My dress code has gone from strictly Italian to an international mixture often deemed of dubious taste. My food preferences have shifted and my choices are now often frowned upon. I have lost my accent and with it another tangible cultural trait. Under the pressure of other means of comparison, my attitude to sex, religion and politics have also changed.
However, if I had to pick-up a single element that best highlights the transformation between who I was, and what I am becoming I have to say ‘ languages’.
The ability to communicate in a new language implies the assimilation of different cultural traits. In fact it isn’t enough to be fluent in a specific language; you need to feel it, to understand the humour, the proverbs, to dream in it…
After few years in London I started struggling to find words in my mother tongue, but I couldn’t still articulated - as I would have liked - in English. Then one day I found myself in need to speak neither Italian nor English but Portuguese. With time the borders between languages became thinner and thinner and my multi-languages skill turned into the mirror of my cultural make-up and multi-facets identity. I express my musicality best in Portuguese, my feelings in Italian and my logical-thought-process in English.
Languages are rooted in my past - through memories - and in my present - through my work. Memories created before the age of 17 are best recalled in Italian and seem to be dug out of a different personality. Recalling certain situation I laugh, because ‘that situation’ is based on an Italian cultural environment and a part of my self-identity relates to its concept of ‘funny’. The same situation in Cape Town would not be deemed amusing. Furthermore, the British dry sense of humour is miss-understood in Italy, Brazil and Indonesia, but having lived here, I can relate to it and appreciate its subtleties.
The concept of ‘memory’ is important in forming one’s identity and deserves more attention. Philosophers have long being debating about it: according to Locke, self-identity and memory are intertwined; paraphrasing him ‘self-identity exist as a being sum of its past memories, or more accurately the being consciousness of its memories’ (http://mbdefault.org).
I agree to a point, in fact often these memories are not consciously remembered; they are like a knee-jerk movement.
I feel more comfortable with the definition given by the neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga who suggested that “human beings have an interpreter located specifically in the left brain, whose job is to string together our experience into narrative that seem to make sense. In short we all have a novelist in our head, called memory that continuously redraft the story we call my life” (Ash, Guardian Review).
My travelling has increased the need ‘to string together my experience into a narrative’, which in itself can be regarded as an introspective-subjective-journey. My diary, reflections, articles and shorts stories have become the mirror of my evolving personality and the best taster of my becoming self-identity. Giddens theory supports my belief; he says that ‘self-identity is the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of his biography’ (Barker, 2000, 167).
Writing takes me to my present and to my profession. Words and my multiculturalism are what I sell. Currently I contribute to the Jakarta Post (Indonesian broadsheet) Nirvana (Indonesian travel magazine) Island Life (Singaporean lifestyle magazine) and Index On Censorship (English Human Rights Magazine). While I write in English, the style, content and angle is culture specific. The psychological Rorschach’s test is instrumental in demonstrating the importance of cultural differences; it shows that people from different cultural environment tend to visualize different images from the same picture.
On these base it is my mixed cultural identity that allows me ‘to feel the pulse’ of the readership and ‘to see what they visualize’ in a specific place, at a specific time. I could never write for any Indonesian publications hadn’t I digested some traits of their cultural identity.
It is a privilege to be able to convert my socio-cultural capital into economical capital and one achievable merely thanks to a shift in world economy priorities – quoting Rifkin: ‘from making
things to making experiences’. In this framework Rifkin argues that ‘our society is full of people whose identity is defined less by tangible work and products and material possession and more on how many vivid experiences and relationships they have access to’ (Rifkin, 2000, 198). In this context, my self-identity finds a space, a justification and a realization.
But coming to terms whit ‘who I am’, has been a long-winded road, during which I often sought guidance and comfort in literature.
Jack Kerouac in On the Road deals with the joy of finding one’s own self-identity through judging each encounter against his personality. A frustration he encounters is the difficulties in overcoming the racial divider. I can relate to that. Sameness gives a sense of security and - often - people identify more with their social identity than they do with their self-identity. In this case race is the first medium of identification.
Another good example is Tony Wedemeyer a white Jamaican from German origin, who clearly underlines the weight of race in his culture: ‘in my language there are 17 different skin colours gradation, each with a name and for the barer a destiny already written’ (Orizio, 2000, 59).
In my experience I found that the construction of general stereotyping is particularly strong when applied to the notion of race. Having a different skin colour means being ‘the other’ and being invested with all the qualities of the bad or the good this implies. I was always given the attributes that go with the general idea of white Italian, and only sometime given my merits and faults as an individual. I was believed to be rich and educated in Brazil and Indonesia – regardless of my real socio-economical status -, a womaniser in England, a light-head in Italy and so on. But race isn’t the only element of identification for people. Religion, social ranks and sexuality are others.
Abiding by social identities – above my self-identity – has often reacquired an effort on my part, yet it turned out to be a necessity in order to integrate. The result is acting ‘on my part’ (aimed at looking like them, talking like them, eating like them) and less work and
understanding ‘on their part’ (because all they have got is what I show them). But who they think I am is only a social mask I wear.
Pirandello’ s novels ‘Il fu Mattia Pascal’ and ‘one, nobody and a thousand’ are emblematic in demonstrating this self/social identities struggle. His work should be compulsory reading for everybody.
But as I had said at the beginning, the struggle between ‘interior and exterior’ and/or ‘self and others’ is not going to be resolved with this essay. Also I realize that in this postmodern society the perception of ‘not belonging’ is not a prerogative of mine but, a very widespread feeling, to which there isn’t a ‘one-fits-all-solution’.
In general, for my part I have stopped approaching the question of identity from the point of view of origin, something that is given or an already accomplished fact but I have learnt to look at it as a never-complete product. With this in mind I have overcome some of the frustration of being ‘misunderstood’.
As far as ‘self versus social identities’ goes, I have to mention that – paradoxically - virtual space has offered me ground for coherence. Where usually other people experiment with different personality, I feel free to manifest the kaleidoscope of my identity. Internet allows me to be who I am, regardless of the social conventions that bound my interlocutors. In writing to my friends all over the world – often with group e-mails - I feel relieved from the need to oblige with each and every perception they might have of me. Sadly, This convergence disappears as soon as I meet them and their specific ‘territory social conventions’ demand from me behaviour adjustments.
In concluding I will try and answer the question I had started with: where am I from?
I was born in Palermo, but I would say I am from London…. Yes, London is the place I come closer to call home. My ‘traveller’s identity’ is what bounds me more with other people; more than my language, my sexuality, my nationality and my ethnicity. Thanks to its multiculturalism, multi-ethnicity and its representations of many parts of the world, in London the need for roots or for belonging diminishes. London is a temporary place, a moving city, a diving board to
jump from and a magnetic to return to with the certainty that at each return it will be different, just like my identity….
Bibliography
Cited Texts
Barker, C. (2000) Cultural Studies Sage Publication, London
Fiske, J. (1990) Introduction to Communication Studies 2nd Edition, Routledge, London
Orizio, R. (2000) Tribu Bianche Perdute, La Terza, Rome
Rifkin, J. (2000) The Age of Access, Putnam, New York
Ash, T. (November 16th) Truth is another country essay in the Guardian Review
http://mbdefault.org/8_identity/default.asp (as on 10th January 03)
Further Reading
Kerouac, Jack (1955) On The Road, Penguin, New York
Pirandello L. (1995) Il fu Mattia Pascal, Edition Luigi Reverdito editore, Varese
Pirandello L. (1995) Uno Nessuno e Centomila, Edition Luigi Reverdito editore, Varese
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/
http://eserver.org/theory/
http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-iden.htm
http://polywog.navpoint.com/philosophy/metaphysics/asgn3/node3.html
