It’s May 2022. I’m standing in a small room at Wijnhaven with a bunch of strangers: all fellow Leiden University students, all patiently waiting for the organizers of the Language Café to come and release us of the responsibility of having to socialize on our own. Minutes feel like eternity when you’re standing next to a silent stranger, so I decide to break the ice. I take a deep breath, turn to the guy to my right, and go: “So, where are you from?”
Wrong question. After almost a year surrounded by IS students, I should know better. I should know that if breaking the ice is the goal, that is not the question you ask. You complain about Dutch weather, or Dutch prices, or Dutch anything, for that matter. But you don’t ask about nationality. Not unless you’re ready for the other person to whip a world map out of their pocket, a long stick, a blackboard and a piece of chalk and start drawing you their family tree with one hand while pointing at different continents with the other. That’s what my brain visualizes, at least, every time I make the mistake of asking that question, and end up having to sit through ten minutes of people listing countries and dates and family members.
His answer was “everywhere”, by the way. Just “everywhere”. A remarkably short and slightly annoying way of making a very valid point: why are you asking a boring question? We are all from everywhere and nowhere, around here. Why do you need to know the specifics?
I used to be annoyed by these Very International people. And I guess they can be annoying, with their expensive IB certificates and fancy English and assumptions that anyone who is not like them is really just not yet like them, because they are the future: identifying with everyone and no one, with every place and no place, no longer prisoners to imaginary lines on a map.
For a while, the combination of being in a foreign country that I didn’t perceive as very welcoming and feeling surrounded by a specific kind of international students I couldn’t relate to, provoked a sort of extreme reaction in me, a surge in Italianness, if you will. I had spent my teenage years feeling like a fish out of water, condemned to live among all these narrow-minded Italians while I was, in fact, not like other Italians. When I enrolled into International Studies, I thought I would finally belong. I would finally be among my fellow cosmopolitans, living my best life as a citizen of the world. Except that the second I found myself amongst this truly international crowd, I realized that I am, in fact, like other Italians. In so many subtle, intangible, minuscule ways whichI had never paid attention to, I think and act in remarkably typical ways. I guess I just never knew they were typical, until I got exposed to other types.
I came into IS expecting some kind of 1990s Benetton advertisement, with people from all seven continents dancing in circles, their hands joined, their hearts filled with the pure and simple joy of being together in this beautiful, colorblind melting pot – not a single political or critical thought clouding their multicultural minds. I am so glad reality slapped me in the face.
Instead, I found out that at Wijnhaven you could be three things: Dutch, duh; Very International, see above; or Very National, that is, very Italian/French/German etc., and only interacting with fellow specimens. I came here thinking I would ignore the first group, blend into the second group, and frown upon the third one. I found that the first one was inescapable, the second one did not recognize me as their own, and the third one had a lot to teach me. Thankfully.
What to do with this information, then? Well, interrogate it. Since it just so happens that a substantial part of the first year of IS is spent reflecting on all things nations, that came quite naturally. I opened the national identity drawer in my brain, and let me tell you, I did not like everything I found. Eventually, I realized that a lot of my annoyance with the Very International lot came from insecurity. It came from suddenly feeling like my English wasn’t good enough, and my parents’ job wasn’t prestigious enough, and my story wasn’t cool enough. I realized that being from everywhere and nowhere is a distinct culture too, beautiful and problematic as any other, and just because I’m not a part of it and I don’t fully understand it, I don’t get to judge it.
I realized that my own relationship with my nationality was flawed, and how could it not be? Like many other forms of identity encapsulating a majority, national identity is largely created by establishing what you are not; an exercise that inherently results in someone else’s marginalization, and oppression. I also realized that I understood all of this too late for me to be able to ever get rid of nationalism, probably. I’ll always feel Italian, I’ll always be nationalistic: in the fun sense that keeps countries different enough for the world to be interesting, sure; but also in the ugly sense that keeps the world unfair and violent, I fear. Then what? After a lot of reflection, I was back at square one. What do I do with this information?
Then, I can make an effort to keep the drawer open. It’s the only thing we can do about it – keep digging through that drawer. Sometimes I’ll find an ancient, delicious recipe, and I’ll be proud to print it in every book. Sometimes I’ll find decades of fascist colonial history, and it’ll be hard to look at, but I’ll have to find a book for that too. No matter what I find, I must keep digging: forever uncovering layers to my identity; forever a citizen of confusion.
– Beatrice Scali
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