Country of origin: morocco
Year of settlement: 1999
Age on arrival:
City: turin
Gender: male
Language of the interview: Italian
[i] Hello [name] !
[r] Hello everyone.
[i] Welcome.
[r] Thank you.
[i] Would you like to introduce yourself and tell us who you are?
[r] Of course I’m [name] , I’m 19 years old and soon I’m going to be 20, I’m studying at the Faculty of Business Law in Turin and I’m in the first year of my three-year degree under the Faculty of Law and then I should eventually continue my master’s degree. I was born and raised here in Turin, born in the hospice of Turin, then raised here, so all the customs I learned were learned here, I am the son of immigrants my parents were immigrants here in Italy at the end of the eighties. However, they have told me a bit about their experiences of how people lived in those years and what has changed, in these twenty years.
[i] So can we say that even though you are almost 20 years old, you have the experience of many years ago of your parents telling you stories of the eighties and nineties?
[r] Yes, in addition to what my parents clearly told me, right after they arrived here in Italy, they also told me about the things that happened before they arrived here. So I have a fairly wide knowledge, precisely because I grew up of two different cultures and ways of life I can observe events of the things that happen today, such as for example the mass immigration that is coming today I can observe from two points of view in my opinion advantageous
[i] Since you were born here but still of Moroccan origin, of Moroccan parents, [name] is today a Moroccan or an Italian?
[r] So it’s a very difficult question to answer, because of blood and family environment I grew up here I consider myself Moroccan for the same time to call myself Moroccan and that would just be a nonsense denial, because however my friends are Italian my teachers are Italian, I have interacted mostly outside of my parents and family with Italian people, then of course of other nationalities. But basically the way of thinking and acting and speaking is Italian, so I also feel a bit Italian about certain aspects when I return to my country for the holidays so many things actually remain here since I leave here of course, and many customs of my country I have not taken, acquiring instead the Italian ones so a kind of Moroccan-Italian I can say so
[i] So a double town.
[r] That’s right, I also got the Italian town, taking an oath by filling out all the necessary papers and then to all intents and purposes are both Moroccan and Italian
[i] Since you say that your friends are mostly Italian, have you ever had difficulty integrating, have you ever felt outside the circle have made you feel Moroccan or even foreign in this sense?
[r] No! not voluntarily, in the sense that it is natural to have grown up in a certain environment, it is natural and very normal and stupid to deny that there are no differences in our way of thinking with respect to yours. A very trivial example when I go downtown my friends get a drink a cocktail I get a coke because I do not drink alcohol, this may be a moment that I am cut off, precisely is something that they do not do voluntarily outside of this has never happened anything, there have never been events in which my friends have excluded me outside.
[i] This diversity of yours, but you feel criticized or you are always respected, the fact that you live in Italy but you have Arabic origins is a natural thing that certain things do not add to them, customs here that do not belong to you like drinking alcohol have you ever felt excluded?
[[r] Honestly no, it will be my way of doing but none of my friends even just my acquaintances those people I do not always meet that you can exchange a chat no one has never disrespected me no one has never attacked me, except for sporadic events of people who maybe on public transport taken from drunkenness or other start with racist insults but outside of that of people who know me there is never anyone, some joke about the fact that I do not drink alcohol I go downtown with them there was however irony so you laugh, you joke
[i] How is the story of your parents in Italy in the eighties and nineties compared to now? What are the differences?
[r] So my parents told me first of all that immigration in the 80’s and 90’s was very different from what there is today if you can say “a little more controlled” but above all it came from very different countries because immigration was still strong from the south by people from the south who came to seek their fortune here in the north in the Milanese and Turin factories. There was also a strong immigration from the Slavic countries because of the end of what was the former Yugoslavia, there was a strong immigration from the Balkans so the African immigration was still in its infancy was not as strong as it is today. Then there is also to say that Italy was a country industrially very advanced was almost a power if you can say, even if there was a very strong immigration in any case was not so much felt because the chances of finding a job was quite high and there were not these problems that there are now that can burden the issue of immigrants as unemployment: so if you do not find a job for an Italian and perhaps even more difficult for an immigrant
So, in your opinion, offering more job opportunities can facilitate the integration of these immigrants?
[r] Certainly.
[i] There will be no clash between Italians and foreigners because what they say if you are a foreigner these immigrants come here to steal work
[r] No! absolutely even say I’m Italian I have a right to work compared to an immigrant is not fair. Italy is not yours in the sense that the planet is no one’s, it’s for everyone. So if a person travels from another country clearly must adapt to the rules try to integrate as much as possible and clearly offer work not only facilitates the immigrant, also facilitates the Italians, helps in a better way, clearly if there were more opportunities for employment is natural many immigrants would not do what they do, I would not be involved in the activities that we all see or hear on the news, that is clear of course.
[i] What do you say to these immigrant boys who come here as a young boy?
[r] You learn the language because it is very important because here the language is considered very much, sometimes I make the joke that I speak better than some Italians so the language here is very important to learn it, and above all maintain your integrity, respect the rules but do not become too different from what you were, keep your roots but integrate well.
[i] [name] today and a young student very good dreamer dreamer what dreams do you have in the future? or rather goals to be achieved
[r] Now, as I said before, I’m studying, taking a degree in law from the University of Turin, studying law for business, my goal would be to have a decent job, a good job, a family, in short, the one that a normal person wants if I evaluate that there are no job opportunities for a degree that I have then I’ll go ahead I’ll also do the master’s degree to look for the best job but my dream is not so different from many other young people, including Italians, that of having a good job, a job and living life
[i] Can I ask you which languages you speak besides Italian and Arabic of course?
[r] I speak Moroccan Italian, French, school level and English I have a first certification, very good, indeed an intermediate school certification of level 3 I took in a private school when I was in high school now I do not attend it anymore
[i] You play any sports?
[r] I practiced JUDO for 10 years and I came third in the championship at national level I could have gone to the European but for other reasons I did not go there I do not do competitive activities I go to play football with friends but I attend the gym for the most part
[i] You got any brothers? [] Yes, I have a younger brother named Aiub who is 6 years old and attends primary school and plays football.
[i] What do you teach him?
[r] To be bad when he plays football. No, of course I teach him to respect his companions I teach him to respect the rules the sport in this helps because however from a discipline this is very important for young parents who may have immigrant children just born I recommend enrolling them in sporting activities that can help their children to grow up with Italian children without difficulty?
[i] With the family, parents, relatives how do you live the Moroccan Arab culture precisely
[r] My parents are practicing Muslims, they practice all the basic rules at least written in the Koran, so they pray they make the ramadan if they could visit the mecca. Everything a Muslim should do,
[i] Did your family manage to preserve these traditions despite the distance from the country of origin?
[r] Yes, my father has been here longer than my mother, so we can say that my father knows more about the “Italian culture” that my mother knows many old Italian footballers so if I name him he knows, he knows a lot of Western American music, however he knows a lot about it instead my mother came here less time, being less interested in that area there you can not talk more about it, but after all my parents to me especially have never given limitations in this sense, I can listen to who I want without problems now I have no more limitations on that
[i] So we can say that your family is a modern family open to the different, they are strict practitioners, but do not deny the freedom to choose and do what one wants to do the right one of course?
[r] Yes, they are an integrated family, a family that maintains its own customs, that does not require that other people have to follow absolutely are here respect the rules work and do what they have to do at home as they do everyone else
[i] Would you ever see yourself living in Maroco?
[r] A million-dollar question, yes one day maybe I’d like to, but once maybe I’ve finished working when I just have to rest Then maybe I’ll come back down, I’ll be fine. But I think that now for acquired mentality, and considering that Morocco is a very different country, some aspects very different then very similar, I think however my future if not here in Italy is here at least in Europe or the West in general, now my mentality is a Western mentality.
[i] Are you going to Maroco on vacation? Do you still have family down in Morocco?
[r] Yes, I still have that relative in Morocco, when I go down especially in Casablanca there are uncles cousins, then you go up to Conetra where there are other uncles, other uncles, other cousins, grandparents, friends from childhood But I do not only visit the Maroco I have visited other countries such as France I have been to London so I have seen enough beyond my country of origin.
[i] Since you travel enough in your opinion there are differences between Italy and other countries we talk about Europe also on the fact of immigration in your opinion Italy does enough?
[r] And a concept difficult to explain, however Italy is a country more recently that is open to immigration as a state, clarification I was in London is a cosmopolitan city so there are many cultures, but it is a normal thing. However London is a secular city has seen many peoples. I think that for Italy and immigration all that follows if they are so much a matter of time because they are only what is needed. it is an inevitable thing we can not change
And what do you think is missing in Italy for a peaceful coexistence for migrants and Italians, what do you have to do to have a peaceful coexistence without problems and clashes especially?
[r] Culture, we are losing a certain empathy in the sense that so many people, me being Moroccan a bit of history at school studied it, many times I reproach Italy was one of the countries with the most emigrants and we remember the immigration to the U.S. in the 30s 40 where millions of Italians have immigrated to another state. So let’s say that Italy can strenuously understand these traveling suicide trips escaping from hunger escaping from the war, so it is losing this sympathy that we no longer remember how they were put the Italians at that time there when you were not well you were going to try your luck abroad, you are losing this memory, so it does not facilitate the inclusion of new peoples away from the country
[i] So the right way or at least to have an idea is to study history well? [] Studying history and trying to ask yourself the question, in the sense that no healthy human person decides to leave friends family relatives their own land without a valid reason if he does, he does so driven by despair however are not certain trips is not that I take the plane I’m sure to get to Italy and everything is fine not. I make from different routes paying a lot of money I’m not even sure to get where I am. So I do that only because I am desperate if I die I do not care, because better than living a life like I’m living it before
[i] Thanks [name] .
[r] Please, it was a pleasure.
[i] Do you have anything to add?
[[r] No, I’ve basically said everything I thought.
[i] Thank you very much for a good future.
[[r] Thank you, thank you.