La Vita è Bella

I am now officially over half way done with my studying abroad adventure.

Today was a day in which I reflected on Italy and life as a foreigner in attempts to begin processing what my Italian experience has meant.

It was yet another rainy day here in northern Italy, the Milanese skies gray and gloomy as it usually is, yet somehow I enjoy Milan's rainy days better than its typically gray, non-rainy days. At least the rain gives the illusion of cleanliness. The hustle and bustle of the city is increased in its difficulty on these days, the congested sidewalks now crowded with solid and plaid patterned umbrellas, usually purchased for 2 euro from the street immigrants who sell them in the underground subways. These umbrellas are cheap and fall apart easily, I have one of my own, so of course the old and dignified Italian businessmen carry umbrellas of distinction, with carved wooden curved handles and pointed tips, like the shiny pointed tips of their shoes. On these days the buses are more crowded than usual, and they are usually very crowded. Wet bodies pack together, heightening the scent of mustiness, and the windows completely fog up so that there is no visibility of the streets as the bus twists, turns sharp corners, stops abruptly, honks its heavy horn. The rain makes the immigrant gypsies, the beggars, the street dwellers take shelter, leaving their usual begging posts and street corners. However, the rain does not prevent the Italians from dressing in their usual formal attire--in fact, it seems as if the rain makes them dress up even more. The people are walking art, in their dark wool coats and leather boots. The puddles that pedestrians are forced to jump over and dodge don't seem to hinder the choices of Italians and their footwear. But I saw the strangest thing today as I was walking down Via Carducci towards the mezza for lunch--an older Italian gentleman was wearing a shower cap to protect his balding head from the rain.

My interactions with Italians sometimes puzzle me. We (and by "we" I mean the other Americans and non-European foreigners in my program) are definitely "those weird foreign kids" when we're in big groups, walking to class or eating in the cafeteria. We dress differently and it shows, even if we try are best to blend in. We talk differently, that can't really be avoided. Our body language is different--we're awkward, we're overly expressive, we're displaced, though now that we've been here this long, I think it shows that we're much more comfortable in our surroundings than we used to be. When I speak to Italians, they ask, "Inglese?" and I say "Si" but they go on to assume that I am British, not American! So I have to say, "No, sono Americana". But I guess they just hear the English and cannot distinguish a British accent from an American one. I guess this makes sense because I would not be able to tell the difference from a Milanese accent from a Tuscan one or a Venictian one.

I am still enjoying my classes here immensely, especially my modern Italian literature class with Maria. Now we are studying Neorealism and reading Calvino's "The Path to the Nests of Spiders" which is about WWII in Italy and the fighting partisan groups, after Italy joined the Allies side and Germany has invaded. The story is told from the point of view of a young Italian boy, Pin, a street orphan with a prostitute sister, in the region of Liguria (Northwest Italy, along the rough coastal landscape). It's facinating hearing about the era in history from an actual Italian. Maria's father was in a partisan groups himself during this turbulent yet epic time in Italian history. The two main partisan groups that were fighting each other in a kind of civil war, fighting Nazi fascism, and resisting Mussolini's fascist party, were the "Reds" and the "Blue Ones" or "Ozzurri". The Reds were communists and the Blues were liberals/Catholics/Socialists. Eventually these two groups come together and write the Italian constitution, thus there is must communist ideology and influence in modern Italian society which I think many people, mainly Americans, don't realize. And this time in history was of immense importance for Italy culturally and intellectually. "Einaudi" was a publishing house located in Torino (Northern Italy, Torino and Milano were are the head cultural and intellectual centers of Italy) where artists and writers came together to resist censorship and illegally listen to London radio that told the truth about the events of the war, free from Italian propaganda. These writers translated much American Neorealistic literature of the time, like Hemingway, since the Italians wanted to identify with the symbolic and epic American ideology of freedom and liberty, as well as to express dissent and resist oppression. This process of translating was also monumental in forming the Italian language. At this time, Italians still did not have a unified language since isolated regions still spoke using the their local dialects. Yes, Dante back in the Middle Ages was the "Father of the Italian language" but it wasn't until much more recently that Italians formed a unified, common vernacular. The Italian language was always considered to be an elitist and academic language since it was used mostly in the writing of texts. So writers faced the problem of expressing themselves with a common vernacular that represented the language of the people--also, in translating American realism, a more universal Italian language had to be formed. Thus the modern Italian language was born, using elements of regional dialects as well as the classic academic form and structure of the language. This has given me entirely new insights on the language, especially since I'm in the process of learning it. It is a product of the old, Middle Ages and Renaissance old, and the New, WWII new, and a conglomeration of dialectal vernaculars. At times it is an extremely refined and elegant language, but it also can be used in a crude, simplistic, casual manner. It's expressive (along with Italian hand gestures, which are a language entirely in its own respect) but at the same time it's monotone and consistent in its intonation. Italians I've met have commented on how the English language is actually extremely expressive because of how many tonal variations we have. We can ask the question, "How are you doing?" in such a variety of ways with different connotations because we change the pitch and tone of our voices. Italian is not so. It's very rhythmic, but you never hear a high-pitched Italian voice. Even the women speak with a quick, rhythmic, yet single-toned voice that usually is very deep for females. Italians put all of their expression into their facial and hand gestures rather than their voices.

My Italian life is closely linked with the following elements: language, academics, food, fashion, socioeconomics, and the most character building city bus commute of all time. I'm craving a home-cooked meal, made by the hands of my mother, or the flavors of Mexican food which are lacking on this continent. I miss my home, my family, my friends. But here, I am surviving and even thriving perhaps with this non-stop jet-setting, train-riding, bus-riding, multicultural European lifestyle. I only have a little over a month left and I am constantly trying to soak in my surrounds--the old well-dressed Italian women who walk arm in arm down the streets, stopping to admire the artistry of Milanese widow displays, the little children and their childlike accents, the flavors of fresh, preservative-free produce and the freshest, most delicious mozzarella cheese on earth that you buy as a ball in a baggie of liquid.I want to enjoy the company of my roommates and travel buddies, and take it into account that when I drink a cappuchino at my favorite cozy little cafe, that I'm drinking espresso from the very place it was invented. I want to appreciate the intricacies of the Italian architecture that surrounds me, as relics of Renaissance history.

I have felt displaced living here as a foreigner and truly estranged, being prejudiced for being an American, scoffed at and blamed. I have been judged by Italians for my lack of effortless Italian style, yelled at by the old men on buses when I inappropriatly put my feet up on chairs, yelled at by the lunch ladies for taking too much food in the cafeteria, taken advantage of because I am foreign and fined 34 euro for a bus pass that I already purchased, and have been treated and viewed as the object of men who ask for sexual favors on my bus route or on the streets of my immigrant, low-income neighborhood in the seedy outskirts of Milan. It hasn't been easy to put things lightly. Despite the chaos of this city, this culture, the frustrations of political corruption, inequalities of women, the poor, the immigrant populations, the fragile infrastructure and disorganization, the dangers, the influence of the mafia, the fashion-obsessed consumer culture, I will survive this place and I will return to the comforts and the familiarities of my home and my culture as a more complete person with extensive international experience.

I have learned so much, and despite my struggles which had to be overcome, I wouldn't have had it any other way.