SU_T_15

[i] Good morning [name].
[r] Good morning.
[i] And how would you describe yourself, if I asked you the question, who are you?
[r] But, how would I describe myself? Nowadays I describe myself as a lady, already, in quotation marks, elderly. Who has been here for several years, who has spent more time in Italy than in my country of origin. Which is Somalia. I would describe myself as a fairly calm, serene person, happy with my life, with what I have achieved in life. I am a grandmother, a mother who has succeeded as a mother, as a wife and as a grandmother. So I am happy, in short. The only regret I have is that my country is still not at peace. So my idea when I came here was that I would return within a few years, but it’s not happening, you know? Because Somalia is still not at war, but not at peace either.
[i] And why did you come to Italy?
[r] But I came to Italy back in 1972 because we had a military dictatorship. And obviously when you’re a young girl of 19, 18, you don’t want to submit to a dictatorship, do you? And you dream of living in a free country, you dream of achieving many things and you feel trapped. So it’s a country where your freedom is seriously endangered. So I decided to leave the country to come here to complete my university studies, to go to university. Which in Somalia I would have had to do at the faculty decided by the regime. But obviously I didn’t want to follow that compulsory path. And I hoped that in four or five years of university the situation would improve and I could return to my country. But I’m still here because none of this has happened. So I stopped and went to university here. Then we’ll work for a few years. In the meantime I finished university, I met an Italian guy and we said we would both finish university. We study, then we go back to Somalia. His dream was to also become a doctor in Somalia. And in the end, none of this came true, at least in that direction.
[i] So, you studied in Italy, finished, then started your journey as an active citizen. What experiences have made you grow culturally and socially in this city, Turin? And maybe also in your country of origin, what did you bring with you that made you take the path you have taken today and what are the steps?
[i] Look, I was certainly a young girl from my country, I was only 19 when I arrived here. So I had absolutely no history of social commitment. I mean, I led the life of a girl of that age, in the sense that we grow up very early there. And I didn’t come from a rich family, so I had to roll up my sleeves from a young age. When I finished middle school, at 14, I started working at Fiat. And so my world was limited to my job, Fiat, and studying, because in the meantime I had gone to high school and studied privately. So I already had enough to do. Then fate decided that I would also become an orphan very early on. So at 17 I found myself alone in the world. And so I had even more reason to roll up my sleeves and think of myself first and foremost. So when I arrived here in Italy, I must say that my goal was to study, to work, to create a future for myself. And these were years when there were obviously no immigrants here in Italy, no foreigners who could be counted on the tip of one’s fingers. At Palazzo Nuovo, for example, where I went to university, I was the only foreign person of colour, as they say, coloured, black, I say. There were no others. But with this being the case it was a peaceful, serene environment and I also made several friends. Even if in some ways I was still much more adult than my university friends because, having grown up early by necessity, I had the chance to make friends, to study. And I must say that I was lucky enough to meet a priest who helped me in my first steps here in Italy, a priest who, by the way, died a month ago. A priest who was a very enlightened person, very advanced for the Italian reality, because he was already dedicated, I’m talking about 50-60 years ago, to the insertion, to the integration of the children in that Italo-Somali era, mixed race, who came here to Italy, in short, children of the former colonies. And so he helped them to integrate into this country, and so on and so forth. So he was my first point of reference, he helped me a lot, and I must say that he helped me not only from a logistical point of view, but also in terms of personal growth, because he was a very intelligent man, very advanced for the standards of those times, although I must say that at that time there were many committed worker priests, at that time in Turin, we’re talking about the period of the bishop of Turin, Michele Pellegrino etc. etc., they were those priests, the so-called worker priests, right? And so he helped me a lot, he also gave me strength and he also made me understand things that I had never thought about regarding female emancipation, the path as a girl to walk alone with my own legs, as a grandmother, I was also a very beautiful girl at that time, so I had also had offers to follow a career, I don’t know, as a model, a fashion model etc., and he had told me, he had helped me to understand that after all it didn’t make sense, in short, how can I put it, to sell or use my body to sell products, in short, so I must say that I learned many things from this man, and I also learnt about social commitment, because that’s what he was involved in, so I started to accompany him to things concerning emigration, which didn’t exist at that time, but it did open my eyes to our situation as a former colony, etc., etc., you know? After finishing my studies, I then closed myself off in my working world, because I worked, I always worked, I continued to work, I worked in an import-export company, and so for many years, I minded my own business, as they say, right? To my family, in the meantime I got married, and I had two children, etc., but then I started to… also because, all things considered, I didn’t feel the need for social commitment, compared to the things that could interest me, did you see? Because I always felt at ease, I fitted in well, I had Italian friends, I had friends from Somalia, because at that time there were few Somalis, and few foreign students, few foreigners attending the university, and there were mainly students in the faculties of medicine, engineering, architecture, from the Middle East, from Africa, etc., from Latin America, and we all knew each other a little, well, some of them are still friends now, even if most of them have emigrated elsewhere, well, no? Then, on my way, at a certain point, however, as the situation in Somalia wasn’t improving, and immigration was increasing, we’re talking about the mid-eighties now, after I had been here for about ten years, there was a bit more mass immigration, and it became clear that Italy was completely unprepared for this, that is to say, it had no experience, no regulations, no laws, they were making it up as they went along, even in any institution where you went, if you needed to do some paperwork, or whatever, they would say, ‘Let’s see, let’s do this now’, you know, nothing existed, so much so that, in fact, you teach me that the first regulations that were implemented here in Italy, in fact, are from the end of the eighties, right? So in 1986 we are talking about the first nucleus of something that was beginning to consider foreigners as a presence that was starting to exist, right? That’s when I started to get involved in these things with some other foreigners, to say, but guys, look, the issue here is starting to become a bit more substantial, we’re no longer a few foreigners who are here for study reasons, or for… but there are immigrants starting to come here to work and so at a certain point we need to equip ourselves with some tools, right? Because these are people who can’t speak the language, who need to be integrated, etc., etc., we need documents, we need things. And so we started to deal with this and then, among other things, the issue of women was also a bit important because, again, the presence of women wasn’t taken into consideration, right? Because it seemed that only male immigrants existed. So the same laws, the same regulations, the same programmes and projects dealt with the reception of men, reception centres for men, training courses for men, and the women who were instead locked up in their homes doing cleaning work for Italian families were not seen around, nobody realised that there were more women than men, and arrived before the men because female immigration to Italy dates back to the early 60s. I mean, these are all things that few people know, right? That the first immigrants were women from Eritrea, Somalia and the Philippines, because Italian families were starting to need someone to take care of them, right? And Italian women had also started to work outside the home, right? And so they needed this. And so, however, no one realised this whole immigration issue and nothing was done. So we, the women who were here, thought about it, and we said that maybe it would be worth starting to think about this, right? And in this I must say that we found a support that helped us, listened to us, the women of the Casa delle Donne. And to whom we said but excuse me, those were the years when we also talked about development aid, let’s help, a bit like Salvini is doing now, let’s help them in their own homes, right? But at the time it was perhaps a little more, it was a little less instrumental at the time, wasn’t it? So there was talk of development, development aid, helping developing countries to emancipate themselves, etc. etc. And we made a very simple point, we said look, now maybe you have the Third World here, you don’t need to go looking for it over there, do you? You have it here and maybe it’s a good idea to discuss it together here, with the people you may have in your homes who work for you, the people you meet every day on the bus, etc., but with whom you don’t even exchange a word. Maybe it would be worth starting to think about this again. And so this journey began, and we proposed opening an intercultural centre for women where women could start to reason with each other, to think a little about what this changing Italy meant, right? To do a truly intercultural project. The word interculture didn’t even exist at the time, did it? And so we started to coin a series of words, precisely because it was all still new to Italians, probably because no one had ever given it sufficient thought. And so that’s where my journey began, my commitment, I must say, more consistent than these things because at that point, when we opened the intercultural centre, I had in the meantime left the company where I worked and started to commit myself full time to this, as a job and as a commitment.
[i] Many things. And what were the first actions and above all the first projects of this centre you were talking about? Does it have a name? What were the nationalities at the beginning? And then it gradually grew, but what were the very first projects at the beginning? And what is the name of this centre if it has a name?
[r] Yes, so this centre is called the Alma Mater intercultural women’s centre, which was opened in 1993. The women who had thought of it, when the Martelli law was passed, which gave the possibility to make projects, integration actions, gave us the possibility to open this centre by financing the opening of this space. And there we involved quite a few people, that is to say the women who had thought about this before. We were women who had come from Somalia, Morocco, mainly Somalia, Morocco, the Philippines, Nigeria, Zaire, the Ivory Coast. We had formed this group of women who thought of proposing this space, and Italian women, in short. So, by opening this centre, this centre was to be a place where we could, on the one hand, carry out intercultural activities with the local community, involving the local community, but on the other hand also offer job opportunities and carry out projects that could break down the stereotype of the poor immigrant woman, poor thing, who comes here and is therefore clueless, who knows nothing, who can neither read nor write. After all, we ourselves were proof that this wasn’t the case, that is, we had come here, educated, with all our needs met, and we had things to offer Italy, to the city of Turin, because it’s true that we wanted to fit in, to integrate, and we were already integrated in those years integrated in those years because in the end I had been in Turin since ‘75, since ’72, so it hadn’t been two days, we were well integrated, we had our families, our children, we worked, we had a more than decent salary, etc., etc., so in the end we didn’t come to take anything away, on the contrary, if anything we could offer something and we could also offer new ways of relating, of communicating, which were not exactly from top to bottom, that is, from the working actress who interfaces and relates to her maid, but rather between people on an equal footing, between friends, we also rejected the very idea of saying let’s do something for foreigners, but we say no, we want Italians to do something with foreigners, because it’s not that you should just give to the poor, because once again we fall back into a welfare-type logic, in short, something we don’t want. So we started by organising training courses. The first training course idea we came up with from scratch because it didn’t exist, was a cultural mediation course. That is, here nobody knew what cultural mediation was, something we had experienced first hand, because we ourselves, people like me, [name], [name], [name], we were mediators ourselves, because when a foreigner arrives who doesn’t know the language, who doesn’t know what to do, who doesn’t know the laws, doesn’t know anything, he needs someone to accompany him, to support him, to act as an interface with the institutions. So we were like the friend who says, listen, come with me to the police station, or the teacher who says, there’s a child who’s Moroccan, who doesn’t speak, his family doesn’t speak Italian, could you come… In the end we did this almost every day, without anyone realising that this was a necessary activity, a useful function. So we looked around to see what existed in other countries, we put together a course, we invented this course for cultural mediators. And so that’s how cultural mediation started. The first course was done with [name], who had organised this first cultural mediation course with funding from the province, then we did another one as Alma Mater and so on. And from there, also because our objective, our aim was also to include mediators within this intercultural centre, who would do the welcoming, etc., etc., and from there we could also offer paid services to institutions, to organisations, and not always work for free for everyone. Because that was also what it was about, the dignity of work. We asked that the work we did every day, be paid for once, twice, but in the end one must also recognise that work must be paid for, rightly so. And so it went on, then we tried to propose to do, since immigration from North African countries had become the most numerous, and so we said, for example, some of our colleagues from Morocco, we said, why don’t we try to do for example a steam bath, which is an activity that is not known here and can become a source of work, income, etc., etc. And so in the centre we also proposed the creation of a steam room, services to, as they say, to make the food of our countries known. So catering, rather than lunches, dinners, etc., at the alma mater. So a whole series of intercultural activities so that they could be a means of exchange with the Italian and Turin citizens.
[i] Perfect. Now let’s move away from this experience for a moment and I’d like to ask you another question about this period. How do you spend your day, your days nowadays? So, just a few years ago, five years ago, I was working, right? So I worked first in a private company and then in the social sector, right? So at the alma mater, service cooperative, etc., etc. Then we closed the cooperative and I’m involved in training, so I do training on intercultural issues, cultural mediation, etc., etc. Now I try to do it less and less, also because in the meantime I’ve become a grandmother of four grandchildren and so for the last five years I wouldn’t say that I’ve taken care of them full time because their parents take care of them anyway, they go to nursery, they go… but I still want to give my grandchildren the chance to grow up with their grandmother too. Since I wasn’t able to do it for my children, I’d like my children, my grandchildren, to feel my… my grandmother’s presence, and also to pass on many things to them, you know? So I spend some time with my grandchildren, some time at home doing my chores, so I do… and then I’ve always helped and collaborated with my husband, I’ve always helped both my husband and my son since I have an administrative background, I’m an accountant by training, I’ve always worked in administration and so I take care of the administrative aspects of both my son and my husband, so I take care of all the accounting and administration and I’m fed up with all this.
[i] Looking back a little from Somalia to Italy, you said earlier that now maybe you have even more time to dedicate and to spend perhaps also with the cultural part of the country of origin, to the grandchildren, how do you experience the culture today? Somali in you, in the family, starting from the food, the music or in any case from aspects, what are you able to obtain as an exchange or to transmit today in the family context?
[r] Look, I mainly think about values, values because I still have a lot of them, for example about the education of my children and consequently the education of my grandchildren, I have passed on many things to my children, I haven’t passed on, I must say, I’m very sorry about this, I didn’t pass on the language to my children, for example, but for a very simple reason: because I was born in a historical period in which the mother tongue of Somalia, the official language, was Italian. So I grew up in those years and I went to school, to Italian schools, by Italian nuns, so paradoxically my second language is Somali and not my first. And what’s more, having married an Italian, I have to speak Italian, so I always spoke to my children in Italian because I didn’t feel comfortable speaking Somali. I spoke Somali until I was seven. Then from the age of seven I went to boarding school until I was fourteen. And so I re-learned my mother tongue, which means I don’t feel comfortable speaking in my mother tongue, and as a result you can’t express your feelings in a language that isn’t your mother tongue. And this is my biggest regret, also because I never spoke to them except for a few words, paradoxically my Somali husband knows more than my children because I had taught my husband a little as a joke, but the everyday language with which you speak to your children and with which you convey your feelings, affection, cuddles, etc., etc. I never did this in Somali, but I did it in Italian, I must say, so much so that, for example, I always told them the fairy tales of my country, which are fairy tales that have a strong cultural connotation in which you transmit the values of love, gratitude, affection for parents through fairy tales always have this moral so I always read to them, told them these stories. And I passed on many things just as they were passed on to me by my parents with my culture but with a language that unfortunately wasn’t mine.
[i] I find this, I find this very beautiful, because I often think that the message that gets lost when it comes to family or friends is that we do, or maybe we just can’t manage to pass on our culture in a language that isn’t, that wasn’t our mother tongue, right? Instead you are demonstrating it and having experienced it, it’s right there in the family with your children.
[r] Of course, of course.
[i] And I find it very beautiful and also an example, perhaps even to be spread, because this message doesn’t get around that much. And another question I’d like to ask you… the literary references… where do you position yourself the most? African, Italian and Somali texts in Italian, or both, or where?
[r] No, only Italian. Again, for a very simple and historical reason, because Somali wasn’t a written language until ‘72, the year I finished high school. So I did all my studies in Italian. Not only did I study in Italian, but I only studied Italian culture. That is to say, I studied more or less the Italian programmes that our peers in Italy did. That is to say, the schools were exactly the same, transmitted from Italy to Somalia. And this was the case until ‘72, the exact year in which I graduated. The language wasn’t there, it was only an oral language. And so I have to say, unfortunately for me, I am literate. I speak Somali fluently, but I can’t write it. Now I can read it. So I can read it, for example, every now and then I go on the internet, I look at things, I look at recipes for example. I can read them, but the Somali language was introduced in schools from ‘73, and maybe even then there was a literacy campaign, etcetera etcetera. So all my references, what I read, I like to read, my books, etc., are all in Italian or in English. That is, I read English fluently, I read it, I speak it. I also read in French if necessary, but not Somali.
[i] So, two passages. You have also been lucky enough to experience, I would say, three different moments in Italy. When you arrived where there were very few people of African origin and you experienced the moment when you arrived where you were also a protagonist in social inclusion projects and then you are living at the moment where you have grown children with grandchildren. And if you had to put these three steps together, how would you define the present day and in your opinion Italy in 10-15 years? In 10-15 years? Bad. If we go on like this, bad. That is, if things continue as they are today, I don’t see it going well for Italy. I mean, I must say that sometimes I use this term, don’t I? That we, some of us, are a bit like the thermometer, aren’t we? Of this country, aren’t we? And it seems to me that Italy has a fever at the moment. And if this fever isn’t cured, unfortunately I don’t see a good outcome. Because if at the beginning Italy was unprepared, let’s say it wasn’t… ignorant, it was ignorant in the sense that it ignored the rest of the world, Africa or whatever, right? They didn’t know foreigners, there were few foreigners, there were few… even if those few that there were were African. And even, over the years, and I’m sorry that Italy has such a weak memory, the Italians, Turin in particular in this case, have forgotten that they were immigrants. When I arrived, I witnessed that there were still shops with signs saying, that is, houses with signs saying, ‘We don’t rent to southerners’. Or the Piedmontese, they would say to me in Piedmontese… ‘but min pias pi chila che l’è neira; che n’è di napuli’ (No? So, I prefer you who are black, I like black people more than Neapolitans). So that says a lot, doesn’t it? I would see things, it happened when I was out and about, then later with small children, or when I was a young girl, I had my hair in an Afro, like Angela Davis, like this, and some boys who were maybe curious, would touch my hair because they had never seen a girl with hair like that, right? Or when my husband or I were out and about, I also happened to hear some ladies saying, ‘What a cute little black boy’, ‘Let me see him’, ‘My daughter has never seen one so small, he’s like a little monkey’, ‘I don’t know’, but I took it like that, as something, I said, ‘Oh well, poor thing, it’s not his fault, you know’, no, I mean. But always with a certain positive curiosity. Not today, it’s not like that. Then we moved on to the period when foreigners were demonised, but not Africans, right? It was all hell and high water against Moroccans, then Romanians, that is, there have always been waves, no, of immigrants who were to be demonised. Just as in the 60s, 50s, 60s and 70s the southerners were demonised, now it’s the Africans, right? And today I have to say that unfortunately the climate is bad towards black immigrants. Blacks, I say, underline this word, right? Because euphemisms are used, convenient words are used, not colour, no, etc., no, black. Because the problem is precisely the fact of being black, that is, not… and therefore you find black people annoying. It especially annoys people nowadays, whether they are poor, whether they are to blame for being poor, or it annoys people if they are successful, if they have achieved something. Because if it’s a black person who occupies a position of prestige, it still bothers people. So, what should we do? Should we bury ourselves? I don’t know.
[i] So, how do you feel today and what, if I may ask, is your level of satisfaction, and what would you change today? If you had to change something along this path.
[r] Well, from a personal point of view, I have to say that I’m satisfied with my life, right? With what’s happened in my life, with what I’ve achieved, with how things are, etc. I’m fully satisfied, 100%, I have to say, right? If I have to say, from a social, political and cultural point of view, Italy is taking steps backwards. And I’m very sorry, because be that as it may, I’m Italian, I’ve lived in this country for 46 years, I’d be stupid if I didn’t feel Italian, right? And I’m sorry, even more so, right? And I’m sorry above all because I have no alternatives. That is, if I were from a country where there was peace and tranquillity, I would say, well, okay, it’s bad here in Italy, things are getting worse, I’ll go back to my country. But unfortunately I can’t do that. And anyway it would seem like a betrayal, it would seem like throwing in the towel, right? It would seem like giving up. And I’m not a person who gives up, I’m rather tenacious, right? And so… but I’m also sorry to see that even the foreigners aren’t doing much. They’ve given up, they’ve given up looking for work, those who have. Others have left because they haven’t found what they were looking for, so they probably haven’t had the chance to fight and the strength to resist. And unfortunately, many Italians no longer have the strength to fight this bad climate that exists towards foreigners, right? So I don’t see it so well, I mean in my opinion the issue is being minimised, a growing racism is being minimised, they’re trying to say but no, it’s not like that, they’re four stupid guys, they’re four, etc., it’s not like that. I always say that history should teach men, right? In the 20s and 30s they did it a bit too, didn’t they, in Europe. But no, but yes, they’re a bunch of troublemakers, they’re a bunch of madmen, etc. Then we saw what happened, didn’t we?
[i] Well, we’ve come to the end of this interview. I’m going to ask you a question from home. When you eat Somali food, what dish do you think of? What dish do you like to cook when you want to experience Somalia?
[r] Look, I only did it on Sunday, I had some friends, my family, some friends were here, and I made a Somali dish, the most famous one we use when we have guests, etc. I made Somali-style rice with kid, and if I had to say with sambus, we cooked that and for me it’s the dish, from one part of the party, but it’s the dish that reminds me most of my country.
[i] Thank you.
[r] Thank you.