. Which could be for a variety of reasons.

In both countries there is an effort to teach the primary language, as there is English second language classes and Italian language classes for immigrants. Something that comes up with this is that in America, ESL teaches only English and do not incorporate the student’s original language. There were classes that do integrate the student’s language and were called bilingual classes but the with the diversity of the immigrant students, there wasn’t enough help offered for each separate native language integration. This problem is also in Italy as there isn’t enough help for all the different races of immigrant students.

What brought this issue of bilingual education instruction was the Lau v Nichols (1974) case, where in San Francisco, students of the Chinese community were not being offered an equal education as they were only given a hour for extra of help with their English and some didn’t get any. They didn’t speak English and were required to continue their education in English, even though they didn’t know it. On the basis of violating their civil rights under title VI of the civil rights law of 1964, the case was brought up to the Supreme Court and ruled that a student not understanding English in American schooling will have a different experience than of one that does.

  

A very recent issue that happened in Italy is when the minister of education, Gelmini made a new decree that rattled the education system and student immigrants by slashing funds and segregating classes for immigrant students. This had a major impact on schools with a high number of immigrant students because it made the demography of classes to not exceed 30% of immigrant students. This affected a number of schools in Italy, as there were schools that were close to 90% immigrant students. This resulted in a number of protests.

The “doors” in both countries are very comparable as they are both have open ones and closed ones, for immigrant students. although within these commonalities there are differences as policies from each country differ regarding immigration and education. Even though there looks like there’s an opportunity, it’s only to a certain extent for a immigrant student as there are limitations, glass ceilings, and all in all a social othering of the students.