Struggles in Italy

strugglesinitaly.wordpress.com

 

is a blog dedicated to making available to people, mostly outside Italy, information about “what else” goes on in Italy. The following is from their blog.

 

In recent times, a specific repertoire of images on Italy has dominated international media, presenting a selective, partial and limited image of the country. Examples of this are the controversial views on Italian justice that emerged in the Knox trial, the downgrading of Italian public assets by Standard and Poors and by Moody’s (always presented from the impersonal perspective of the “market”), the despicable image of women fostered by the Italian political class, and, of course, the everlasting pizza, spaghetti, and mafia. However, there is much more going on in Italy, much more that should be getting adequate coverage.

 

In the past two decades Italy has witnessed an increase in social conflict prompted by a variety of political subjects. Trade unions, students, migrants, precarious workers, environmental activists have voiced their right to the future, often giving birth to productive synergies.

However, these movements rarely if ever receive international coverage. We believe that the reasons for this silence are many, and have to do with linguistic limitations, the Italo-centric perspective of some movements, and the biased perspective of mainstream media.

For all these reasons, we decided to initiate Struggles in Italy, a grassroots self-education and information project in languages other than Italian. The project is entirely volunteer-run. We are precarious workers, translators, IT workers, students, researchers, environmentally conscious people, activists, and much more. We come from a variety of backgrounds, in geographical, personal, and political terms. In short, we are active citizens committed to improve the world we live in, and more specifically Italy, our country of residence or of origin.

Struggles in Italy’s blog is a dictionary of Italian struggles, a place that hosts news and deeper reflections. We cover political activism, education, culture, the environment, workers’ and community struggles, the mafia, the media and mainstream politics. Struggles is also a collective of volunteer writers, a transnational community of workers, students and researchers living in different parts of the world. We all share the aim to show Italian reality, made of struggling people. We’ve made local struggles much more visible so they can be studied and sense can be made of them. Our perspective is indipendent from mainstream media. We have the blog, a Twitter account and a Pinterest board. Our main language is English, but we wrote also in French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. We’re keen to expand our output beyond English. We’re looking for new people to work on writing or editing articles, translating them into other languages, reporting from the field and much more. Enthusiasm and expertise are both appreciated – in any language. Join us, share our message and spread the voice about the project.

Our email is strugglesinitaly@gmail.com

The Family Dialect

Here's one of the poems that will be in my new book, Neither Seen nor Heard.
I'm hoping the book will be available at Amazon.com and other online stores by July 2016.


The Family Dialect


1962
Skinny, big-eyed girl, long
black braids and a face
that always looked unclean,
backed into a corner by
the popular girls. Columbus
didn’t discover America,
their fingers in her chest
and their wisdom in her eyes.
Only Italians would be
stupid enough to go west to
get east and discover a
country already discovered—
must be where the expression
ass backwards comes from.
Nowadays, everybody knows
Leif Ericson discovered America.

1972

Times change.

Time markers change

with the times.
Everyone’s singing
their unsung heroes.
Everyone’s got a button
but me. I picked a fine
time to be Italian—it was
either Columbus or Al Capone.
I should have picked Capone.

1982

The immigrant Northern Italian
lesbian is not Italian-American.
She’s a real Italian, not like
third-generation Southern Italians
and Sicilians, who remain savages
to this day, who never developed
beyond dialect to language.
The American lesbians sympathize
with me—I lost my culture
when my family made me speak

English because they were

ashamed of the family dialect.

The politically correct lesbians share

their Columbus poems, never dreaming

of the tortured logic of ignorance and

bigotry that made Columbus a hero
to Southern Italian/Sicilian-
Americans, torture I bring to
bed with me every night.

1992

Now they’re reading their

Columbus poems at women-only
dances, to raise consciousness,
boldly proclaiming the truth,
not afraid to call Columbus
an oppressor even though
he wasn’t a wasp, because
this isn’t about wop bashing,
because they’re organizing
dances to help indigenous peoples
not to condemn wops, and if I
don’t understand how it helps
they can’t explain it, and even
a question becomes an accusation,
because they’re not about to give
up the land of opportunity bought
for them by the blood shed by
Columbus’ followers, not about
to go back to the countries their
own grandparents were starving in.
I tell them I don’t follow Columbus,
don’t follow a Northerner with his hands
in his pockets—nothing to say
and money to hide—and they remind
me that Italian-Americans are the only
people in America to be presented
honestly in the history books they
read in school, remind me I should
accept my share of the guilt, proud
to be able to admit their bigotry,
their greatest achievement, dancing
on the graves of indigenous peoples,
and just when being Italian-American
wasn’t so embarrassing anymore, it got
embarrassing again.

October

Does it matter to anyone here that
Columbus was a Northerner at
a time when there was no Italy?
Does it matter to anyone here
that Northerners have oppressed
Southerners and Sicilians in Italy,
in the United States, then, now
and forever? Does it matter to
anyone here that the overwhelming
majority of Italian-Americans are
Southerners and Sicilians?

They tell me not to explain things
in my poems. But without
an explanation they won’t
know. Without an explanation,
they don’t have to know.

 Now I’ve gotten a petition in

the mail to protest the quincentennial
celebrations signed by Italian
name after Italian name after
Italian name.

Does it matter to anyone here

that Columbus was Jewish?

Does it matter to anyone here

that Jews aren’t running to
apologize the way Italian-
Americans are? Does it matter
to anyone here that Italian-
Americans are so easy to shame
while others have too much
self-respect to fall for such
crap?

Now I’ve gotten an invitation
in the mail to a glittery
dinner and dance celebrating
someone whose gall and
insensitivity made him the
focal point of irrational and
misplaced pride at $150 a plate.

Does it matter to anyone here

that I come from a culture
as old as the beginning of the
world? Does it matter to anyone
here that I come from a culture
stolen by people who don’t know
what it’s worth? Does it matter
to anyone here that my best chance
of ethnic pride is to rip off my
skin and roll in salt?

Santa Rosalia, more over.

I’m coming to join you.

At least until the end

of the month.

Negative reviews--Who cares?

This is more or less a response to some posts to a thread on Goodreads.com in the group called Support for Indie Authors.”

Someone had started a discussion on whether or not a writer should respond to reviews on the Goodreads site. She made the point that reviews on the site were more like feedback from readers and that a writer should be able to discuss certain aspects of her work that might have been misunderstood or claims made by readers who apparently hadn’t read the work carefully or had completely different ideas about the world in general. She pointed out that not responding to a positive review with at least a simple thanks would seem to give the impression that she’s not interested in her readers or just not approachable and maybe even feels superior to them.

I agree with her at the same time that I agree with all those on the thread who disagreed with her and I don’t think that’s contradictory.

Give me a chance to explain.

First, I should start by saying, as I find myself having to say again and again, I’m not from the same planet as most of the writers (and readers) on Goodreads. I started self-publishing many years ago, just before the internet started getting good, and no one had an e-mail address, there was no POD, no Goodreads, not even CreateSpace.com (another good site). Everything was done on paper. I did my typesetting on a computer but I had to print everything out and paste it all onto boards which I then brought to the printer who used a small offset press. I then loaded my shopping wagon with boxes of books which I kept in my bedroom. Reviews appeared in paper magazines and newspapers, the only kind there were at the time.

The rule then, as it seems to be now, was never, never respond to a negative review. It’s supposed to be considered beneath the dignity of a writer to do so and makes her seem immature and defensive. I don’t think that every writer who responds to a negative review is immature and defensive but, having met a few people in my life, I find it easy to believe that there are people who will consider such a writer to be immature and defensive.

But as much as negative reviews hurt, sometimes they can sell as many books as positive reviews can sell.

I’ve only received one negative review in my life. Of course, I haven’t received that many reviews at all, but it’s not over yet. And I think that the fact that I was a nobody encouraged good reviews, that is, because I was a nobody, a reviewer who didn’t like my work wouldn’t want to be bothered writing a review and thought it would be easier to just let me die in oblivion and only those who liked my work would take the trouble to write about it.

I had sent my book to a small magazine that included nothing but reviews of small press books. The editors needed books to fill up their magazine and probably reviewed everything they received. The book I sent, Vendetta, was a 48-page chapbook of poetry. Nearly every page offered a poem about being Italian-American or being a lesbian or being an Italian-American lesbian. Food was mentioned on almost every page.

The tone of the review I received in this magazine, whose name I forgot a long time ago, was one of derision and disdain. I still remember one comment from that review: “This woman is obsessed, yes, obsessed, with being an Italian-American lesbian!” (And he reached this conclusion after reading only 48 pages, yes, only 48 pages!) It was obvious that this guy was an anti-Italian bigot and a homophobe. That made me angry for several days.

Then I looked on the bright side. I think there are two main groups of people who want to read work by and about Italian-Americans, gay or not. One group knows that there is a great deal of prejudice against Italian-Americans, gay or not. The other group, which includes many Italian-Americans, thinks that we’re all American now, so what’s the problem? Their feeling is that we should all just shut up and eat our pasta. I think both groups of people would be encouraged by that review to buy a copy of the book, the first group out of a feeling of solidarity and the second group out of curiosity because there are still people in this world who have no idea how someone could fill 48 pages with writing about being Italian-American. They are completely oblivious to the fact that libraries have been filled with such work and our literature is taught in many universities.

What do you write to a bigot? How do you explain to him that you’re a human being with a history and a culture and that you deserve respect, if he was too stupid to figure that out for himself? There’s really nothing to say to these people that would do any good, although hitting them over the head with a baseball bat might make them think twice before opening their mouths the next time and at least you wouldn’t have to put up with aggravation, in addition to the bigotry. Even better, you can always write a poem about it or use the reviewer as inspiration for a stupid, bigoted character in a short story or a novel.

The moral of the story is that not everybody is going to like everything you do. So when you get a bad review, get over it as soon as you can, maybe with the help of a hug from your best friend or the caress of a cat, and start working on your next book.

That’ll teach those reviewers a lesson. Maybe. Stranger things have happened.

Have the Italians forgotten?

Italians brag that there are as many Italians living outside of Italy as there are living in Italy. What's below is something I found when looking for a way to find immigrants in Italy who might want to post on this blog.

There's more if you want to go to the site.

www.beppegrillo.it

10 June 2015

Immigrants, Italy? No thanks

Italy finds itself between a rock and a hard place for the immigrant crisis and Europe is just sitting and watching. The ‘rock’ is the and the Lega was also happy with it at the time but now it’s pretending to have forgotten about that. The effects of the regulation are devastating for those countries of the EU that have a Mediterranean coastline as the migration flows are coming from the South and also from the East. No boat is travelling round Europe to land in Sweden or Germany. The migration flows are concentrated on Italy where the recognition of the status of political refugee takes many months or even years if an appeal is lodged and the undocumented migrants are well aware of this. The countries of northern Europe are the beneficiaries of this situation, while Italy, even thanks to faint-hearted ministers like Alfano and Gentiloni, is paying the consequences.

Where have you been?

I’ve been sending out e-mails to announce You’ll never have me like you want me, the first book to be published by malafemmina press in 20 years and that’s the reply I got from one person. Why did it take so long? Because I spent a lot of those years in Italy and, in Italy, you can’t just roll out of bed and do stuff. You have to have permission.

How do you start a periodical in Italy?

Law number 47 of February 8, 1948 says that every periodical must have a direttore responsabile, responsible director. Basically, he’s the guy who gets into trouble if you print something the people in power don’t like. To become a direttore responsabile, you have to be a journalist. To be a journalist, you have to be listed in the Ordine dei Giornalisti, Order of Journalists (not a union). To be listed in the Order of Journalists . . .

After banging my head against the internet for a couple of weeks, I decided to speak to a human being who’s the direttore responsabile of a small local magazine.

There are two kinds of journalists: Giornalista Professionale, professional journalist, and Giornalista Pubblicista, publicist journalist. The professional journalist works only as a writer or editor. The publicist journalist does other work besides: publicity and/or films and other types of public diffusion of information.

To become a professional journalist you have to work for a periodical, where there are at least three journalists employed, for at least 18 months. Then you take a state exam. To become a publicist journalist you have to have published at least 80 articles in a two-year period and you have to have been paid at least a total of 3,000 euros. You have to be interviewed by the president of the Order of Journalists in your region and there’s a fee of up to 200 euros.

I went back to the internet. I found the information for the region of Puglia the easiest to decipher, so that’s what I give here. Although the details change from region to region, the laws are basically the same.

You have to submit an application to the local government, on carta da bollo, a paper with an official stamp that you get at the post office, which costs about 14 euros and 62 cents.

You have to pay 168 euros to the tax registration office of Rome. You have to pay 190 euros for Diritti di Segreteria. (I asked the Direttore Responsabile what you get for these fees and he said you get a receipt. I didn’t want to insist. I was hoping it was just a failure to communicate.)

You have to include the following documents:

—certification of residence: everyone in Italy, citizen, immigrant, or tourist, is required to register his or her presence with the police.

—certification of Italian citizenship: at one time, you had to be an Italian citizen; now it’s enough to be a citizen of the European Union. If you’re living in Italy as a foreign journalist, there are other laws you have to obey and other applications required.

—birth certificate.

—social security number.

You have to include, still in Puglia, the complete text of at least 30 signed articles that you’ve published in the preceding two calendar years. Somewhere on the internet I read that in Lazio it’s 80 articles, although I overheard a conversation in which a woman said that her son, who wants to be a journalist, has to publish at least 100 articles.

You have to have been paid for these articles and you have to show documents, officially signed and stamped, that show you’ve been paid.

You have to have a certificate from the direttore responsabile of the periodicals in which you’ve been published.

All your information has to be registered with the police.

And the list goes on.

According to article 45 of law 69/63, publishing without a direttore responsabile is a crime punishable by two years in jail and/or a fine.

If you survive the requirements and publish your periodical, you have to include in every issue, in addition to other, more appropriate information (such as date and issue number) the name and home address of the printer. And several copies of every issue have to be submitted to the police.

You can’t just do what I did in San Francisco when I decided to start publishing la bella figura. All I did was wake up one morning and say to myself, “I’m tired of people refusing to publish my work because they don’t think poetry about being Italian-American is worth paper and ink. I’m starting my own magazine.” And I didn’t even have to say it out loud.

Does anyone remember la bella figura? It was ten pieces of paper stapled together. It did pretty well for what it was—200 subscribers before the first issue was out and, in the end, a mailing list of 800. In Italy, I could have ended up in jail for it.

They think they’ve got freedom of the press in Italy. But, like Emilia says in You’ll never have me like you want me, trying to explain freedom to an Italian is like trying to explain color to a blind man.

Remind me to tell you what you have to go through to start a publishing company in Italy.

after years of coma, malafemmina press awakens

After years of coma, malafemmina press has awakened to publish

 

You'll never have me like you want me (ISBN-13: 979-1220009928), a novel that tells the story, in her own words, of Emilia, a middle-aged Italian-American woman who goes, alone, to live in Italy because it's the only place in the world where it's normal to be Italian. It turns out not to be what she expected.

 

If you want to know more about daily life in Italy, or if you want to share what you know about daily life in Italy, or if you have anything at all to say about being Italian-American in the U.S. or in Italy, or if you want to ask questions about the book, feel free to participate.

 

From the back cover:

 

When Emilia realizes what Italy means, she decides to keep a journal.

As an Italian-American who lived all her life in Brooklyn, Emilia goes to Italy because she wants to live in the only place in the world where it's normal to be Italian. She doesn't speak Italian well and isn't familiar with the laws. Although she has Italian citizenship, she can't get real help from her psychologist or her social worker. Her life gets smaller and smaller. Her chances get slimmer and slimmer.

The solution to all her problems appears in an unexpected flash.

 

Rose Romano is an Italian-American living in Italy for several years. In the United States, she published a literary journal, la bella figura, and founded malafemmina press, publishing only the work of Italian-Americans. Her books of poetry (Vendetta and The Wop Factor) and her anthology (la bella figura: a choice) are included in the collections of many public and university libraries. Her work has been taught at universities in the United States and Canada. She has organized and participated in poetry readings and book presentations in the United States, Canada, and Italy.

 

The second book is expected in July.

 

Write to me! I'm hungry! Italian food is nothing like Italian-American food.