Le Cugine

I can’t help but think about how similar the United States and Italy are. We are like first cousins. We are both very young countries (Italy even more so than the United States) that united under rebellious flags to remove ourselves from colonized status. Italy united in 1861 and the United States united in 1776. Both countries were around in practice for a long time but didn’t establish a unified identity until much later. Most interestingly, our Nations both have a North/South hardline that divides our ideology, language, and customs, and has endured civil war. The North and South kind of dislike each other, but also tolerate each other most of the time.

The Nations also operated under a system of open borders, welcoming any and all immigrants (at least for a while). The United States consisted of multiple ethnicities, and even multiple languages, with pockets of neighborhoods set up by linguistic or religious ties. Italy operated under a very similar system with many different dialects maintaining prevalence in their respective regions. The countries share a diverse food landscape and fusions occurred over time. And both countries formed close ties to Christian-based churches, in the United States it was the Protestants and in Italy, it was the Catholic Church. These strongholds still infiltrate our government and politics’ policymaking.

It makes me wonder how we have both moved so far from the multi-cultural and multi-lingual united nations that we started out as. Now it is more common to hear the nations talking about who belongs and what makes someone actually “American” or actually “Italian.” It makes me wonder how this slow change occurred. If you look at Italy’s history you might know that Mussolini created a fascist idea of Nationalism, but who was our Mussolini? Where did our Nationalistic ideas come from, or did they just jump the Atlantic with WWII? I’m honestly not sure but I’ve been thinking about it. I can’t imagine it all started with Trump. It must have already been there under the surface.

Nationalist ideas were not always present. If you lived in an area, and you contributed to the area, you were a citizen of that place. As government has grown and changed, so too, has the idea of Nation and Citizen. To me, this is an interesting concept, and one that I think started when we removed ourselves physically from working with the land. In the past, I feel that what tied you to a place was your relationship with the land, more so than your relationship with an ideology or government. I imagine this change occurred with the industrialization of our lives. I think this is why immigrants quickly adapt to their new homes, they are generally the ones working the land when others have given it up long ago.