Writing Assignment 3

More goes on in the marketplace than just the transfer of money for goods.  There is the interaction of consumers and producers, competing producers, and the inevitable clash of cultures in all these dealings.  Of course the American culture was inevitably mixed with each interaction I participated in, especially with the cheese merchant who spoke no English whatsoever.  He was probably in his 50’s, bald, and spoke rapid Italian without even trying to slow down or simplify the language for me.  On top of that I have very little idea of cheese culture and thus was overwhelmed by his overflowing display case marked only in Italian with no names I could definitively recognize (I think we were arguing over the provolone but it was call ‘provala’ in the case).  When we finally agreed on which one I was buying I asked for three euros worth and he gave me a bitter look before cutting four euros.  I was too overwhelmed to dive back into an argument.    Interestingly, most of the overtly immigrated workers were the best English speakers and also cared to pick me out as American—even when I was alone and not shouting to the other students in English.

Shopkeeper-shopkeeper interactions are best summed up by what went on in the fish section of the market.  Seafood is the only type of shop that was all organized into one area, undoubtedly because of the smell and need for cold conditions.  Although I could not understand their actual conversations it seemed like each threw verbal jabs across the open cement area like boys around the world.  I’d believe it since I’ve also seen this done, especially when the recipient is tending to a customer, in Russian and Rarotonga.  These were all friendly interactions, and I did not see any qualms even between opposing races tending the same shops, however there was an undoubted division among what people shopped at what store.  This is normal, based on personal taste embedded from a person’s upbringing rather than a conscious discrimination; not everyone was raised with couscous and is therefore not going to patronize the shop dedicated entirely to couscous-related dishes.

The market is a borderland on more than one level.  There is the Italian-immigrant border visible in what kind of shop is kept.  Most decidedly Italian-looking people were behind the counters at cheese stands and one or two bread stands.  European-looking immigrants took other bread and meat shops, but the majority of stands (produce, spices, canned goods, etc) were run by the huge mix of darker immigrants who I won’t even pretend to guess their origin.  However, as I hinted before, at least in the fish market even my untrained racism could pick up similarities among the shopkeepers (particularly their mutual knowledge of a non-Italian language) to suggest they came from the same mother-culture.  Then is the border somewhere outside of the market that distinguishes tourist and Roman living space as seen in the significantly lower prices at the Esquilino market than anywhere near Campo di Fiori.  Americanized areas get burned on prices: 2.5 vs 5 euros per kg mushrooms, 40 vs 100 euros per kg spices.  However it is a grey zone in how every nationality is drawn there to get the ingredients for its cultural fix.  I’ve never seen such a congregation of cultural Africans, certainly not milling around with so many Subasians.

Italy does not display the same identity in Esquilino Market as I have been offered walking through other parts of town.  The lady I talked to for the last Borders assignment would probably have a heart attack if the Esquilino image was superimposed on all of Rome; the market’s image is one of a melting pot filled with oil, water, butter and vinegar.  Some cultures meld together well, some never will, but all maintain a good amount of their original selves.  The market place is not a place of assimilating but rather reaffirming one’s original culture.  Italian culture is included but not dominant by any means.  It is not at all the image offered to me last week of a purely Roman city.

Writing Assignment 2

Thus far the attempts to make contact with Romans has been somewhat difficult—not because of any lack of approachability but rather (again) the language barrier.  I have personally approached two shopkeepers who I gauged should speak enough English to discuss a complex concept like race riots and both times had very limited success.

Here’s the whole story: after a weekend out and about waiting for an opportunity to present itself in the form of a single person eating at a café or loitering under the statue of Bruno, a cosmopolitan waiter in a little-patronized restaurant, or even one of the many vendors in the street who’s already done the work of breaking the ice and approached me.  Despite a full weekend out in the city none of these scenarios precipitated any interactions.  The greatest stress I felt from the whole assignment was Sunday afternoon as I tried to visualize some place in the Campo besides Sloppy Sam’s where I would likely find a person who both spoke English and had the time to answer my random questions.  Ironically, my concern over not completing this very American assignment was greater than my concern over the actions demanded by the assignment.

Sunday night I went wandering between the Pantheon and St Peter’s with Teo and Nick, at which point Teo pointed out a book store that apparently included some English titles and was fairly empty of customers.  Knowing that was a strong option I immediately relaxed and not until right before approaching the shopkeeper did I get at all stressed over the actual interaction.  In fact as I contemplated ways to explain myself in Italian I was excited if anything.

At the end of the walk I worked my way back to that store and stood behind the last customer in line to get to the cashier.  I admit a few nerves kicked in as I waited—it was a young woman behind the counter who looked fiercely Italian and not entirely warm or amicable.  Regardless I let fly my preplanned statements (“Buona sera, sono studentessa e…parlai inglese?”) when I got to the register and she knew enough English to suffice.  However she gave me about two statements before promptly adding “and we’re closing now, anyway.”  That’s a pretty heavy hint, so I left quickly with my tail between my legs.

I didn’t even get to ask her about the possible mafia connection!

As for the statements themselves, they were very strong and pointed.  The exact interaction goes

 

Me: What do you think about the immigration problems in the south? (She didn't understand 'riot')

Her: Immigration problem? Not south—everywhere. 

Me: Yes, I’ve seen—

Her: And is real problem, big.  They should all be picked up and taken out.

Me: Mhmm.  What about—

Her: That’s it.  And we’re closing now, anyway.

 

So, obviously the conversation wasn’t all that scintillating, and in a few statements I’m not sure exactly what she meant but the overall tone was very clear: she’s towards the side of Benedetta in Elevator.  Whether by “all” she meant all the African rioters or all immigrants in general, she is not shy about supporting Italy for Italians.  More interestingly, she didn’t even identify or sympathize with what was going on in the South but rather emphasized that the rest of the country has it just as hard.  It doesn’t translate through dead text but she nearly spat the word “south.”  Perhaps her pride is even more focused (Rome for Romans?).

The interesting thing is that I watched the interaction when Teo asked a woman speaking English up on Mussolini’s Wedding Cake and we got pretty much the same answer in more eloquent language.  This woman was maybe in her fifties, motherly, from England and confident in her words.  She was very level and mild in her tone when she explained the problem was everywhere (in such a way that she clearly meant it was a problem in England).  Then Teo prompted that a humanist view argues we should help these people and she stiffened a notable bit.  She firmly stated that “these immigrants” drag the standard of living down everywhere they settle and that instead of fleeing here and dropping their problems on “us” they should stay home and fix things themselves.  I couldn’t believe how easily she fell into the “us” and “them” trap.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s close, if anything a diluted form of, what my Italian shopkeeper wanted to say.

 

(Just a note: on my way back to the Campo I stopped in at a souvenir shop assuming the shopkeeper would need English as part of the job description but he only knew enough to answer “not much” the way I would answer “unpo” when I asked my same opening questions.  I said “never mind, too complicated,” bought a postcard and left.  Hence my tally is technically two.  I mention Teo’s interview because it’s useful but I take no credit for it.)

In Class Journal 1/19

            I’m sure I sound like a heartless, racist cad saying this, but it seems to me like the Jewish community is over-emphasizing its history of persecution.  Yes, yes, the Nazis, the Spanish Inquisition, the Pharaoh.  They have some legitimate reasons to paint themselves as a people fraught with woe.  I don’t grudge them those claims.

My problem starts with the smaller incidents.  The Ghetto synagogue holds tours through a ghetto that by now looks like the rest of Rome and has tour guides talk about how strapped the Roman Jews were back in the day.  And even in old pictures of before the ghetto was renovated to more human standards, it looks to me like any early-Industrial Revolution society (have you seen modern-day Manila?).  The streets are no more narrow, and honestly more lighted, than those among English tenement complexes.  And for all the cities (London included) that drove their impoverished communities into underground labyrinthines, that when fires or plagues sprang up in those shitholes sealed the few exits to save the above-ground affluent community at the expense of thousands of workers’ lives…does the Roman Jewish community think that because of their ghetto experience they should be recognized specially among the many horrors that humanity has every committed against itself?  How many times can you pull the same discrimination card before it loses its potency?

The ghetto tour is only one example.  I suppose most actually come from the movie shown after the tour.  I find it a little difficult to make my heart bleed when I look at the unimpressive plaque of names of Jewish soldiers who died in WWI.  The millions of men that died in that pointless war and the movie asks me to pour sympathy on this specific group of a few hundred?  Even in the Holocaust itself, Roman Jews experienced a much abbreviated version of what Polish Jews endured—the tour guide admitted so, herself.  Again, the generous serving of sensationalism shlopped on us in the movie tends to push me in the other direction.  What’s more, the official Jewish Ghetto had already been disbanded by then so I’m not sure why those facts made up such a big part of a Jewish Ghetto Tour.  For all the centuries that Jews legitimately endured harsh discrimination can you come up with no other examples than the ones I already know?  The two conclusions I can come to are that (1) the Jewish community is overcapitalizing on the Holocaust or (2) they don’t have other stories to tell.  Neither are particularly nice ideas but if the image given to me today is what the biggest synagogue in Rome wants me to take away, then that has to be my analysis.

Now, to entirely switch gears, my favorite picture of the day was an actual, already-printed picture.  The one of the old Ghetto nudged right up on the Tiber.  The buildings all look a bit slanted and ill-built like real slum-dwellings, with small windows and no space between structures.  There is no human touch to the scene, not even clothes drying out of a window.  The buildings also tower high above the river in an ominous way that contrasts city living and the freedom of nature.  In the foreground is a mudflat exposed out of the water, indicating the muck present in the river itself.  This picture is the closest I came to really pity the Ghetto dwellers.  I still maintain that it looks like any other non-aristocratic neighborhood across Europe depicted between the Middle Ages and the 1700’s, but there was a certain drama to that picture that was missing from the rest of the tour.

And as for questions raised today, I honestly don’t feel like we delved deep enough to prompt any good ones.  If we heard about specific people in the slums (more than just ‘she was forced to buy and sell used clothes’) then something would certainly come up.  As it stands the only thing I can really question is how oppressed Jews were able to exponentially increase their property values to those seen today…or did that happen only because they were finally evicted and their Ghetto razed?

Close Read 1

“[A questionaire’s] findings suggest that Africans are childlike and unthreatening because subordinate, and that African women, unlike Southern Italian, Moroccan, or Rom women, are sexually available.”

-Immigration and Social Identities

 

Of all the readings we’ve done so far, Immigrant Identities caught me the most off guard.  I grew up with a relatively harmless but omnipresent form of racism in Hawaii that stereotyped different Pacific bloodlines.  Although the statements based in this racism were often serious I never saw discrimination acted upon formally.  The other type of racism I’m extensively aware of is the historical American discrimination against people of pigmentation.  However, besides a few ignoramuses concentrated in the styx, most of the country has put a decided effort into working past true racism.  This paper is my first real hint that legitimate and dangerous types of racism propagate in first-world countries.

Within that one of the most fascinating subjects focuses on the different stereotypes and parameters given to the various races.  While in America it is the Mexicans whose ranks are most incorrectly filled, in Italy ‘African’ is the abused grouping.  However, amazingly, the stereotype given Africans is the same in both cases; the American slave owners saw themselves as benevolent caretakers—de facto parents—of a race that was incapable of maturing (that’s pretty much a quote out of my old AP US History book…).  Italians see Africans as “childlike.”  What’s more, slave owners assumed that their woman-slaves were in fact thankful and happy to be taken advantage of by their benevolent caretaker.  In Italy, because the men are not attached a sexual stereotype, the women are then seen as easy.  The leap in logic there is too great for me—perhaps brutalized women are less likely to take quickly to a man, while African women don’t have that concern?—but the result is the same.

One final interesting point: who is actually being compared here.  The American definition of African is much more specific than the Italian—which is pretty much anyone from the Mediterranean region not otherwise specified a race as well as those from Africa.  Yet the races Italians do differentiate between were completely glommed together during points of high immigration flow in America: for example Moroccan and Southern Italian were entirely indistinguishable.  Which is basically just proof that racism as a whole isn’t logical…even if it’s this thoroughly thought through.

Writing Assignment 1

            One of the first borders apparent when entering Italy (or any foreign country) is the barrier between visitor and local.   The first and most important manifestation comes in the language barrier and the easy distinction between native speakers and tourists who can force through a few grammarless words.  (Note: I distinguish knowledgeable travelers who are culture-savvy but alien from tourists.  Travelers are not considered in this discourse, or are rather the blurring of the border.)  Customs officers treat returning citizens much more warmly than visitors.  I know this because I accidentally stood in the EU passport line and watched all the chatty transactions before transferring over to the stoic ‘all other countries’ line where the guards just grunted as meek travelers mumbled an ill-accented ‘grazie’ on their way.    This was far from an act of contempt on the officers’ part but rather a common inability to overcome the language barrier.  Regardless, the distinction is clear.

            The border is even more defined in cities than ports, mainly because there are a larger number of activities available to compare.  When observing passersby on a street, there are certain mannerisms that give away tourists.  The obvious ones include taking pictures at landmarks, walking with a map, etc.  However, other hints are dressing casually or showing too much skin—the only shorts I’ve seen are on tourists.  Despite the well-known concept of Italian hands, it is the tourists who gesticulate wildly and talk loudly on the street.  There is also a general haze visible in tourists as they grapple with sensory overload of a new environment.  All tourists fumble through unique customs like using water fountains.  Although trial and error is the only way for visitors to learn Roman custom, in the meantime these mistakes are easy flags to identifying a foreigner.  These cultural discrepancies form the next greatest category of barriers that make complex interaction difficult between groups and create the border.

            The border between tourists and locals takes on larger significance, too; it has influence on the atmosphere of an area depending on how many of each group occupies the area. Every city has distinguished ‘tourist friendly’ zones the way it has business and industrial districts.  In Rome, areas of high tourist visitation are lined by businesses geared towards souvenir trinkets and restaurants using more international flavors (such as the Via dei Fori Imperiali leading to the Colosseum).  Such areas are generally avoided by normal Romans.  However truly local areas have more hole-in-the-wall businesses with success based on word-of-mouth passed among residents but withheld from tourists due to the interaction barrier.  The feeling of such neighborhoods has a more raw edge opposed to the polish applied to areas meant to give tourists a safe and confident vibe.  In this way the tourist-local border finds geographic significance.

            The barrier itself rarely has severely detrimental effects on either group.  Besides a small amount of contempt bred in the more snobbish locals and the embarrassment of a few tourists, this distinction is not highly influential on Roman life; it isn’t even an enforced boundary. It is a border because few people spend the energy to cross over and deeply involve themselves in the other group.