Hair Warehouse In Queens

Foreign to whom?

This is my article published in the May issue of the monthly magazine L 'Altrapagina .

Immigrants / A language that excludes

Words can not describe just the reality, but can also profoundly affect the object they refer

of Jaskarandeep Singh

Our words, those who unknowingly use every day, not just talk about the reality but at the same time, represent, and represents the transformation can profoundly affect the object that relate.

Here I would try to convince you of the importance of using correct language when it comes to immigration, particularly of children of immigrants: I invite you to consider the use of words such as "immigrant youth", "young foreigners," " foreign students "," non-EU students, "" immigrants di seconda generazione”, e così via.

Innanzitutto, un bambino che nasce a Città di Castello da genitori immigrati, è immigrato? Non si è mai spostato, non ha effettuato alcuna migrazione, se non quella dalla pancia della sua mamma al lettino dell’ospedale. Quindi la risposta è negativa, non può dirsi che sia immigrato.

Ora, un ragazzo che è stato portato in Italia dai genitori all’età di 5 o 10 anni, lui è un immigrato? Non ha scelto di spostarsi, hanno scelto i genitori per lui, non ha effettuato una migrazione consapevole, pertanto anche in questo caso la risposta dovrebbe essere negativa.

A sostegno di ciò mi chiedo e vi chiedo: un ragazzo, born in Italy and came here as a child, studying in Italian schools, reading Dante, Manzoni, Calvin, Verga, Pirandello and Svevo, who grew up listening to Gucci or De André - for which you should never speak of acculturation, much less "integration" - but as a child is called "foreign student", "foreign guy", "immigrant student" ... There is no one or almost to contradict these definitions - that precisely define the -. How do you feel when he grows up? Who do you feel? How much confusion will have on its identity?

Professor Fiorella Giacalone in the First Report Immigration Agency in Umbria Umbria is the research question in these terms: "It is also clear that their identity strategies are varied, complex, contradictory, first for themselves, their self-definition is often conditioned by eterodefinizione, Ethnic stigma with which we see them and talk about it. In this context it becomes very simplistic to define them through a reified view of culture, which freezes them in a static view of culture, when, on the contrary, their age and contradictions in social / family members who live in them leads to social dynamics very articulate ".

I therefore consider that we should avoid such oral simplifications, which have very important consequences on the establishment of the identity of the children of immigrants, their awareness and self-perception. We try to avoid locking up these young people in these categories exclusive.

Why risk you run is to turn them into what we do not want to be: just foreigners.

PS: For the children of immigrants living in Italy and are told "no filter" I suggest you visit the blog / forum Network G2 - Second Generation: http://www.secondegenerazioni.it/ . A very interesting read about the concept of identity and its many implications in our contemporary world: Amartya Sen - "Identity and Violence" (2006).