My experiences left me wondering, if I was here as a tourist and at times felt objectified, what was life like for the several hundred thousand Blacks who are forced to call here “home” and don’t have the option to leave?
I had noticed them, dejected men sitting on sidewalks, attempting to sell fake designer handbags and useless toys for a living or women on street corners at night, in heavy makeup. What was their story and why were they so invisible?
Waiting for a bus to Treviso Airport in Venice, I was kindly nudged by a lone Nigerian man standing at the bus stop with me. He was eager to talk to me. What started out as me recapping my Italian vacation turned into a conversation about his day to day struggle as a Black man in Treviso, which he claimed was one of the most racist communities in the country. Being a Black man in Italy, he summarized for me, meant being stared at as if one was an animal at the zoo and being denied proper service.
This man, named Maxwell, had left Nigeria two years ago and came to Italy with a bachelors’ degree in finance and dreams of a better life. But his life had turned out to be more sour than sweet.
“I hate it here,” he said. “I want to leave to go to England or America, that is my ultimate dream.”
Maxwell had dragged himself to Treviso via Torino, Vicenza and Firenze in search of work dealing with fabric making. He lives in a cramped apartment with several other migrant roommates because his wages are so low and no one, he said, wants to rent to Blacks. He said he could never get settled in Italy and did not wish to, especially if young children were in the picture.
“What’s there for them?” he asked me. “There’s nothing here for these little black children.”
Another Nigerian man I had met, Simon Nino-Brown, voiced the same opinion. Unlike Maxwell, however, he had young children.
“I want to get them out of Italy to go to London,” he said.
Simon’s situation was different from Maxwell’s in many respects. Simon, who had studied at university in Italy, majored in sociology when he first arrived at the age of 20. After his visa ran out, and not wanting to return to a country he claimed “mismanaged its resources”, he stayed on in Italy.
Without anyone to turn to or any employment, he was homeless for almost two years. He said his family did not believe that his situation was so bad. Without proper documentation, he was unable to find work. Then, miraculously, Simon was able to receive documents after having been in the country for three years. Once he became a resident, he started to do odd, menial jobs.
Ten years later, even with the successes of owning his own property in Treviso and starting a family, Simon believes that there is more to life than what is in Italy.
“It’s so myopic”, he said. “I feel like I am wasting away here. I am overqualified to be a truck driver.”
He believes that the oppression Blacks face in Italy is as a result of ignorance.
“It’s the ones who are not educated that make racial slurs and stare at you. Those who are educated are more willing to have a conversation with you,” he said.
Simon, who I had met at Treviso Airport, was on his way to Liverpool in the United Kingdom to visit his cousin. He, like Maxwell, held the United Kingdom in high esteem and desired to move there. They both cited their proficient English skills and the anti-discrimination laws in effect in the U.K as major factors for them to relocate. In Italy, Simon said, Blacks had no support.
“We protest, but we have no voice. We are treated like second class citizens,” he said.
According to a report done by NPR earlier this year, Italy is home to between four to five million immigrants, a large majority of that coming from Africa. Moroccans, Libyans and Tunisians make up a significant proportion but are labeled “Arab.” Sub-Saharan African immigrants are the “Blacks” and of the ones I spoke to, most said they only migrated to Italy because of its easy immigration process. Many of them share the same sentiments as Simon and Maxwell.
“Even the ones who have been here for twenty to thirty years and have attempted to assimilate, still feel some intimidation,” Simon said.
For both him and Maxwell, the United Kingdom, the U.S and Canada seem like the lands of milk and honey. When I tried to explain to them that life wasn’t as glamorous for Blacks in these countries as they believed, they both scoffed at me.
“In Italy,” Maxwell said. “It’s not about living. It’s about surviving.”
Simon’s younger brother is desperate to leave Nigeria and wishes to join him in Italy. As a protective older brother who doesn’t want his little brother to suffer the way he did, he objects.
“I keep telling him no, but as they say, he thinks the grass is greener on the other side,” he said.
Simon and Maxwell are just two of over a million Blacks in a country where they feel that they cannot call “home.” And maybe they are right. Even outside of my hostel in Rome, there was racist graffiti sprayed on the walls. It will take awhile before these Blacks can gain footing in Italy, but signs of progress being made with the election of Italy’s first Black Member of Parliament, Cameroon-born Jean-Leonard Touardi in 2008.
Perhaps things will be better for second-generation Italian Blacks, like Simon’s children. Only time will tell.
V.K.L
