FAKE ITALIAN

I have to admit it, it does bother me. Looks like it’s something cool to say just to have a reaction. It happens to me all the time. «I’m Italian» they say. “No you are not!” my mind screams!!!I understand that in Toronto, the most multicultural city in the world, definitions don’t make too much sense, and I also believe that everybody can wrap themselves up with your favorite flag without giving any explanation. But that doesn’t make you Italian, or Canadian, or any other countries citizen. I’m Italian because I was born in Italy, because I lived there 23 years of my life. I’m Italian because I can speak Italian, I sing, I think, I write, I read and I dream in Italian. I’m Italian even if I don’t drink wine, but I could recognize the smell of my land with my eyes closed.

My passport is Italian, I can cook pasta, I like pizza, I like Italian fashion and I do cheer like crazy for the Italian soccer team during the World Cup, but all those things don’t make me Italian. Neither does my Italian last name. And you know what? When I’ll be a mother, my child won’t be Italian, and it’s totally ok. My being Italian doesn’t make me any better than anybody else, so it really sound strange to me how people that were born in another country, that cannot speak Italian, that don’t know anything about Italian culture and politics, and in most cases they have never been to Italy can define themselves as Italian. I wouldn’t define myself as French, or Japanese, and it’s not even a must to define yourself.

And let’s not start with that song either: if we talk about your roots, and how important they are for you, how come you didn’t study Italian? Who is the Republic’s President? Who is Dante o Garibaldi? Why you don’t know anything about “your” country?

Please don’t even ask me about those “Italians” made in USA with big muscle, orange skin and ridiculous TV shows, all those grocery’s products called “Italian”, or restaurants with Italian names and wrong spellings. To end, I just would like to say that I respect much more somebody who falls so deeply in love with a country to decide to study everything about it, than a person who gets confused between a last name and a life. ©

The author, Elena SC is a young Italian writer/journalist/reporter. Her home town is in Sardinia. She has been living in Canada since 2006.http://elenasc.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/tired-of-fake-italian/