SU_T_49

[i] Hi [name], I’d like to ask you to introduce yourself, to tell me a little about your background, in short, your family history.
[r] Hi, my name is [name], I’m 23 years old, I study architecture, I’m an architecture student. I’m of Egyptian origin and I’ve been in Italy for how many years? Since I was 9, I mean. I’ve lost count. I moved with my parents because, well, my sister had a problem. We moved here to Italy for health reasons, but then we decided to stay here because we liked it. I have two sisters and a brother, they’re younger, I’m the oldest.
[i] And where are you from in Egypt? I mean, where did you live for the first 9 years of your life?
[r] Well, I spent the first 9 years of my life in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and I have some memories, but they’re a bit vague because I ended up spending my adolescence here in Italy. After a time when I started to understand many things, I have some vague memories of my family, of my grandparents. In short, I lived more here than there.
[i] And what memories do you have, let’s say, you arrived here when you were almost a child, right? When you arrived in Italy, the school, your classmates, how did you feel different?
[r] The first year was really hard for me.
[i] What year of school was it?
[r] I arrived here in the fifth year of primary school, and it was difficult because I was good in Egypt, good at school, I understood others, I had friends, but when I arrived here, I didn’t know anyone. When I arrived there were few Egyptians in Turin and so I had no relatives, no family, I didn’t even have friends, only my father and my mother. And what’s more, I didn’t even know how to speak the language I found myself in when I arrived in Italy. And so even though there were other communities at school, other children from other communities, it wasn’t Arabic, I couldn’t speak and communicate with them. Then my teachers were really good, exceptional, because they helped me in every way. And in fact, by the end of fifth grade I could already speak Italian well and I also had a good relationship with my Italian teacher. And from there I started to feel at home in Italy because by then I was integrated, I could speak, I was able to have friends. My parents tried in every way to leave me as much time as possible with people who speak Italian. So we went to the after-school club, to the oratory, we went to the oratory for many years, even in the summer because for six years I didn’t go back down to Egypt during the summer. Partly because of problems with documents, then my mum got pregnant and other things, so it was really impossible for me to go back. So I spent the summer with the other kids like all the other children and from then on I was integrated more than well.
[i] Listen, where did you go to school and in which neighbourhoods?
[i] Well, we moved a little too far from Turin. The first year I went to school in Corso Marconi, in the San Salvario area. And then we moved to Corso Francia, I did two years of middle school in the Bernini area, in Corso Francia. And then we moved to Corso Regina Margherita and I also did a year of middle school there. And then I went to high school, but I continued to live in Corso Regina Margherita. And then we recently moved to the Corso Giulio area, the Falchera area.
[i] And what is different in these areas compared to your experience? Where have you been better? Where have you been worse?
[r] No, I liked all the neighbourhoods. I liked all the neighbourhoods. I don’t have a favourite, in the sense that… For example, Corso Regina is much more chaotic, so I preferred to live in a very quiet area. I only lived in the San Salvario area for a year, but I was still very young. I couldn’t tell you if I felt at home or not, but I remember that there was already an Egyptian community there, in that area. Instead in Corso Regina or in the Corso Francia area, at the time, there weren’t many people yet. And where I live now, not even many people are Egyptian, if we look at the Egyptian community. But in terms of neighbours or school, no, I’ve had a good time in everything, I’ve had no problems.
[i] And listen, on the other hand, when your parents came to Italy, were they able to do what they did before?
[r] Oh no, this was a problem for them, my parents weren’t able to have what they once had in Egypt. Both my parents have degrees, my father in particular has a law degree and obviously it’s impossible to be a lawyer here. Partly because of the language, partly because a lawyer is always playing with words. So if you don’t understand a language well, if you can’t speak it well, it’s useless to be a lawyer. What’s more, they don’t recognise the degree in Italy, so obviously not even my mum. So they came here, started studying a bit, but only got as far as the third year of secondary school. While in Egypt they both have degrees, so it was a bit… I wouldn’t call it a trauma, but it was more or less a bit of a problem for them. My father opened a restaurant and pizzeria, my mum did other courses, other jobs in the kitchen. But then my father decided to go back down to work as a lawyer, because obviously he hadn’t been able to do it here. However, what he did for many years here he wasn’t able to…
[i] And so he commutes back and forth, let’s say, between Cairo.
[r] Exactly, Cairo-Turin. So he stays there for a while, then he comes to visit us, and we go to visit him, but at least I make sure he really likes it. Instead, here it’s just us and he realised that it’s better for us to stay here, because by now we’re… we’re used to being here in Turin. In short, we grew up here.
[i] Yes, also because you have siblings who were born in Italy, right?
[r] I have a sister, the youngest, she’s eight, she was born in Italy, but the one before her arrived here when she was three. So in the end yes, she wasn’t born here, but almost. And my brother, he also arrived here in third grade, so in the end we really lived here longer, we have more memories here. And we have something there too, but not as much as what we experienced here. In the end our friendships, our hangouts are here, not there.
[i] So you all have Italian citizenship?
[r] No, not even the little one who was born here, because according to Italian law if a child is born here, they have citizenship when they turn 18. But we can’t have it. We can get it once we’ve worked in Italy for at least three years with a certain high income, or if my father has a high income. And since we don’t meet any of the requirements, because I’m still going to university and my father doesn’t have a high enough income for six people, we haven’t been able to get citizenship.
[i] And does this create problems for you?
[r] Yes, sort of. I mean, while studying I realised that to enrol in a register I have to be of Italian origin, that is, or at least have Italian citizenship. And this, once I take the state exam, will start to cause me problems. But, like when I go to another country, in many countries, I have to have a visa if I’m not an Italian citizen. There’s something else that bothers me too, because yes, I’m Egyptian, I’m proud of it, I’m happy with it, I’m also Italian, proud of it and happy with it, but I need, I mean at least when I move from one country to another they should tell me but you’re Egyptian, therefore you can’t do this if you don’t have citizenship. So it also creates some problems for me when I travel. If I’m outside Europe, obviously in Europe my passport is enough.
[i] Ok, so you would like to stay and live in Turin, which is a city that you feel a bit like… no, I imagine as your home. How do you imagine it in the future, in its spaces, also with regards to the issue of, let’s say, migration?
[r] So, if I have to talk about Turin, when I first arrived Turin was much quieter, there were fewer people than now. It’s a bit more crowded, there are many communities that weren’t there before. How do I imagine it? Honestly, I don’t know, but yes, I feel at home there. If I go to another country, however, I feel nostalgic to return to Turin. But if I have to talk from a work point of view, once I finish my master’s degree and I have to find a job, I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job in Turin. And so it’s one of the many things that pushes me to go to another place, a third place where I can find a job.
[i] So a third place anyway, not Egypt.
[r] No, even in Egypt, I mean, even there there are problems now, so I don’t think I’ll ever find a job there. So my country remains the place where I go to visit my family, my relatives. Here remains the country where I studied, where I had my friends and I created a family here. Instead another country where I will find a job if I can’t find one here. If not in Turin, if not in Italy, in any case in my opinion yes, I will move to another country.
[i] This is a good thing because it gives the impression that mobility helps people to develop as individuals, that it is not only obligatory or in any case forced, but also a personal aspiration, right? Evolution or change, anyway.
[r] In my opinion, yes, the more you move, the more you go to other countries, even if you don’t go to live there, but just go on holiday, not just to see the places, but also to see the people. This makes you change many things about your personality, it makes you understand many things that you would never be able to understand if you stayed at home.
[i] It perhaps even makes you question yourself a little.
[r] Yes, it makes you understand and also put yourself in other people’s shoes, understand why a person from a certain country behaves in a certain way.
[i] Can you give an example of something that happened to you?
[r] But there are many. I mean, every day, but also at my university, I’m talking about the Polytechnic University of Turin where there are many Chinese communities, as well as Pakistani, Egyptian and Moroccan. We’re talking about many nationalities, but French, too. And so understanding customs, but also simply, I don’t know, that New Year’s Eve is not New Year’s Eve for everyone. New Year’s Eve because here in Italy for us Muslims there is another New Year’s Eve, for the Chinese there is a third New Year’s Eve, at different times. And this is already a beautiful thing. And so you can understand that there are also other holidays, there is not just one holiday, there is not just one Christmas. We have the Copts in Egypt who have a Christmas that falls at a totally different time from Italian, let’s say, European Christmas. The Chinese have something else, so yes, I’m starting to understand the customs, even the way many people think. Because they don’t do this but they do that, so in my opinion, yes.
[i] Then maybe you can also use the vehicle of Arabic, who do you speak Arabic with?
[r] Well, I speak Arabic with my parents because it’s a rule in the house that we only speak Arabic, so at least we don’t lose it. I mean, outside the house, my parents know that I speak 24 hours a day, so at university, at work, with my friends we speak Italian. And so they said at least let’s keep up our Arabic a bit, in fact I can read it, write it, speak it. And also for my sister, for the little one, she was born here, she went there once, so at least when she grows up she’ll understand what we say at home, we won’t seem like strange people to her.
[i] Well, she should also take this heritage with her. But with the other communities instead, because I imagine that the Arabic spoken in Egypt is not the same as the Arabic spoken in other places, explain it to me.
[r] Well, Arabic is the Arabic of all Arab countries, but each country, let’s call it that, has its own dialect, which is very different. So if we are in Morocco, that is, if I am among Moroccan people or among Tunisian people, we already start to lose some of the words. For example, among Moroccan people I don’t understand anything at all, I don’t understand, the words are totally different. On the other hand, if I’m with Tunisians or Lebanese I start to understand a bit more, but it’s still not exactly the same as Egyptian, let’s call it that. So the dialects are different, yes, we understand each other, but I’m telling you, if I’m… but look, it’s something I also have with my Egyptian friends who were born here or have lived here for many years. No, we speak a mix, so we start using Arabic words mixed with Italian words and we have our own dialect, so it’s very different. So imagine with Moroccans in Italian, we don’t even speak Arabic.
[i] All right [name], thank you very much.
[r] Thank you.