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Abstract
While African immigrants and Italians of African descent have become more visible in Italian society since the 1980s, Italian culture and identity are still largely understood by majority white Italians in terms of race, nationhood, and family history. Overwhelmingly absent from these national discussions concerning the inclusion of immigrants, foreign residents, and so-called non-Italian citizens in society are the very people at the center of these debates. To give voice to some of these individuals, this article explores how a specific group, the Senegalese community in Rome, conceptualizes and understands identity formation as foreigners and as linguistic, racial and ethnic minorities through the lens of Applied Linguistics. Through analysis of code-switching in qualitative ethnographic data collected in the spring of 2010, I show how multilingual practices illustrate these immigrants’ understandings of inclusion/exclusion and how these notions intersect with ideas about blackness. Therefore, this essay calls into question the static, exclusionary narrative on national identity and shows the ways in which the Senegalese community in Rome inserts formulations of blackness in the conversation. By comprehending how immigrants perceive their identities and the sites in which these identities are constructed, we gain a more multifaceted perspective on what it means to be Italian.
Notes
1. See Jaksa (Citation2011) for her discussion on sports and national identity formation.
2. Kyenge, in discussing the hostile reception she and Balotelli have received at times, told Cazzullo: “[l]o fischiano per lo stesso motivo per cui insultano me: perché siamo degli apripista. Lui il primo centravanti nero della nazionale, io la prima ministra nera. Tentano di indebolirci, ma non ci riusciranno.”
3. According to Caritas (Citation2012), of the over 4 million foreigners living in Italy, 27.4% come from the European Union, 23.4% from other European countries, 22.1% from Africa (both North and Sub-Saharan), 18.8% from Asia, and 8.3% from the Americas.
4. According to Caritas (Citation2012), 53.9% of immigrants identify as Christian, of which 29.6% are orthodox, 19.2% are Catholic, 4.4% are protestant; in addition, 32.9% of total immigrants are Muslim; .1% are Jewish; 5.9% are from traditional Asian religions; and 7.2% are defined under “Other.”
5. Shore, in talking about the formation of a European identity, contends that “as barriers between European nation-states are eliminated, so the boundaries separating Europe from its Third World ‘Others’ have intensified — and Islam (particularly ‘fundamentalism’) has replaced communism as the key marker for defining the limits of European civilization” (Citation2000: 63). Both political and physical attacks against Muslim immigrants show how this religious othering has been problematic in Italy.
6. This article in no way tries to speak for the racialized experience of all immigrants and recognizes that the vast majority of immigrants in Italy are subjected to some sort of racialized discourse just by virtue of being immigrants. As Pagliai notes, “many racializing discourses in Italy today create distinctions between ‘natives/Italians’ and ‘immigrants/non-European/Others.’ The largest immigrant groups are Albanians, Moroccans, Chinese, and Romanians. These groups experience a lot of discrimination and are subject to racializing discourses” (Citation2011: E96). Sniderman, et al. demonstrate through questionnaires that while Italians were disposed to view Africans as “inferior by nature” (Citation2000: 31), they had a tendency to blame Eastern European immigrants “for increasing problems of crime, unemployment, housing shortage, and taxes” (34). More importantly, they show that hostility to immigrants as a group was more evident than hostility to those identified as black (128). Nevertheless, the intention of this article is to problematize constructions of blackness in Italy, noting how historical and contemporary contexts influence the ways in which people interact with their environments.
7. Lombardi-Diop and Romeo mark the Italian colonial period from its first formal colony in Eritrea in 1890 to its loss of Libya as well as Albania and the Dodecanese Islands in 1943: “In the period between 1890–1943, Italy claimed colonial rights over Eritrea, Somalia, parts of Libya, Ethiopia, the Dodecanese Islands, and Albania” (Citation2012: 1).
8. For systemic racism in the administration of the Ethiopian colony, see Sòrgoni (Citation2002: 41).
9. Verdicchio highlights the notion of the Southern Italy as a colonial subject with the section entitled “The Risorgimento and the Exclusive Nation: Unification as Colonial Subjugation” (Citation1997: 22).
10. It is important to stress that this creation of national identity was arguably only somewhat successful. Verdicchio argues that “Unification was a failure around which the fiction of Italian culture was constructed” (Citation1997: 155). He adds, however, that “there persists a view of Italy as a unified and homogenous nation” (156).
11. See Gramsci for further discussion of the Southern Question (Citation2000: 171–185). See Verdicchio as well, not only for discussions on the Southern Question and the construction of race and ethnicity in the Italian context (Citation1997: 21–51), but also on the Italian diaspora and its role in creating an Italian identity and in formulations on race (99–117).
12. See Mellino for a discussion of political scientist Giovanni Sartori’s disavowal of the link between racism and xenophobia (Citation2012: 90). For scholarship that warns of the dangers of downplaying racialized rhetoric in Italy, see Mellino as well as Portelli (Citation2003) and Lombardi-Diop (Citation2012: 175).
13. The 2013 census shows there are 383,464 foreigners out of a population of 4,039,813 living in Rome. More information can be found through Statistiche demographiche ISTAT (the Italian Institute of Statistics). Demo.istat.it.
14. Italy follows Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. See Mudu (Citation2006: 422) for more information. The figure provided by the Caritas 2012 census was 87,311 Senegalese residents or 2.1% of the total foreign population. Senegal is the most represented sub-Saharan African country. This number marks a huge increase from the 47,762 Senegalese in the 2004 Caritas report.
15. According to 2010 census data from INSEE, there were 79,475 Senegalese immigrants in Metropolitan France, not including French citizens of Senegalese origin. More information can be found at <www.insee.fr>. I would note that, unlike in France, where family reunification and educational opportunities have traditionally attracted a wide range of migrants, including women, the vast majority of Senegalese arriving in Italy, especially Rome, migrate for economic reasons and are primarily male. Riccio demonstrates that “Senegalese migrants resident in Italy were mainly men migrating as individuals, following the paths shaped by migratory networks. The number of women has been growing through family reunion, although much less so than in other migrant communities” (Citation2008: 220). In addition, reliance on money earned abroad has paved the way for an important remittance system where, in 2007, over one billion dollars were sent to Senegal, constituting 7.6% of the national GDP (<http://www.un-instraw.org/data/media/documents/Remittances/UNDP%20project%20local%20dev/1-FACT%20SHEET%20SENEGAL-ENweb.pdf>). Riccio shows how these migrants are often celebrated as heroes in Senegal (Citation2008: 225).
16. This figure is based on a 1990 study by the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie (Cissé, Citation2005: 104).
17. The Peuls and the Toucouleurs, who speak Pulaar, comprise the second largest group at 24 % followed by the Sereer at 15%. Other groups include the Lebou, Jola, Mandinka, Soninke, among others (Cissé, Citation2005: 101).
18. Most discussions of foreign language learning are not found in academic but in marketing texts. For instance, a study by the British Council has found that Senegal has the highest level of English of any country in West Africa. See Sene (Citation2013) for more information.
19. One online text in particular speaks of the important of learning Chinese for employment opportunities. See <http://english.hanban.org/article/2014–06/27/content_542801.htm>.
20. For more information on language use in Senegal see Trudell & Klaas (Citation2009), Cissé (Citation2005), and McLaughlin (Citation2001). For a detailed look at code-switching and urban linguistic varieties in Senegal, see Swigart (Citation1994).
21. See the appendix for more detailed demographic information on the informants as well as transcription conventions.
22. For the interviews, I told the informants that they could speak any of the languages in which I was at least conversational (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Wolof). Interviews tended to be in Italian, French, or English. Recorded natural conversations were primarily in Wolof, Italian, or French.
23. Kramsch used home as a metaphor with regard to foreign language learning, arguing that through awareness of different contexts and perspectives, foreign language learners “make themselves at home in a culture ‘of a third kind’” (Citation1993: 235). Kramsch has more recently suggested, however, that “third place” as a spatial metaphor seems too static in an increasingly globalized world. She worries that “predicated on the existence of a first and second place that are all too often reified in ‘country of origin’ and ‘host country,’ third place can be easily romanticized as some hybrid position that contributes to the host country’s ideology of cultural diversity” (Citation2010: 200). Thus, Kramsch proposes reframing “the notion of third place as symbolic competence, an ability that is both theoretical and practical, and that emerges from the need to find appropriate subject positions within and across the language at hand. The multilingual subject is defined by his or her growing symbolic competence” (200).
24. Biondo was a nickname given to him upon arriving in Italy because of his dyed-blond dreadlocks.
25. In the interviews, “M” always refers to me, the interviewer.
26. Professore is a nickname. While this is his interview, Ndiaga, who has also been interviewed, is present.
27. IMDb. Avaible at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088939/quotes.
28. N: […] in Africa that is going to be different because there one doesn’t talk about, euhh, blacks. No. Understand? But anyway I know that you, you must understand a bit of what I am saying.
M: Yes. Of course.
N: There you go. I don’t really want to go into detail.
29. It is important to note that the European understanding of race and ethnicity with regard to Senegalese immigrants may vary greatly from the Senegalese perspective. A European might assign the classification of black or African or more specifically Senegalese. A Senegalese immigrant in Europe might also accept these very same terms in describing themselves. However, most of my Senegalese informants were also quick to distinguish their own ethnic differences with other Senegalese, in the framework of the various multiethnic societies found all over the African continent. Being Wolof or Peul or any of the other numerous ethnic groups was as important as being Senegalese.
30. “Ils ne peuvent pas utiliser le mot ‘noir’ parce que le mot ‘noir’ est tabou.”
31. The informants in France are part of a larger study that compares experiences of Senegalese in Paris and Rome.
32. “Me, one day, where I catch the bus and I return and I do, I have saw four Italians. But children. But, they did something to me. That bad me until today. I no forget that…Look at the black, there, there the black:::. When I speak on the phone they yelled ‘wawawawawa’. I had to say, I say him ‘but please’. They say ‘This is Italian. This is our home. You are blacks:::. Oh my, that hurts me. That bad me. That bad me […]” (The translation reflects Abi’s use of non-standard French.)
33. Referring to a study on Jamaican English in London, Gardner-Chloros writes “that code-switching is used […] to ‘animate’ the narrative by providing different ‘voices’ for the participants in the incident which is described” (Citation2009: 3).
34. See Faloppa for a historical and contemporary discussion of words to describe Blacks in Italian (Citation2004: 99–128).
35. In standard Italian it would be sindaco, meaning mayor.
36. Even with comparisons being made with France, a deliberate focus on transnationalism is outside the scope of the current analysis. See Kane for discussions on Senegalese transnationalism (Citation2011: 8).
37. In standard Italian it would be io sono diventato italiano.
38. Arabic phrase that has been integrated into Wolof.