3 - Italians part of Britain's multi-ethnic society

Postwar United Kingdom is more of a mosaic than a melting pot of cultures

NORTHUMBERLAND, Britain - Whoever applies for a job in Britain also fills out a questionnaire that must be attached to the application. This serves to identify the applicant's ethnic background, thus allowing the equal opportunity policy - the strongpoint of the social system generated by British multiculturalism - to be applied.
The questionnaire identifies five ethnic backgrounds: white (British, Irish, and other Caucasians), mixed (the children of mixed couples, increasingly numerous), Asian or Asian-British (Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and other South Asians), Black or Black British (Caribbean, Africans and other coloured people), Chinese or other ethnic group.
"As you can see," Rebecca Cryer, a marketing consultant born in Italy but currently a British citizen, told Tandem, "Italians are whites, in the same ethnic group as the British."
The "mixed" category reveals the presence of a new group, destined to become a protagonist in the age of globalization. But these people are a major problem in the way of determining how many "Italians" are living abroad.
In fact, what is the cultural identity of the children of a mixed marriage, e.g. between an Italian and a Vietnamese, living in Britain, in Canada, or in Australia? They are, from all standpoints, British (or Canadian, or Australian) citizens with both Italian and Vietnamese heritage; their mainstream will be determined by the country where they live; inevitably, their Italian and Vietnamese culture will weaken and fade, unless their parents keep rekindling them. However, since those parents are in turn usually the children, or grandchildren even, of Italian and Vietnamese immigrants, they also have, at best, a hazy awareness of their original cultures. As a consequence, the original cultural heritage tends to disappear.
If it is so, how can this be avoided? And how can the roots of these 'citizens of the world' be identified, if they only live in the present?
How do the British address this problem? "Please consider," replied Rebecca Cryer, "that as regards cultural identity, the mixed are neither the problem nor the solution. This is a free society that does not impose any model on people coming from other cultures: this implies that everyone must identify their own reference models. Such a society does not worry if new subjects, such as the mixed heritage crowd, turn out. That's the British way to multiculturalism."
Seeing Britain as a country free from inter-ethnic tensions is hard. The news seems to prove otherwise. "That's true," commented Rebecca Cryer. "There are tensions and clashes. The so-called Middle England still has a difficult time in accepting people who are extraneous to their culture. However, Britain has gone a long way in the direction I was pointing out: nothing is being imposed on anyone, diversity must be accepted. Here's an example, seemingly irrelevant but actually indicative: the police uniform includes a turban for those police officers of Sikh origin who want to keep their traditional head-dress.As a result, the idea of community is different here from other countries."
What do you mean by 'different'? Rebecca Cryer: "Here we have communities of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Chinese. Nobody else lives in those communities, not even the Italians. These communities have their foods, their clothes, and their civic and religious traditions, scrupulously kept. The British accept this diversity, recognizing the principle that ethnic groups have the right to safeguard it and to have their own social support structures, such as schools or places of worship. The problem does not exist for those with values similar to the British: what is there to be safeguarded? Italians understood this right away."
What about the large Italian communities in Swansea or Bedford, for instance? "You should rather call them 'urban aggregations of Italians'; that's more correct. In Swansea, Bedford and even Peterborough, the point was not to protect different cultural models, but to lend mutual support, the kind of help that everyone would give to a fellow national who does not know how to rent a house or where to find a plumber to fix a sink. When the first immigrants got acquainted with this country, they made it theirs."
The story of Mario De Giorgi, born in Galatone, near Lecce, is evidence of this. He left Italy just after his 20th birthday, not because he was forced to but because he "wanted to see the world." He arrived in Britain in 1956, thanks to the Rome-London agreement that opened the gates of British factories to Italian workers. He landed in Swansea, at the time the steelworking capital of Her Majesty.
"I found a great many Italians," he told us; "over 1,500, mostly Southerners. The majority came from Apulia, those from Lecce were over 500. In short, I felt almost at home, I could speak my own dialect, I met with people I had known in Italy. But I wasn't satisfied: I had left to learn about the world, and to do so I had to learn English. So I thought, so I did."
His growing command of the language and his will to work made Mario De Giorgi a privileged interlocutor of the management of the steel mill. "They respected me because I played by the rules, as I always did. But don't think that the British had the same good disposition towards the other Italians as they had towards me: there had been a war, and some wounds do not heal easily. But they weren't mean: just proud of what they had been for centuries."
He didn't remain in Swansea. He learned that in northeast England, near Newcastle, steel mills offered better conditions, and so he moved there. There, he soon became again a kind of trustee for the management, and he called up more fellow Italians from his hometown.
"Therefore I felt doubly responsible: to them, and to the management," he said. "I think I did a good job: not one of those who came on my call ever misbehaved. As soon as they arrived, I had a chat with them: 'By coming here, you are as good as reborn. Try and deserve this new life.' I was their advisor, their friend, and their interpreter: those who returned to Italy still write me, those who stayed here still see me as a sort of big brother."
Having mastered English, he began to look around and took up odd jobs during the weekend. "I did everything: bartender and waiter, bouncer and croupier, I worked in construction and metalworking. I learned all the trades, except that of a singer." Then he decided to marry Anna ("I led her to the altar in Galatone, as I had promised my father"), and in 1972 he started his own business and opened a food store. That was a turning point. With the truck he had bought, every week he drove to Nottingham, where one of the first importers of Italian foods was located, and loaded up on wine, oil, pasta, vegetables and fruit ("I introduced medlars, watermelons, real Italian tomatoes, artichokes, and our grapes.")
For years he supplied Newcastle with everything connected with Italian food. As a natural consequence, his activity 'spilled over' into hospitality: nowadays, Mario De Giorgi's restaurants (Don Vito's, Paradiso, and Intermezzo) are compulsory stops for gourmands who love Italian food. The editors of the most prestigious guides have taken notice, and never fail to mention them, notwithstanding that Newcastle has over 150 Italian restaurants.

This article is the third in a continuing series on Italian expatriate communities around the world.

Publication Date: 2002-07-28
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1626