Italian Perspectives on American Politics

This month, not only have I been working with the elementary school class, I’ve been helping with a third year high school class along with another student in my program. The high school program, like the elementary, is one in which we help ‘teach’ English, although the high schoolers pretty much know the grammatical ins and outs of English—especially since they have been learning the language since grade school. So when we go into their class, we are basically conversing with them, with the lively teacher facilitating the discussion. Usually she is tries her hardest to get them to ask us questions in English to have us (attempt) to respond in Italian. Only a few of the students actually ask us questions, while the rest—like most people at that age, Americans alike—giggle with one another or just stare into space. The three or four that usually ask us questions speak incredible English and often of their own accord ask us fairly mature and intellectual questions about politics (usually dealing with the US) or want us to compare/contrast Italy and the US in some way.

It seems like, compared to myself or my friends and classmates when we were 16/17 years old, the Italian students are much more aware and curious about other cultures and how those cultures compare to their own. The ones in this class also have a desire to know how other cultures perceive their culture. It is amazing, and in many ways so different from the American attitude, that teenagers whose main priorities are getting someone of the opposite sex to look at them or decide which discothèque they are going to Friday nights are also genuinely effected by world situations. They have a cognizance far beyond most American teenagers of the world political climate and more than that, there is a desire to better understand how they fit into this world.

The first week that we visited the class, for example, one of the more serious boys in the class asked us how the (at that point) upcoming mid-term Congressional elections would affect American politics and the American political climate in general. My friend and I were both blown away, not only by the fact that he was aware of these mid-term elections but the fact that he also offered his own view of what might happen—especially if, as did happen, the control of Congress changed dramatically. At that point, and being a temporary expatriate, I honestly had very little say seeing as I had not read much at all at that point on the election, predictions about outcomes, or really knew much else beyond there being many Congressional/Senatorial elections. The fact that this Italian teenager, who had never been to my country, knew virtually more about the upcoming elections than I did, hit me very hard.

I not only realized that I needed to increase my global and domestic awareness of political/social issues, especially considering I am for all technical intents an adult and need to do my part as a citizen by informing myself of happenings. Also, that question combined with weekly readings of the leading Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, reinforced how much the world looks at the US—politically, socially, personally, historically—and how we conduct ourselves as a country and as people. Before and after the election, there were front page articles predicting the outcome, postulating how various outcomes would effect domestic and international politics. The day the election results were out the headline article in the Italian newspaper was about the outcome of the American mid-term, not even Presidential, elections. It was the biggest news in Italy that day, which made me think of the inverse: if those had been Italian parliamentary elections, they would not have made headline news or even close, in say The New York Times—we tend to be generally self-concerned or concerned (to front page extents) with political climates in countries in which we are directly involved.

I also remember that day, going into my elementary school class and having one of the teachers’ aids, who speaks no English, asking me if I had heard about the election results and voicing her (jubilant) opinion of the outcome. She especially emphasized how this Congressional change of party power would positively effect Italy through the weakening of Bush’s power. It was absolutely amazing and impressive the awareness not only of current events that Italians have of a country thousands of miles away, outside of the EU, but also the awareness of basically how the American political system is organized. I was embarrassed at the same time with my bare minimal understanding of Italian governmental processes or any other country’s political processes beyond that of my own, for that matter. So, after these occurrences and the reading of the Italian newspaper, I have decided to inform myself of Italian and international current events more often that I had been doing and to try and understand the implications of these events beyond what a foreign correspondent tells me will or will not happen. I also continue to be impressed by the awareness and activism of the Italian people!

-Andrea Rush, November 2006