October 29, 2014
The Notion of the “Foreigner”
Over the past few weeks in my study abroad experience I have been exposed to many different aspects regarding foreigners. The Mobility Symposium lecture that took place here touched upon numerous topics concerning immigration, movement, and the consequences that come with global mobility throughout the world. In my Italian class, I have been reading stories and articles written by immigrants in Italy. In an Italian Vogue magazine I read, there was an article about second-generation immigrants in Italy. Everywhere I look in Venice is another tourist, another foreigner. I buy a post-card from a foreign-looking person in a stand on the street and I wonder about their story. In Italian, the word for foreigner is straniero, coming from the word strano, which means strange. All of these events and topics never fail to completely interest me. And I ask myself why? Why am I so enveloped in this notion of the foreign? Why do I crave to understand foreign lands, foreign people, and foreign stories? And I think the answer is that I too, I am a foreigner. I too, at times, am the “strange” one. I think we, as people, are constantly and subconsciously drawing distinctions between the foreign and the strange, whether or not we are like the people in the place we are living. We are constantly comparing cultures, relating them to each other, and I think this is hindering our experience as becoming citizens in Italy. Because the truth is we are not all that different.
In her Ted Talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozie Andichie explains that the problem is that we are surrounded by these stories about the world, particularly in the West, that shape our understanding of these places and create certain stereotypes in our minds, certain “single stories.” And the problem with these “single stories”, according to Andichie, is that “It emphasizes how we are different, rather than how we are similar.” My actions throughout my time here in Venice have really highlighted how this idea pertains to my experiences. I have always felt strongly against something that I call, in my mind, flash tourism. For me, this is the idea that people travel to a new place, knowing nothing about it, for a short amount of times, only to see the museums, take pictures in front of monuments, and then go home. And this sort of method of traveling seems to completely satisfy these tourists and for the longest time I couldn’t understand why. Do they not even realize that they aren’t even getting the full story of the place they are visiting? Does it not matter to them to try new foods, to meet new people, to adopt new customs or ways of life? To get informed about their surroundings? How can that not matter? And I realized that this idea of flash tourism was a method of avoiding the foreign. It’s a matter of bringing the place you are from, into the place you are going, and seeing the foreign through the lens of the familiar. It is natural too. It is in our nature I think, to preserve the familiar.
This is something that I come in contact with on a daily basis here in Venice. Not just the googly-eyed oblivious tourists herding around San Marco. Not just in the frenzy of people walking over the Rialto Bridge. Even among the American students I study with I feel that I am stuck within this Untied states bubble, where we speak in English and talk about life back home, cook our favorite American family recipes. I think in general the idea of Europe for most Americans is a vacation of Eifel tower dreams and suitcases filled with straw hats, Instagram posts of falsely perceived wanderlusts and souvenirs we’ll forget all too quickly. “Show a people as one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become” (Andichie). There is this self-perpetuating process of reading about how a place should be; going there and projecting those stereotypes onto the foreign place, affirming those stereotypes, and then reiterating them back to people when you return. I think people read about these places in literature and see things in the media, and they don’t take the time to learn more about where they are going because in a way they don’t want to know. They like the bubble. It is a sort of stereotype re-affirming mechanism. The bubble is sufficient. The bubble is safe.
But I am not perfect in this situation either. I might be, in my opinion, more open minded about certain things. More open to trying new foods, meeting new people, and adopting new customs. I might read up on foreign events from time to time. I might do more than just go to the museums; I might try to be where I am, to belong to it, to accept it as a part of me for at least some time. But what does that all mean? Am I not still a foreigner? A foreigner who really likes the place she is traveling in and who is open-minded perhaps, but still a foreigner? So when do I belong? When do I belong anywhere if I am always this foreigner?
I think the answer to that question could be drawn to Hannah Arendt’s “The Human Condition.” I think in reality we choose when we belong, and it’s not an easy choice. It’s an act of dedication and of investment. I think we belong when we do what Arendt speaks of, when we become a part of the public sphere and we act in it. I think that all I’ve done thus far is adopt the things of an Italian lifestyle and bring them into my private sphere. I cook Italian foods and I buy from the local vendors. I get spritz with my friends and I study at the Ca’Foscari library. But that’s still just me adopting these habits into my private sphere. I’m really just imaging that I belong. I am imagining that I am in the public sphere of Italy, but I am not yet. I am the stranger on the outside, looking in. That’s a lot safer I think. Foreigners convincing themselves that they are one of the rest. That they are not a foreigner. But it is only an act of simulating. An act of imagination. Because that kind of person is still a foreigner. I am still a foreigner.
I think I thought if I made the strange familiar I wouldn’t be as much of a foreigner, but now I think it takes more than that. I think that we are all melting pots anyway, we all come from all over the world, maybe some more than others but most people in today’s world will move, will access their mobility. I think people are starting to be more accepting of that too. In that article I read about second-generation immigrants in Milan, they had positive things to say about their integration in Italy. That it isn’t perfect, that there is still cultural baggage, there is still a degree of xenophobia, but overall the attitudes towards others is becoming more and more open-minded. So I think it’s up to me to decide if I am a foreigner. Because if everyone is a foreigner or comes in contact with foreigners, than foreign isn’t so foreign anymore. I think when you get involved in the public sphere that is when you will move away from the domain of the foreigner, into the domain of the native. And I think that is what my duty, as a citizen here should become. If I can leave my notions of my imagined citizenship in my safe little private sphere, if I can enter the public sphere, in Italy, then I have made it. I have left the foreign, and I have become a true citizen.
Sources:
Andichie, C. (2009, July). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi: The danger of a single story
[Video file]. Retreieved from:
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-837803
The Notion of the “Foreigner”
Over the past few weeks in my study abroad experience I have been exposed to many different aspects regarding foreigners. The Mobility Symposium lecture that took place here touched upon numerous topics concerning immigration, movement, and the consequences that come with global mobility throughout the world. In my Italian class, I have been reading stories and articles written by immigrants in Italy. In an Italian Vogue magazine I read, there was an article about second-generation immigrants in Italy. Everywhere I look in Venice is another tourist, another foreigner. I buy a post-card from a foreign-looking person in a stand on the street and I wonder about their story. In Italian, the word for foreigner is straniero, coming from the word strano, which means strange. All of these events and topics never fail to completely interest me. And I ask myself why? Why am I so enveloped in this notion of the foreign? Why do I crave to understand foreign lands, foreign people, and foreign stories? And I think the answer is that I too, I am a foreigner. I too, at times, am the “strange” one. I think we, as people, are constantly and subconsciously drawing distinctions between the foreign and the strange, whether or not we are like the people in the place we are living. We are constantly comparing cultures, relating them to each other, and I think this is hindering our experience as becoming citizens in Italy. Because the truth is we are not all that different.
In her Ted Talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozie Andichie explains that the problem is that we are surrounded by these stories about the world, particularly in the West, that shape our understanding of these places and create certain stereotypes in our minds, certain “single stories.” And the problem with these “single stories”, according to Andichie, is that “It emphasizes how we are different, rather than how we are similar.” My actions throughout my time here in Venice have really highlighted how this idea pertains to my experiences. I have always felt strongly against something that I call, in my mind, flash tourism. For me, this is the idea that people travel to a new place, knowing nothing about it, for a short amount of times, only to see the museums, take pictures in front of monuments, and then go home. And this sort of method of traveling seems to completely satisfy these tourists and for the longest time I couldn’t understand why. Do they not even realize that they aren’t even getting the full story of the place they are visiting? Does it not matter to them to try new foods, to meet new people, to adopt new customs or ways of life? To get informed about their surroundings? How can that not matter? And I realized that this idea of flash tourism was a method of avoiding the foreign. It’s a matter of bringing the place you are from, into the place you are going, and seeing the foreign through the lens of the familiar. It is natural too. It is in our nature I think, to preserve the familiar.
This is something that I come in contact with on a daily basis here in Venice. Not just the googly-eyed oblivious tourists herding around San Marco. Not just in the frenzy of people walking over the Rialto Bridge. Even among the American students I study with I feel that I am stuck within this Untied states bubble, where we speak in English and talk about life back home, cook our favorite American family recipes. I think in general the idea of Europe for most Americans is a vacation of Eifel tower dreams and suitcases filled with straw hats, Instagram posts of falsely perceived wanderlusts and souvenirs we’ll forget all too quickly. “Show a people as one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become” (Andichie). There is this self-perpetuating process of reading about how a place should be; going there and projecting those stereotypes onto the foreign place, affirming those stereotypes, and then reiterating them back to people when you return. I think people read about these places in literature and see things in the media, and they don’t take the time to learn more about where they are going because in a way they don’t want to know. They like the bubble. It is a sort of stereotype re-affirming mechanism. The bubble is sufficient. The bubble is safe.
But I am not perfect in this situation either. I might be, in my opinion, more open minded about certain things. More open to trying new foods, meeting new people, and adopting new customs. I might read up on foreign events from time to time. I might do more than just go to the museums; I might try to be where I am, to belong to it, to accept it as a part of me for at least some time. But what does that all mean? Am I not still a foreigner? A foreigner who really likes the place she is traveling in and who is open-minded perhaps, but still a foreigner? So when do I belong? When do I belong anywhere if I am always this foreigner?
I think the answer to that question could be drawn to Hannah Arendt’s “The Human Condition.” I think in reality we choose when we belong, and it’s not an easy choice. It’s an act of dedication and of investment. I think we belong when we do what Arendt speaks of, when we become a part of the public sphere and we act in it. I think that all I’ve done thus far is adopt the things of an Italian lifestyle and bring them into my private sphere. I cook Italian foods and I buy from the local vendors. I get spritz with my friends and I study at the Ca’Foscari library. But that’s still just me adopting these habits into my private sphere. I’m really just imaging that I belong. I am imagining that I am in the public sphere of Italy, but I am not yet. I am the stranger on the outside, looking in. That’s a lot safer I think. Foreigners convincing themselves that they are one of the rest. That they are not a foreigner. But it is only an act of simulating. An act of imagination. Because that kind of person is still a foreigner. I am still a foreigner.
I think I thought if I made the strange familiar I wouldn’t be as much of a foreigner, but now I think it takes more than that. I think that we are all melting pots anyway, we all come from all over the world, maybe some more than others but most people in today’s world will move, will access their mobility. I think people are starting to be more accepting of that too. In that article I read about second-generation immigrants in Milan, they had positive things to say about their integration in Italy. That it isn’t perfect, that there is still cultural baggage, there is still a degree of xenophobia, but overall the attitudes towards others is becoming more and more open-minded. So I think it’s up to me to decide if I am a foreigner. Because if everyone is a foreigner or comes in contact with foreigners, than foreign isn’t so foreign anymore. I think when you get involved in the public sphere that is when you will move away from the domain of the foreigner, into the domain of the native. And I think that is what my duty, as a citizen here should become. If I can leave my notions of my imagined citizenship in my safe little private sphere, if I can enter the public sphere, in Italy, then I have made it. I have left the foreign, and I have become a true citizen.
Sources:
Andichie, C. (2009, July). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi: The danger of a single story
[Video file]. Retreieved from:
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-837803