From my Hometown in Italy to the Vast America

To some people’s surprise, I wasn’t born in Portland. To say the truth, I wasn’t born anywhere in America. Both my siblings were, but I wasn’t. I moved here, when I was 40 days old. My hometown is Parma, Italy. None of my family lives there, they all live in other parts of northern Italy, so I rarely visit my true hometown.
Although, I do visit Italy, to see my family.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I moved to Portland when I was 40 days old. I moved because of my dad’s job, because he wanted to move to Nike global headquarters. My parents talked about it, (this was before I was born) and eventually settled on an agreement to come to Portland, where there was a Nike campus. If Portland didn’t have a Nike office, I probably wouldn’t be here right now. So, me, my mom, my grandmother, and our one cat moved to Portland, traveling through the Portland International Airport. It’s strange, now that I think about it. 250 years ago, people would have taken many months to get to the other side of the world, where now it only takes around 17 hours by plane. Innovation keeps growing.

You’re probably realizing that, in was born in Italy, and both my parents are Italian, that must mean I’m bilingual. Well, yes, I am bilingual. As you can imagine, it’s hard. It’s like different parts of you belong to different parts of the world. You’re never a whole. I’ve never fully adjusted to the American customs, and neither to the ones in Italy. Some things just feel awkward to me, for example in Italy, it’s a ritual to pretend to kiss someone on both cheeks when you see them, without putting your lips to the other person’s face. It’s not like people always do it, but if you get invited to someone else’s house, it’s a custom that you do it. That’s something that feels weird to me. Another thing that I’ve sort of grown used to is the packaging. In Italy, everything is fresh and local. If you visit a place that is on the sea, there’s probably going to be freshly-caught seafood. Whereas in the US, basically everything is packaged, frozen, and shipped in boxes. So when you eat fish here, if you eat it at a restaurant, that fish that you eat would probably have died at least a week ago.

Another thing that I’m not used to is seeing the “Italian food” in commercials. Lots of times, you see commercials about food. Sometimes, it’s about chain food restaurants “claiming” it’s Italian food, when really, lot’s of times, it’s not. Garlic bread, for example, isn’t Italian. It’s an American version of Italian bread, because in Italy, before eating there’s always plain bread and grissini on the table so you can eat it with your food. Garlic bread is not the same as Italian food, and it doesn't feel the same.

There’s much more than to just customs, though. It’s also about being able to learn both of them at the same time, plus Chinese, which is the language I, in addition study at school. You’ve got to find the time to practice it, use it, and study it, which lots of times can be challenging. How I try to keep up my Italian is by practicing it at home, reading in Italian, and take classes once a week for an hour and a half. I want to be good at all of the languages I take at the same time, and at the same level. Lots of times, I feel between one language and another, not fully know the language and not at the same level. I don’t have one base language I can always refer back to, instead, I’m in between both of them. If you go back 250 years ago again, mostly everyone knew only one language, and only a few acted like translators in important meetings. I know it’s a good thing, we get to interact with more people, and learn new things. It can be hard, though, really hard, but it’s worth it.

Backlink: https://docs.google.com/a/catlin.edu/document/d/1Op8e4B219tU1HEBFljBatuq86XIrXHiacQKDj7P9OQA/edit