thisweekinitaly.com

 The Rosarno Riots

 The clashes between residents and local Black immigrants have been extensively reported in the American media. Since the Calabrian Mafia, or ’Ndrangheta is so powerful in this area, the articles suggest that the rioting by local residents was orchestrated by this group. I have yet to read a convincing account of how the Mafia benefits from such riots. To me this explanation is an example of the Italian conspiracy mentality — things never “just happen”; there is always a group behind it. Italians have been quite critical of racism in the United States (with good reason), but there traditionally have been few Blacks in Italy. As the Black population grows so does racism. Blacks in Calabria do the bottom jobs of picking fruits and vegetables. This is a very poor area. If Blacks leave, will the local population now do the picking as they once did? I doubt it. Once jobs become defined as “immigrant jobs” (in almost every nation), local residents no longer are willing to do them.

Ironically these riots occur at a time when public opinion surveys show declining anti-immigrant sentiment in Italy. There has been in the last two years a significant decline in the number of Italians who think that immigrants are responsible for a lot of crime or that they take jobs from Italians.

World’s Worst Airport

I would put Paris’ Charles DeGaulle airport in the running for this title. I had to change terminals there from my plane to Paris to my plane to Florence. From the time my arriving flight hit the ground (15 minutes early) until I arrived at the departing flight was an hour. I encountered no delays. It was between 6-7 am and the airport was not crowded. I had to walk at least one-half mile to get from the plane to the place where the bus departs for the other terminal. The bus ride takes 10 minutes. In changing planes I had to go through passport control and security screening, but these did not take a lot of time. The problem is simple. The airport is simply too big without a fast internal transportation system.

Watching the First Show of “American Idol” in the USA

This is the show where aspiring amateur singers try to win a national competition that lasts many months. The first show of the year covered the auditions held in Boston where 9,000 potential contestants took part. Only 18 advanced to the next level. The talent level varied from abysmal to surprisingly excellent. The show included background sections about some of the contestants. One of these was a lively, rotund Italian-American man of 28. What was shown is his large extended family gathering around the dinner table on Sundays. He wished everybody could have the pleasure of joining them. The Italian emphasis on food and family (which often disappears after a few generations in the USA) was still vibrant in this family.

Italians and the Holocaust

I have mentioned before that Italians resisted turning Jews over to the Germans before the Germans occupied Italy and did the job themselves. In many lands overrun by the Germans the local population helped in rounding up Jews. Much has been written about the role of Pope Pius XII during WWII. He clearly opposed the Holocausts, but it seems to me that his primary concern (as is typical for the head of a large organization) was the welfare and continuity of the Catholic Church. Still in a recent article about a new book on the Holocaust the author theorizes that Italian resistance to it may have been based in part upon the strength of the Catholic tradition in Italy.

Italian Newspapers

I talk at times about their love of the sensational, but I always want to remember to emphasize that their cultural coverage is much better than in the USA. The also often contain extensive background articles that are excellent. For example with the earthquake in Haiti, one of them had a large spread on the history of the nation. In Italy a major story of the earthquake was the unknown fate of the 21 Italians listed as missing.

Prison Overcrowding

Italy’s prisons are severely overcrowded. New ones are planned, but until they are built, some prisoners must be released. Those with less than a year to serve on their sentences will be moved to house arrest. One cause of the overcrowding is the number of persons imprisoned for illegal drugs (Sound familiar?).

Immigration: A Two Way Street

It is a bit of surprise to find out how many Italians had ancestors who immigrated to the USA or elsewhere and later returned to live in Italy. I found a modern example of this phenomenon in a conversation with a doctor who will read my latest CAT scan. He was born in Detroit but came back to Italy at age 7. He must have caught a little bit of American culture – he is on his third wife, the first two Italian and this one from Columbia. Where will he retire? To Patagonia in Argentina! A more recent example of reverse immigration is the master chef from Pistoia who has lived for 25 years in the USA but now had to return to Italy to live with his family because of the failing economy in the United States. He lost his job as the resort business tanked in California and his house as the real estate market crashed.

Flying from Washington to Paris

After passing through the Security Checkpoint at the airport, ordinarily one does not encounter employees of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) before boarding the plane. The final ticket and passport check is done by airline employees. On the flight to Paris the final check at the gate was done by TSA employees. I had not seen this before. I noted that two of the last three TSA employees I saw at the gate area were Muslims.

Local City Council Member Resumes His Seat

This guy was arrested for a scheme whereby Chinese immigrants paid to get a permission form to stay in Italy for which they were not eligible. He was under house arrest while the investigation took place, not an uncommon practice in Italy. Now the house arrest is over, but his lawyer is plea bargaining as to what his punishment will be. Meanwhile, the man has resumed his seat on the City Council pending the final determination of his case. The standards of political morality are not very high.

Amanda Trial – A Sidebar

The third defendant in the crime, Rudi, who was tried first in a separate trial, has completed this first appeal. His guilty verdict was affirmed but the sentence was lowered from 30 years to 16 years. As I have mentioned before, sentences are almost always reduced upon appeal in Italy. An Italian friend told me that sentences could also be increased upon through the appeal, but I successfully challenged him to name one trial where this had in fact occurred.

The Lost Suitcase

I won’t go into details about how I managed to leave my carry-on suitcase at Dulles airport when I arrived in the USA. Explaining it only makes the stupidity of it more apparent. Since this item was left near one of the baggage carrousels with no tag on it, I did not figure that it would end up in lost baggage dept. of my carrier Air France but instead in the general Lost and Found office of the airport. When returned to the airport the next day to look for it, the Lost and Found office (run by federal Transportation Security Agency) has closed at 2:30. This fact of the odd hour of closing was not on the web site or the phone message for this dept. So I went to the main management office of airport. The folks there were extremely helpful, and we found my bag in he Air France baggage office. I am sorry this happened at all, but better in the USA than Italy. In Italy I am not sure I would have got it back.

On the Flight from Paris to Washington

There were more than a few Muslim families on the plane. One caught my eye especially. The husband was wearing a Gap sweatshirt and a baseball hat; the wife had the complete black face covering with only the eye slit. Since the founding of the USA, there have been claims that immigrants would not fit in but remain groups apart. The first “English only” laws were in Pennsylvania and aimed at the German speaking community there. Some claim that Muslims are different than prior immigrant groups on the issue of integration, and, of course, this may be true. Only the future will tell. Still looking at this couple, I saw that already there was a “conflict” between the attitude of the husband and the wife: I can’t imagine that their great grandchildren will evidence a similar disparity.

The Holiday Season in Los Angeles

I went to the Holiday Program at my granddaughter’s elementary school. As one can well imagine, the student body is very diverse. I think that specifically Christian carols were absent (I did not hear all the offerings). My granddaughter’s kindergarten class sang the Jewish song Hava Nagila — the one that accompanies the dance the Hora. When we got home my granddaughter, half Chinese, was looking at a calendar and asked “where is Hanukkah?” Personally I’ve never been particularly insistent on religious traditions in the schools. There is always a portion of coercion, overt or covert, in the school setting.

Another Example of the Sensationalistic Bent of the Italian Press

I read a major Italian newspaper on line while in the USA. One day it had a front page story that Bernard Madoff had been attacked in prison and was taken to the hospital with some broken bones. I was surprised by this because violence is uncommon in low security white collar prisons. So I checked the American newspapers for this story. They reported that Madoff went to the hospital for a high blood pressure incident. They did note that there was originally a false rumor that he had been attacked by another prisoner.

At the Supermarket

Both in Italy and the USA, supermarkets have regular customer cards (e.g. bonus cards) that entitle one to a discount on certain items. In Italy purchases with these cards also accumulate points toward premium gifts. I no longer have such cards for the supermarkets in Gettysburg. The cashier asks me if I have a bonus card, I say no, and then she usually simply scans a generic bonus card she has at the register thereby qualifying me for the discounts. My guess is that in Italy, if one did not have a card, the discounts would be lost. Although they are not great at obeying laws, in this kind of a situation the Italians are a little more “rule oriented.”

“I’ve Always Depended Upon the Kindness of Strangers”

This, of course, is Blanche’s classic line from A Streetcar Named Desire. I thought of it recently when I was trying to conceptualize one of the differences between Italy and the USA — the greater level of informality in America. Italians are friendly, outgoing, and animated in general. So a group setting is hardly marked by a high level of formality. I think Americans, however, are less reserved and more informal toward strangers. The Italian language has two words for “you” — a formal one and an informal one. Americans will talk in an informal, friendly way with a person for whom an Italian would use the formal “you.” Because of this difference, the whole atmosphere in the USA has a noticeably more informal tone.