Thanks to the internet I tracked down a dear friend, we met when we wanted to offer young Our "brick" to build a "pollen" more human scale, through the pages of a magazine called " Veseri 2000. Later, as other people, for reasons we lost sight of. Now, however, we filmed a link: I found Barbara Alfano and thanks that I have a personal interview, I met and enjoyed many new things about her. While living in different continents with the Internet we can return to hear friends.
For how many years you have lived in Pollena?
From birth until 1996, when I moved to Naples.
From birth until 1996, when I moved to Naples.
How long have you lived in the U.S. and what is your job?
I moved to the USA in 1999, a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. Now I'm professor of Language, Literature and Culture Italian at Bennington College in Vermont.
I moved to the USA in 1999, a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. Now I'm professor of Language, Literature and Culture Italian at Bennington College in Vermont.
Barbara ... moves
Currently what kind of bonds you have with your community of origin? I'm going
Pollena once or twice a year for long periods, from one to two months each time. Are not linked in any other way to the community except through the family and friends. They are certainly closely linked to that country, places, roads, the smells, the shops, the presence ...
Pollena once or twice a year for long periods, from one to two months each time. Are not linked in any other way to the community except through the family and friends. They are certainly closely linked to that country, places, roads, the smells, the shops, the presence ...
Living in the U.S. between job opportunities and difficulties daily. What do I tell?
Life here is so different that I do not know where to start to talk ...
Life here is so different that I do not know where to start to talk ...
then try to give me ideas, rather than the details.
Life happens here, does not stop. Here you have goals and reach them. You are not alienated from your job, start a new life even to fifty years. The career opportunities are those you give to yourself, nobody stops you, or pushes you if you do not move it yourself. Here, diversity is real in this moment I have four students in front of me who are doing an exam: two decades and have two more than fifty.
Continued ...
Tonight I will go to the supermarket to find open until 22.30 - because I live in a tiny town, otherwise it would be open 24 hours on 24 -, and there find all organic products that I want, I will choose to eat as I please, and according to the traditions over the world.
delivery of the doctorate (alongside Barbara is the supervisor, prof. Djelal Kadir)
As for the difficulties?
difficulties, profound, who have all the people who grew up in a Mediterranean culture where the relationship with your body, the body of the other, the relationship with the spaces, and the understanding of personal relationships are very different from those a culture of Anglo-Saxon tradition. As for work, professional achievement, and the chance to realize my expectations, I have not had any trouble, I was ready for 'America' a long, long before coming here.
the light of your experience in the U.S. what it means for you, the word "integration"? And as an Italian living abroad, what are your thoughts on issues concerning the integration of people who come to Italy to seek better living conditions?
When I was a doctoral student in my class Literary Criticism we were sitting around a table, every day, I, Italian, an Irish, an American jew, an Israeli, a Muslim kwaitiana, a Chinese two Kenyan, a Japanese, a Moroccan and a Tunisian. Good times. I miss them. During the period of Ramadan, the Muslim friends left the room after dark for a few minutes and went to grab a bite. No one seemed odd. My friend kwaitiana, every day of the three opened the mat in his office and prayed, he shared an office with ten other students, ten cubicles with as many desks. No one seemed odd. On September 9, 2001, I and my friend kwaitiana we went to New York to accompany her sons to the airport. At three o'clock we stopped because he had to pray. We prayed together, she to Mecca, I pour my version of God That same year we went together to see the 'Oedipus Rex , New York, staged by the national airline of Athens. It was not the only one to wear the veil in the theater, there were lots of women wearing veils. The night before we were at home and we ate on the floor, rug, with his hands. I remember on that occasion the husband gave me the authorized English version of the Koran because I was curious to understand a few things. I have another dearest friend of Muslim tradition, however, different from the first. She is Pakistani, he married a few years ago the son of a Catholic deacon, and this year has prepared for the first time the Christmas dinner for her in-laws and her husband's family. Keep the image of his marriage, celebrated at a mosque in New York. Then they ricelebrato in Pakistan, then in America ... several of my friends are mixed couples and their marriages are always two or three states of affairs! Let me add one last thing.
When I was a doctoral student in my class Literary Criticism we were sitting around a table, every day, I, Italian, an Irish, an American jew, an Israeli, a Muslim kwaitiana, a Chinese two Kenyan, a Japanese, a Moroccan and a Tunisian. Good times. I miss them. During the period of Ramadan, the Muslim friends left the room after dark for a few minutes and went to grab a bite. No one seemed odd. My friend kwaitiana, every day of the three opened the mat in his office and prayed, he shared an office with ten other students, ten cubicles with as many desks. No one seemed odd. On September 9, 2001, I and my friend kwaitiana we went to New York to accompany her sons to the airport. At three o'clock we stopped because he had to pray. We prayed together, she to Mecca, I pour my version of God That same year we went together to see the 'Oedipus Rex , New York, staged by the national airline of Athens. It was not the only one to wear the veil in the theater, there were lots of women wearing veils. The night before we were at home and we ate on the floor, rug, with his hands. I remember on that occasion the husband gave me the authorized English version of the Koran because I was curious to understand a few things. I have another dearest friend of Muslim tradition, however, different from the first. She is Pakistani, he married a few years ago the son of a Catholic deacon, and this year has prepared for the first time the Christmas dinner for her in-laws and her husband's family. Keep the image of his marriage, celebrated at a mosque in New York. Then they ricelebrato in Pakistan, then in America ... several of my friends are mixed couples and their marriages are always two or three states of affairs! Let me add one last thing.
tell me! About
legal aspect, we are all subject to the law of the country where I do not think we should or could be otherwise. Laws can and must improve, where necessary.
Living in the U.S. there is a feature of your being Italian that you "rediscovered" and you can tell that fair?
I do not like the word "fair." Fortunately, the Italians have historically always had what is indicated by experts (scholars and intellectuals) as "weak national identity, national identity weak in the sense that we are not strong nationalists - with some exceptions ideological and historical -, and thank goodness, but unfortunately the class of our country's government is trying by all means let us tighten up in the nationalist imaginary diving suits for the poor job he's doing with immigration ... Again, I do not like the word fair, and it is true that there are more Italian than it is in Italy, here is expected of me that I am "Italian", and then my personality and my habits correspond to a whole series of stereotypes. My job is to disassemble those stereotypes and I enjoy doing it. Now finally you say ... I have discovered to be very attached to my land, the sea, the streets of Naples, the smells, the sights, the buildings. They are not tied to a lot of the mentality and habits of the Italians, I can do without it very well. There are things that I could not accept before leaving Italy, I was a kid, and still do not understand: why children remain at home until thirty years despite having a job because the Italian mothers continue to educate young Italians in a certain way because you're forced to belong to a chapel ideological, political or religious it is. Because the garden of the villa of Mr. Dick is clean and beautiful and the sidewalk just outside his gate is shattered, full of weeds and dirt? Why do people watch TV in the tissues? Things like that. There are many things the U.S. do not understand, of course. I think it's important to be able to live always in a position of displacement intellectual, not street never to be more open and better understand each other. We owe it to mankind and the earth as a whole.
photo birthday
Who is - and why - your favorite Italian author?
do not have a favorite author ever. My favorite author right now is Italian Igiaba Scego, I read with great pleasure along with other Italian authors of foreign origin as Ingy Mubiayi, for example, because they are the only ones who tell me of Italy and is coming tomorrow, along with that of today. While the Italian Government sent the boats in Libya, they tell me of mixed couples, children of "two-tone" of different situations, sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but really new and I'm thrilled. (edited by Charles Silvano)
do not have a favorite author ever. My favorite author right now is Italian Igiaba Scego, I read with great pleasure along with other Italian authors of foreign origin as Ingy Mubiayi, for example, because they are the only ones who tell me of Italy and is coming tomorrow, along with that of today. While the Italian Government sent the boats in Libya, they tell me of mixed couples, children of "two-tone" of different situations, sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but really new and I'm thrilled. (edited by Charles Silvano)
___________________
point out another interview on the subject of new immigrants:
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