Skyping with Americans...

Few days ago I had the fantastic opportunity to use Skype and speak with an American girl: Michelle. I had never used Skype before and I have to admit that it's a fantastic tool! You can talk in real time with people all around the world and with more than one person at the same time! I think I will install this programme also at home and I will use it to chatter with my friends.

After having decided the topic of our final project, the members of my group and me spoke with Michelle about immigration. I think that Italians tend to consider the immigrants from a powerful country more welcome than those who come from a poor country. We asked her if the same situation is present in America too; she answered that it would be a paradox for a country which is composed of immigrants from throughout the world to have bias against the people of a particular nationality. However, this phenomenon is present in America too; some Americans tend to have prejudices against Latinos. A great number of people from the Central and South America move and settle in the USA and a lot of them try to immigrate illegally. Once arrived in the USA they work illegally or if they found legal jobs, they are underpaid. I think that the same situation is sometimes present also in Italy.

Michelle then said that his father is Italian and was born in a village near Naples; he told her that when he arrived in the USA he was very discriminated because he was a foreigner. However, she as the daughter of an immigrant doesn't feel discriminated. We concluded than that it's more difficult to integrate in a foreign country if you don't know the language. I know a family of immigrants from Albania; the daughter was my best friend at high school and speaks very well Italian. She feels totally integrated in Italy, while her parents have some problems because they don't know Italian very well.

We spoke then about the health care sistem in the two countries. Michelle said that in the USA everyone must have a health insurance in order to receive medical cares. This insurance is very expensive, as well as medicines in general. I explained her how is the situation in Italy and she was very surprised and curious. We focused then again on immigration and she said that in the USA immigrants who don't have a health insurance have the right to receive the first aid cares anyway. The cost of these medical cares is then payed by the American citizens and this fact is considered a controversial issue by many Americans. I explained her that in Italy too there is the legal duty to give emergency cares to ill or injured people.

Immigration in Italy

photo by carf

Italy has long been a country of emigration; for centuries Italians went abroad to escape from poverty and hunger. Then, from the Seventies onwards, Italy has become a country of immigration. People throughout the world come in Italy to escape from wars and/or to search for better living conditions. I think that the Italian government wasn’t prepared to such a change of tendency and continued to consider immigration a temporary phenomenon; for this reason, it didn’t take the suitable measures in order to regulate immigration. In recent years, however, the Italian government has become aware of the importance of this fact and has begun to realize that this is a permanent state of things and an increasing phenomenon. According to the Caritas Dossier about immigration, in 2006 there were more or less 3,690,000 immigrants in Italy, 21.6% more than the previous year.
On the Web there are several websites that explain the Italian rules governing immigration, as for example: how to achieve the permit of stay, the citizenship, the asylum, health care. In the website of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs you can find useful information about immigration; there are also several links to Italian laws and decrees and to certain Web pages where immigrants can fill in some documents online. These websites are good starting points to communicate with immigrants in a simple and easy way and to make a bit more clearer the complex Italian bureaucracy.
However, a lot should still be done to effectively regulate immigration in Italy and the integration of immigrants. They are sometimes considered only a work force that contribute to the growth of our economy; they often do humble job that Italians don’t want to do and this often doesn’t reflect their choice, but it’s due to the fact that their educational qualifications aren’t valid in Italy. Immigrants are also important because they contribute to the growth of birth-rate; in Italy there is a higher percentage of elderly people than of young people. Some Italians, however, don’t recognize the importance of immigrants and fear that they could change the present state of things and ‘steal’ job and resources. They consider all immigrants as criminals and dishonest people, while in fact they represent only a minor part of them. These Italians citizens are probably exasperated by the increase of crime and of illegal immigrants.

Veronica

An aspect of culture that I would like to analyze

This week we were asked to think about an aspect of the American and of the Italian culture that we would like to explore further. I think this isn’t an easy task since there are several different topics that I would like to analyze and discuss with my peers: education, health care, food, public holidays. All of them are very interesting and they would be good talking points. Since I have to choose only one of them, I would like to focus on public holidays. I would like to know exactly which are the national holidays during which Americans don’t work and compare them to the Italian holidays. It would be interesting to analyze differences and similarities among the nature and origins of such holidays, what people do during these holidays and the importance they give to them. I think that there are some differences between Italian and American cultures and this final project could be a good way to explore them.