hello, i'm back in arezzo this morning after four days on the road to the north and east. i was in bologna, verona, padova, and ravenna taking pictures for the dante project. the mosaics in ravenna are really mind-boggling (the area above and around the small altar in San Vitale has over 400,000 individual tiles), and a youth hostel there was my home base.
as i arrived on monday evening to check in, the carabinieri drove up. i was slightly concerned: unlike the polizia, who write parking tickets, the carabinieri are military police whose uniforms are a very serious shade of navy and whose sidearms are not attached to their belts by a little elastic cord. i was not the reason for their visit, however: as i was chatting with the saucy blonde running the place, they brought a dark-skinned and dishevelled girl from the back seat of the car into the hostel. once inside, the driver of the car spoke with the proprietess. this officer seemed to spend his spare time lifting small automobiles into the air and biting the heads off small vermin or unattended infants. tiredly, he explained that they had found the girl wandering in the middle of the road; she had no where to go. as he was speaking, she seemed ashamed of herself. she stared at the floor. she pulled a carefully preserved romanian passport out of her large fanny pack. the saucy blonde's gaze chilled and she sighed. there was a bed for her, she could stay.
ravenna is a port city on the northeast coast, and so is a popular point of entry for eastern europeans looking to find work to support their families. italians have a complicated relationship with these immigrants. as in the united states, immigrants work the lowest level service jobs. the cops are always chasing dark-skinned vendors of trinkets or off-brand merchandise away from tourist attractions. italians call these young men 'vu comprà' - a jab at their poor pronunciation of 'voule comprare:' do you want to buy a...? many of the issues have correlates in the united states. immigrants often bear the brunt of frustrations about the lack of employment opportunities for young people and a political system gridlocked in partisan bickering and back-channel corruption. non-native speakers or darker-skinned individuals are often looked at with the same diffidence as hispanics are in some parts of the united states.
as in other european nations, racial diversity is a relatively new phenomenon in italy. until recently, the first sentence of french elementary school history texts was 'our ancestors the gauls,' and 50 years ago, that was accurate. but not anymore. europe is struggling to maintain national identities that can no longer rely on the subconscious support of 'people who look like us.' what can they lean on? in france it's the secular state - no head coverings allowed. elsewhere it's language. the term 'vu comprà' preserves the distinction between the old stock and the newcomers - those who know how to use the subjunctive and those who can just make themselves understood. in the netherlands, it's knowledge of national history and customs, and how high you score on the test determines your eligibility for citizenship. last year on the camino de santiago, we saw the unfolding of a publicity campaign billing this 1200 year old pilgrimage route as the 'main street of europe' - a path that predates all of the nations that now surround it. but history resists that sort of simplification, and clashes with the present reality. every few towns there was a statue of santiago matamoros, one of the later incarnations of st. james (whose tomb is the journey's destination). matamoros is rougly translated as 'moorslayer.' is that an image that a unified europe wants to rally around? europe is struggling with difference - between its own member nations and between the northern and southern hemispheres. i chuckled to myself yesterday in mantova, virgil's home town: the mythic history of italy begins with aeneas, the founder of rome. he too arrived on italian shores bedraggled and without a reservation.
the carabinieri gave the romanian girl a last glance and walked out, their keys and handcuffs jangling. the proprietess processed her documents, gave her a key and pointed to the stairwell. the girl never spoke. as she was shuffling away towards her room, a cell phone rang inside her small backpack. she rummaged furiously through some shirts and a small towel. she found the phone and answered, mumbling. there was a long silence, then she cried a little and choked out three or four words slowly, quietly. i don't speak romanian, but i got it. who hasn't said it?
'i want to come home.'
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