#128 Fashionable English

This week in Sicily: an update from me in Sicily

Hello friend,

I'm so sorry to be running late again this week. Thank you for understanding my randomness. Life has been chaotic lately, with work commitments, personal situations, a constant state of confusion, and a general lack of clarity. 

I feel like I’m being pulled in too many different directions. It seems I have too many ideas and notes jotted in too many other notebooks, too many projects, concepts, and ideas, and I have confused myself to no end. 

This week, I haven’t had enough time to sit down with my notebook during the day, which is usually part of my routine. When I work more during the day teaching ESL, my routine suffers. I hope to find a little more balance; I need to fit in things like exercise, self-care and writing.

Often, when I’m not getting all the ideas out of my head as they come to me, they create too much confusion. It’s as if everyone is trying to talk to me simultaneously.

I accidentally made the mistake of posting on Facebook that I was available for English tutoring. As a result, I have been inundated with requests—so many pushy parents and children who have suddenly developed a desire to learn English.

I have lived here in Sicily for over 20 years and have never been in such high demand. I live in a small town where most people know me; everyone knows my husband, and yet no one has ever asked me directly until I put it on social media.

Sometimes, well, to be honest, Italy is an awkward fit for me, which is okay, as I am generally self-conscious in everyday life anyway.

It is strange to think that someone genetically 100%  Italian would find life in Italy uncomfortable. I would be a sought-after show pony if there were a pedigree for Italianness. I once did a DNA test out of curiosity to see where my heritage was from, imagining a rich mixture of European genes, perhaps a little Spanish or even French. 

It turns out I’m 90.6% Italian, mostly southern Italian, with a smattering of Sardinian and a slither of origins from the Levantine, Egypt, and Anatolian. The Levant is modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. Anatolia is a fertile peninsula above the eastern Mediterranean, which comprises modern Turkey. But my genes are primarily Italian.

As usual, we cannot assume I will be welcomed with open arms when I return to the motherland because I am Italo Australian. Growing up in an Italian family in Australia doesn’t automatically get you acceptance into tight-knit Italian small-town communities. 

While I look the part, as soon as I open my mouth, I’m immediately identified as a foreigner and treated with suspicion. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been snidely complimented on my quirky accent. 

I can’t get a break from veiled racism, both here in Italy as a foreigner and in Anglo-Saxon Australia as an Italian. It seems I can’t get a break from veiled or outright racism.

I always joke that I am condemned to constantly spelling my surname and coaching people on pronouncing it in Australia. Well, it turns out I still have to spell my name. Since my surname isn’t a local Sicilian one, no one knows what to do with the ‘Del’ part of Del Borrello. I often get mistaken for a Borello, with one ‘R’, but I’m quick to deny the connection. I’ve spent my whole adult life spelling it out to strip the prefix from my surname. I like being a Del Borrello; I even kept it after getting married.

So here I am, an eternal foreigner, a token ethnic in my professional life in Australia. I even had a university professor tell me I should have more confidence in my spoken English because I can speak it so very well. I was born and raised in Australia; my mother was a primary school teacher for many years, and my parents always spoke English to my brother and me. 

My parents tended to speak in their respective dialects, which were very different from the standard Italian (one Sicilian, the other from central Italy). Since neither could understand or speak the other’s dialect and avoid confusion, speaking only English at home was agreed upon. I picked up some Sicilian from my mum’s parents but didn’t speak much Italian.

I was 16 when I first visited Italy, and I never really began to study or learn Italian until I was at University. So, the prospect of being mistaken as a non-native speaker was quite racist on the part of my professor. I didn’t think much of it then; I just thought she didn’t know what to say and went for the lazy answer. But in hindsight, it was a racist comment.

While here in Italy, I don’t think the focus is necessarily on the fact that I’m a foreigner but more on the fact that I haven’t been educated here. Italians are very formal and terrible intellectual snobs. So, if you cannot express yourself correctly in Italian or have the correct kind of accent, you are looked down upon and belittled.

I know many well-educated Sicilians who were poorly treated by northern Italian employers as there is a barrier between north and south. The South is poorer and is looked down upon.

Since I have a university degree from a non-European country, I am defined as an ‘extra communitaria’, which means my degree isn’t officially recognised. 

A few years ago, I thought I could put my name in the hat for a job in school administration in a recently opened ‘Concorso’ of job drafts in the public sector. The call for participants is open every few years, and you can get a certain level of points based on your experience and qualifications. The more experience points you have, the more chance you will be offered work. You can get points for freelance contract work, high school diploma, university degrees, specialised courses etc. 

After submitting my application with my Australian high school diploma and university degrees, I was promptly called in for questioning. 

Since I was an extra communitaria the fellow in the office decided neither my university degree nor my high school diploma was valid for the public service. So, my application was excluded. At this stage, I thought he could shove his concorso where the sun didn’t shine. I didn’t need it, and this all seemed like an excuse to exclude as many people as possible. This interaction confirmed my theory that the public service concorsi are an endless succession of fraudulent games. 

Many perfectly qualified Italians wait years to work as school teachers because of technicalities and dodgy shuffling of the classification lists assigned according to the number of qualification points. Based on how many points you have accumulated, you are placed in a classification, and they are supposed to work their way down the list. Many lists have been blocked for years, and there is a constant shuffling up and down according to particular administrative rules and sus recommendations.

There’s a saying in Italian that describes someone in a catch-22 situation as someone who is ‘cornuto e mazziato,’ literally someone who is cuckolded and beaten over the head. Not only did I feel cheated by a corrupted system, but I didn’t need the extra hassle of being bashed over the head by a racist pen pusher, too.

I’ve always thought these public service drafts useless anyway. People wait decades to work as teachers, administrators, or even school cleaners. It’s ridiculous. You must wait until someone retires, so I never had much hope.

The flipside of being a foreigner in Italy has come about with the current intellectual fashion of Italians, who like to say their children are learning English from a native speaker.

Italians are hungry for nannies, au pairs, and tutors to help their children learn to speak English.

Over the years, I have gone from being belittled for my accent to not even being considered for work as a cleaner in public schools to being a sought-after source of intellectual and social prowess.

Before Covid hit Italy, I had become quite a hot commodity in the local community. I was hired as an English expert to teach and write the curriculum for school projects in local schools. Parents would pay me to teach their children an introductory course in English. In a few weeks, I went from nothing to a ‘cara Maestra’ or ‘collega’.

I also had dozens of private students whose parents were forcing them to attend one-on-one lessons. There were so many bored and confused young kids and teenagers. 

It’s been a bizarre ride, that’s for sure. I’m constantly amazed at the ups and downs of life as an unlikely foreigner in Italy.

Now, as I am gradually getting back into teaching private ESL classes and tutoring, I like to reflect on how things have come full circle—from being the belittled and ignored foreigner to being a highly sought-after English teacher. It’s ironic to see those snobby, pushy Italian mothers who once snubbed me now messaging me, calling me by my first name, and smooching up to me because they need me. 

I feel a little like I’m being taken advantage of. I mean, do they honestly think I’d forget how they treat foreigners? So, yes, I am making them pay me enough and having a small revenge for how terrible their children are at English. Am I a bad person? Or am I just taking great pride in the fact that I’ve taught my son how to speak fluently?

I’m sure they think that the English will somehow rub off onto their children since I did all the work with my son in one lesson once an hour a week. But that’s not how it works. Thank goodness.

As I sift through all the requests, I’m still trying to balance my day job and finding time to dedicate to my writing.

Wish me luck.

Until next time.

Sometimes, I talk about Sicily.

Other times, I talk about whatever is on my mind.

My writing is always about lightning, the mental load and sharing something of my thoughts with you.

I hope you enjoy the randomness of A Load Off My Mind. 

Please share this post with someone you think might enjoy it.