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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between the Italian idea of home and the American one. Here, it is more common than not to find someone who was born, raised, and is living and probably will die in the same town. People may move around sometimes for work, but even then, often will return to their hometowns to live. There is a pride in being a Something—Orvietano, Fiorentino, Romano, etc. Dialects vary from town to town, and being able to speak that dialect is even greater indication that one is accepted as part of that local culture. It is not unusual to hear of someone moving to another town not their own, even an Italian, and be considered “foreign.” (One of our guides, who was from a town near Siena, moved to Siena and they called her that, in fact.)
It seems that to be born, raised and die in one place is stigmatized on some level. Is it because, as a culture, ambition is praised and staying in one place forever indicates some lack of ambition or skill? Is it an issue of individuality? Our neighbor here works at an Agip station. His son does the same. Would American culture perceive doing the same thing as one’s father a matter of individuality? Is that young man not achieving his greatest potential because he chooses the same way his father did?
I was born and raised in Tucson. I am proud to say it, and I have felt in the past that there are many people who just can’t wait to get out of whatever town they’re from. Is the American spirit of adventure more deeply ingrained than that of Italians? Here, it is common for Italian youth to continue living at home until their late twenties, or marriage. If you met a guy at a bar, and he was almost 30 and lived with his parents, what would you think about him? What are the assumptions we make as Americans? Why?
To me, home can mean a lot of things. Tucson as my home is indeed where my heart is: my family mostly is there, friends are starting to disperse but not all, the streaking light of sunsets, warm Thanksgivings and familiarity are all still in Tucson. Here in Orvieto, our apartment is also my home, but I consider it more transient. Orvieto as a town is my European home—I can give directions, I know what bars to avoid because of the hiked tourist prices, I don’t feel like a tourist at all anymore. That doesn’t mean that I understand all the cultural nuances, but I am comfortable here. I imagine that I will have many more homes in my future. I wonder sometimes if Tucson will always be my true home, though. Will it depend on if my parents stay there? Will it depend on length of time alone in which one stays in a place?
Italy and the US are essentially incomparable in terms of cultural development and social patterns. Italy itself is a younger unified nation than we are, but a much older people, and I know that is a large factor in the divergent viewpoints. Our country was founded on the principles of unity. It’s in our name—the UNITED States. Not to say that the US doesn’t have its own regional cultures. It does. But not to the extent that Italy does.
At this point, I’d like to invite you, my readers (whoever you may be), to comment on your ideas of home. Do Americans hold prejudices (or not) against the “born and raised” thing? Does it matter? What does home mean to you?
This also can serve as a way for me to see who else is reading this, other than my parents and Jeremy’s. 🙂
Bumblings Of Miss Button 
Being Italian (or, for that matter, Ukrainian) is a matter of shared history, and it's tied to the land. The American concept of national identity is something else. Probably something about democracy or capitalism.We're a nation of immigrants. Move to America and call it home– you're as legit as anybody. Can't really do that with other places. But being exposed to that mindset really grounded me in my own sense of national identity. I didn't know what it meant to be American until I met somebody who knew what it meant to be something else.I remember this guy, an older guy, who was asking me "What nationality are you?" And I'm like "American", and he's like "You're an Indian?", and I'm all "No, just an American."So he says "No, really. What's your nationality? Like, are you English, or Danish, or Swedish, or what?"What do you even say to that? It's like he thought America was some sort of fake country made of cardboard and staples. And from his point of view, he's kind of right. Still, strange words coming from a man whose country has existed since 1991.I don't know that I'd say we stigmatize the idea of sticking close to your roots. But there's definitely a different value system in operation.
Italians' feeling about the concept of "home" is tightly connected to their very narrow idea of fatherland: this is not simply Italy, it is often the region where you were born or the region your parents left years ago to look for better quality of life in another part of the country. The internal migration has been a phenomenon of enormous dimension since the 50s. Moreover, Italy has never ever been united, indeed. I dare say it was unified, but not united. We have always been divided into an incredible number of tiny autonomous regions depending on foreign powerful states. This episode is meaningful: soon after Italy's unification, in 1861, one of the promoters of that process said: "We have made Italy, now the matter is we have to make Italians!".
Sara, Okay, here it is, the ramblings of your grandfather who ALWAYS reads and enjoys your "Bumblings". Although our official name is UNITED States of America, to some extent we have that innate sense that our homeland is the state in which we were born. Upon first meeting someone, it is almost inevitable that early in the conversation the question is posed, "Where are you from?". Do we respond, "I am an American." No, in my case I would undoubtedly say that I am from Texas and you would probably say you were from Arizona. The fact that we do not feel an urgent need to return to the locale where we were born is probably in our genes in that we are the progeny of those who felt less tied to the land of their birth and were willing to venture to our melting pot and make a permanent transition. It also occurs to me that we are schooled to strive to be better off than our parents. That probably actually means make more money than our parents did. In my case that is why I did not run a gas station/auto repair shop. It is just part of the capitalist system. Oh, I just had another thought! To some extent, we are probably less tied to our birthplace because agriculture has declined as a means of livelihood. I can imagine the magnetism of a still operating olive grove that was my ancestral home, but cannot imagine going back to the 50 acres of sand and the house with no paint where I was born in west Texas!
In response to Grandfather L: within the United States, we naturally introduce ourselves by state. But if I were in Europe, and somebody said to me "You have a funny accent. Are you from Finland?" I would reply that I was not from Finland, but from America. States would only enter into the picture if they asked follow-up questions.I submit that Texas may be a special case. A Texan friend of mine once heard "Ah! So you're from the state that thinks it's the only state in the country that thinks it's the only country in the world!"Re: genetics. I won't eliminate genetic factors out of hand, but I suspect it's more cultural genes than biological ones.
I've thought about this issue a lot since having moved to Florida. I consider myself foreign to the Southeast. For example, I ride the city bus to school some days and often times I hear people talking on the bus and I literally cannot understand what they are saying. They are speaking English, but not any kind of English that I recognize. Most people when they think of Florida probably think about Miami, West Palm Beach, the Keys, etc. They think about beaches and Jewish grandparents. North Florida is a whole other bag of cats. There is a saying in Florida that the further south you go, the further north you go. In this sense I think of myself as living more in the South than in "Florida" (meaning, what most people not from Florida think of Florida). My Southern friends (ie people from Alabama, Louisiana, etc.) laugh when I call this place the "South." I don't feel like this place is home and I don't really like Tallahassee. I have met some wonderful people here, but I would not want to call this place home. In fact, I don't. In my cell phone, if you were to call the number listed under "Home" you would get my mom's house phone in Kansas City.I do think ambition and individualism are deeply ingrained and prized in young Americans. Stephen spent the better part of his life in a small town (pop. 2500) in south western Kansas. Many of the people with whom he graduated are still there and this is just mind-boggling to us. To stay in such a small, isolated place can only seem to indicate that you don't have the desire to do something more. That is my gut reaction when I hear about friends and people I know staying and buying houses near where they grew up. I still find it bizarre that people with whom I went to high school have moved back to Kansas City since finishing college and have gotten jobs teaching at their former grade school. My family are all in/from Kansas, specifically Kansas City. No one "got out"–I'm the first. And I spent a good part of my teenage years dreaming about the day that I would get to escape and DO something with myself (as though this would be impossible if I stayed where I was). I really believed (and still believe) that I wouldn't be able to be myself, to become a true individual without leaving.I obviously have not spent as much time in Europe as you have, but I did get the impression in Italy (and in Turkey) that every town was a small town, in the sense that the people who really lived in these places (even Rome and Istanbul) had their own, small-townish community. Somehow these large cities still felt small, and tight-knit after you stripped away all of the tourists.As for Stephen, I don't know where he would call home. He certainly has always been very individualistic and very transient.Would I move back to Kansas? Only if it was for a job at a university. Would I be happy moving back? I would be happy to live in Lawrence (where the University of Kansas is) again, but I would probably always have the feeling that I was missing something by making a permanent home in a place I already knew.Now that I have properly distracted myself from research, I should get back.Hope you guys are doing well!!Jenny