National Identity, Regional Identity, and Actual Identity
On how you can feel like a foreigner in your own country
Identity’s an interesting thing, especially when people try to shove the round peg of actual identity into the square peg of national identity. I’m a Londoner, raised in a pretty multi-cultural area. In my primary school I had an Australian teacher, a Welsh teacher, and an Indian teacher. West London’s the sort of area where people have come from all over, which in some ways makes it easier to fit in. When everyone’s from everywhere, it doesn’t matter where you’re from.
As was said of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician shot dead by the police in 2005, he was a Londoner. We knew he was a Londoner; he had an Oyster card.
But then, after a six and a bit years in Brighton, another area where everyone was from everywhere and I felt thoroughly at home, I moved to where I am now, the North. To be a bit more precise, a small town on the outskirts of Greater Manchester.
And to be blunt, this is not a place where everyone is from everywhere. It’s a place where everyone’s from here, except me — at least, that’s how it sometimes feels. And as a result, I confess I’ve struggled over the last seven years to feel at home here.
(As an aside, “You must be so happy to be living in the North, because we’re so much friendlier than you Southerners” isn’t the slam-dunk conversational opener many Northerners seem to think it is).
Thing is, it’s perfectly possible to feel like a foreigner in your own country, because culture and identify don’t fit neatly into national boundaries. And the funny thing is, a few years ago I came across someone, the wife of a guy I met through work, who’d had the same experience as I’d had.
The guy was British, from Yorkshire initially, his wife Italian. Having met when he was living and working in Munich and she was living in her home city of Rome, they were now living in Milan. (They’d initially pursued a long-distance relationship, but when they decided to move in together, they’d compromised on Milan as his company had an office there he could transfer to).
So there they were. Him from Yorkshire, now living in Milan. And her from Rome, now living in Milan. Of the two of them, he’d taken the longer journey. But she was the one who, like me, struggled.
Thing is, he explained, Milan’s in Northern Italy, and has a Northern European culture. Milan’s sister cities would be Munich, Vienna, Prague perhaps. Whereas Rome’s in Southern Italy, and has a Mediterranean culture. Its sister cities would be Barcelona or Athens.
If they’d moved to Barcelona, she’s perhaps have been fine. Sure it would be a different country and a different language but she’d have been among people on her own wavelength. Whereas in Milan she found herself with people who spoke the same language and notionally shared her nationality, but only really in name only. Their culture, their attitude, their mindset — it was all different to what she’d grown up with.
She felt like a foreigner.
And I knew how she felt.
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