Chinese-born Italians find cultural voice

ROME—Cultural initiatives and exchanges have nurtured the integration of second-generation Chinese immigrants in Italy as dozens of people gathered at the Nelson Mandela public library in Rome’s San Giovanni neighborhood to watch documentaries on Chinese-born young people, and discuss about their hopes, experiences and search for identity.

The event held earlier this week was part of meetings on Chinese culture organized by the Confucius Institute at La Sapienza University of Rome between March and June.

“Such initiatives are increasingly popular among Italians, and they also draw people of Chinese origin, as the event shows,” moderator Valentina Pedone said.

Pedone is the Italian director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Florence, and a renowned researcher in the field of Chinese immigration in Italy.

She said Chinese-born youth in Italy maintain a strong attachment to their ethnic roots while also looking at China as a source of opportunities.

This process is mirrored in cultural productions of second-generation Chinese, she said.

“My studies deal with Chinese migration in Italy, which is growing,” she said. “It is an unconventional artistic voice, for it comes from people with a different background, and its increase is good for Italy, because it definitely is an enrichment of our own culture.”

Two short documentaries were shown during the event, both narrating the stories of children of Chinese immigrants in Rome.

The audience appeared involved, also because the films offered an easy approach to the issue: they brought to the screen the young people’s day-to-day habits, curiosities, tastes and their relations with their Chinese parents on the one hand, and their Italian schoolmates and friends on the other. It was a simple way to deal with their developing identity, and the discussion grew intense.

That cultural initiatives help the integration of second-generation Chinese is something that Massimiliano Zhan, 23, fully agreed with.

“Surely it helps much, and I can provide you with a concrete example,” the young man, a member of Romebased association of new Chinese generations’ Associna, said.

Associna organizes sociolinguistic exchanges and usually invites three groups of guests: young people like himself — second-generation Chinese, Italians interested in Mandarin and Chinese who are in Italy to study Italian.

Zhan was born in East China’s Zhejiang province, but has lived in Italy since he was 8 years old. He is now a sociology student in Rome and speaks perfect Italian with a hint of a Roman accent.

Asked about what most marks second-generation Chinese in Italy, he said: “A double presence.”

“If I think of our parents, they are not able to take part in any sphere of the social life neither here in Italy, nor in China,” Zhan said. “On the other hand, we (the children) can do both: we have the chance to exert this double presence, because we are able to break the linguistic barrier, and we can launch initiatives here in Italy, but we may also go to China, and take part in the social life there as well.”

According to Pedone, many second-generation Chinese here are often asked if they felt more Chinese or more Italian.

“The bottom line is (that) they do not have to choose, they can be both,” she said.

We have the chance to exert this double presence.” Massimiliano Zhan, a Chineseborn Italian in Rome