10 - In praise of the new immigration

New York-based teacher Stefano Albertini talks about the Italians of the future

Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, Director of New York's Istituto Italiano di Cultura, had foreseen it. In that period (around 1996) Italy was beginning to pay attention to the "other Italy" that existed out of the national borders. The law that six years later would recognize the right to voting abroad suddenly accelerated its timetable and raised curiosity and interest about those who had left and had been forgotten. Forgotten Italy, in fact, was the title of a report I wrote to try and understand whether "the other Italians" were a lobby in the countries that had accepted them.
While preparing that report, I met with Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi. He spoke of the past, but did so looking ahead: "The challenge is the future of Italian character," he said. "This means that our reflections must deal with global problems, not the nostalgia of Little Italy mothers. In 30 years, nostalgia will only be a stereotype of memory, and the diaspora will have been perfectly integrated. Then, the Italian character will only be retrievable in colleges, through education, not nostalgia."
I asked Lanza Tomasi if voting abroad will help in this. He smiled. "Do you really think," he retorted, "that the problem of the future Italian character can depend on the vote of immigrants? The problem is another."
Which is? "I wonder," he replied, "whether on the eve of the third millennium this talking of emigration, diaspora, and fatherland has any meaning. The real strength of the idea of Italy can be seen in New York, in that crowd of young intellectuals and managers who arrived here in the past 20 years. The fact that they aren't allowed to vote abroad is a blatant injustice [this conversation took place six years ago, before the law was passed]. The rest, those who've been separated from Italy for a century, will have to be won back by using our best intelligence, a certain amount of resources, and hopefully blocking the export of demagoguery. The new emigration does not speak to the old. As long as this separation will last, the idea of Italy will appear as schizoid: a society of intellectuals on one side, and a society of emigrants on the other."
I remembered that meeting while waiting for Stefano Albertini. He represents many things: he's a sample of the new Italian-American; he's an intellectual committed to the maintenance and development of Italian language and culture; he's a man who daily balances the cultural and emotional stimuli received from his two homelands, the one of his origin and the one of his choice. His is the portrait of the cosmopolitan Italian whom Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi identified as the strength behind the idea of Italy in the United States.
Stefano Albertini, born in Bozzolo, in the province of Mantova, obtained after graduating in Parma a Masters degree in Italian Literature from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in California. Since 1994 he has been teaching Literature and Cinema at the Department of Italian of New York University, and since 1998 he's been the director of Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, the institution based in New York City promoting everything Italian.
"All right," he says, "let's talk about me, but please don't burden me with significance and values that I do not carry. After that, I'll tell you that I live my relationship with my two homelands with great serenity. Of course, I feel first and foremost Italian, proud to be one and glad to work for the promotion of the great values of Italian culture. I love Italy, and I have an almost physical need to go back every once in a while, even though my job puts me in daily contact with Italian culture, politics and society."
So what is his relationship with his other homeland, the United States? "I feel great affection and infinite gratitude for them," says Albertini. "I never shared the American myths (as did) a part of my generation, nor did I suffer from Anti-Americanism before coming here. My gratitude for this big country comes from the feeling of being immediately welcome and accepted. Not once in these 12 years did I feel marginalized, or even dealt with differently because of my being a foreigner. On the contrary, I must say that in most cases being Italian proved a bonus, an advantage, in creating profitable relations with Americans."
This series revealed that in the metropolitan area of New York City, out of some 20 million people, 1.5 million speak Italian. This was a surprising discovery... "Not really," responds Albertini. "From my observatory at New York University and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, I can see that the interest in the Italian language, and therefore culture, is stronger and stronger in New York. Enrollments in our courses, for instance, have reached record levels in the past few years, especially thanks to many American students who, after studying in our Florence school, return with a good command of the language and wanting to explore the most disparate aspects of Italian culture. I can tell you that the demand for Italian culture has never been so massive as today, and picking and choosing within our immense cultural patrimony is very difficult."
Is there anything in our culture that raises particular interest in the Americans? "Answering 'everything' would be simplistic," says Albertini. "Italy is trendy all over the world; that is the reason for our troubles in choosing. Let's say that the 'products' most requested are opera and art. On these subjects we can reach some very sophisticated levels. For instance, the exhibition for the centennial of Giuseppe Verdi's death was organized with particular regard to the original stage design and to the problems of censorship encountered by Verdi. That was a sophisticated approach to the subject; however, on the opening night our premises were crowded, and while the exhibition was open, visitors were always numerous."
Does it make sense, then, to go around looking for Italian character in the U.S.A.? "No, it doesn't," he responds. "Italian character can be found even without looking for it. Research can help one in understanding and putting it into context, though. American culture has its richness in the ethnic and cultural pluralism upon which it was founded, and Italian culture played a role like nothing else in the elaboration of American culture. That's why I believe that the future of Italian-American studies lies in confronting all the other cultures of America across the board."
In this context, what role can voting abroad play? "I cannot prophesy on the practical effects of this law, but I think it is an important achievement from the symbolic standpoint," admits Albertini. "Finally, at long last, also Italians who are not physically present on the national territory will be able to vote."
After September 11 and the grief of Ground Zero, did the new Italian-Americans, who live serenely their double loyalty to Italy and the U.S.A., feel more American than before? What role did worldly wisdom, one of the components of Italian culture, play in Albertini's soul? "After watching the tragedy of the Twin Towers with my own eyes from the windows of my home," he replies, "I felt more American even without displaying any flag. I lived that tragedy as a blow dealt to everything that the United States represented for centuries to the poor and the oppressed of the world. Even more than that, I also got really upset,"
With whom? "With those Italians, some of them friends of mine even, who, by virtue of that worldly wisdom you mentioned, were trying to justify those acts. That was simply unacceptable. The United States made some mistakes, maybe big mistakes, in their foreign policy, but seeing the September 11 massacre as a 'punishment' for the alleged American imperialism seems to me not only immoral, but even stupid and not corresponding to the reality of history and politics. After that day, on a couple of occasions I slammed the phone down on some Italian friends of mine, and I gave some rather hard explanations to Italian radio and TV stations that interviewed me and advanced delirious 'explanations' of this kind."

Publication Date: 2002-09-29
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1809