I was born in Australia to immigrant parents. My mother is from a small farming town in Southern Italy. My father is from Los Angeles and migrated to Australia at 30 years old for a 2-year high-school teaching job, then decided to stay after it was over.
My Italian grandparents never learned to speak English while living in Australia, where they stayed until passing away in their 80s. They were both illiterate having not gone to school much as children in Italy. My mother had to learn English at 9 years old after not speaking a word before arriving in the late 60s.
I’ve experienced life as an immigrant myself too having lived in the US at age 17 to finish my last year of high school in 1999. I lived in Germany for 7 years between 2014 and 2021. Now I’m back living in the US again having been in Chicago since 2021 after moving here with my job.
I learned how to speak German while living in Germany, determined to do so because of my grandparents – I saw how their life was limited, disconnected, because they could not comfortably venture outside the Australian-Italian community. They relied on others to translate documents, explain the news, and needed help connecting with anyone who was not Italian. As a result, they remained outsiders. I didn’t want that for myself and so set about to learn German. Ask me sometime how that worked out!
My father is American with mixed heritage. His father’s side is German with mixed Jewish and Christian families who migrated and settled in Milwaukee between 1820 to 1880. His mother’s side was described to me as ‘from the pilgrims’. Born in Pittsburgh, she claimed to be of a mix of English, French, German, Dutch, Irish, and Native American.
So, I figure that makes me genetically half Italian, at least a quarter German, and one quarter mixed.
Culturally I identify as Australian because that’s where I grew up and is the culture that’s most familiar. Although I feel an affinity with the Australian-Italian culture as well as parts of American culture.
Race has always been a topic. Or perhaps ‘culture’ is appropriate.
Growing up in Australia I felt I didn’t know where I belonged. I felt I didn’t belong with the Italian kids who had both parents who were Italian. I felt I didn’t belong with the ‘Aussies’ because I was half Italian plus my Dad is American. I found myself somewhere outside of it all longing to know where I belong. That set me on the path to do my own ancestry research later in life, I’m still working on that.
Over time, I’ve learned to embrace my mixed heritage and cultural experiences and insights I’ve gained. I’ve learnt that my experiences have given me the ability to understand multiple points of views without judgement: judgement is the killer of all feelings of belonging, after all. It’s better to try to understand where someone’s coming from than try to change their mind. And just work together somewhere in the middle where we can agree and also agree to disagree.
And with all the traveling and pondering, I’ve found that I do belong somewhere: as part of a community of other travelers as well as being a fellow citizen of the world, like you.
