Confessions of an emigrant

Today at 3 pm I officially became an Australian citizen. I felt it was a formality, since I already had a permanent residency. But when I was sitting in the city hall, together with others that were receiving the citizenship as well, I reflected about the last few years I spent abroad and what it actually means being an emigrant. Looking back at my past, it seemed obvious that, sooner or later, I would have moved to another country.

It all started in the early years of my adulthood, when I had the chance to fly to and work in Silicon Valley three times. During that period, I also moved to Turin to study at the university, in a much bigger city than the small town where I grew up. Something started changing in me back then. I appreciated the new level of freedom that I gained by leaving my parents’ house, and I developed a certain thirst for what I believed the rest of the world had to offer. The thought of a future in my small town, seeing the same places, facing the same issues, having my entire family around all the time, and the feeling that certain things there were too slow to change, was frightening me. I didn’t want to feel stuck in that place.

Also I wanted to be challenged, I wanted to confront difficulties and experience new surroundings. I believe there are few experiences as eye-opening as living for months, or even better, years, in another country.

I wasn’t sure where or how I would move, but I knew I could find a way if I truly wanted to. On Facebook I can still see the groups I joined at the time to get a genuine, unspoiled insight into what life was like in different cities: “Italians in London”, “Italians in Valencia”, “Italians in Berkeley”, “Italians in Amsterdam”, “Italians in Dublin”. I was naive. I was trying to find something familiar that would soften the culture shock I knew would hit me once I stepped out of my comfort zone. I was trying to play it safe, not knowing what to expect.

In those Facebook groups I still see many compatriots every day who ask what life is like there, how much it costs to live, whether there are enough jobs, and whether it’s worth moving their entire family to the other side of the world. I can see my younger self in their worries and their hope for a different future. They don’t know yet what emigrating really means.

What I also find in those groups is the constant clash between those who defend their home country and those who criticise it, praising how much better their lives abroad are. This might seem like a typical social media interaction, but I think there’s another side to the story that people are overlooking. When you move abroad, you’re expected to do better, to build a better life. Otherwise, why would you do it?

It’s a sort of unspoken expectation that every emigrant has to live up to, especially when interacting with people from back home. You don’t move abroad to live a life worse than the one you had at home. You have to “make it”, whatever that means. You can’t really talk about your struggles, the loneliness, the career setbacks, the sense of cultural isolation. Is not that simple to say that you miss what you left behind. Many emigrants end up hiding the reality of life abroad. They wear a mask to live up to the expectations of their family, friends, and the compatriots they left behind. They no longer live at home, they abandoned the land. The everyday problems of their compatriots are no longer theirs. They are in a liminal space between two countries, no longer physically present in one, but not yet belonging to the other.

The truth is that life abroad is never easy, nor is it necessarily better than what we had at home. The job situation can be a rollercoaster. It wasn’t easy to tell my parents that I was picking fruit when, just a few months earlier, I had a high paying office job. It took me a while to get back to my original career, and in the meantime I had to work in less pleasant jobs where I was overqualified or overworked. I had to fill those gaps on my CV with something, because recruiters don’t care about immigration policies. Australia is a welcoming country, and its people are kind and generally open-minded, but I still feel like an immigrant every day. I had to adjust how I speak and behave, and I’m still working on softening my accent in order to fit in. I still carry the contradiction of being someone who “made it” back home while still being perpetually viewed as an outsider in my new country.

I have missed important moments in the lives of the people I care about. My sister had a child, and I am not there to watch my nephew grow up. My school friends are getting married, and I’m not there to celebrate with them. I will not share some of their happiest moments, and they will not share mine. One day, my parents might fall seriously ill, and I might not be there when they need me most. These are costs I had to be willing to accept.

The culture that shaped my childhood cannot be found overseas. I can join a small community of expatriates, buy imported products and spend time cooking a nice meal. I can find book in my language, teach my kids Italian while we visit my relatives. But I know it will be hard to transmit the same culture. Whatever home was for me cannot be bought online or shipped overseas in boxes. If I want to feel it again, I have to go back to it.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet several emigrants in my life, mostly Italians like me, because we tend to gravitate towards one another, as if our shared culture acted like a magnet. Some of them returned to Italy after years of living overseas because they never found a reason strong enough to stay. Some of them kept moving from country to country before eventually returning to Italy when the right opportunity arose. Some people built a life abroad, advancing their careers and starting a family, while others are still trying to figure out where they belong. It’s impossible to predict what life abroad will be like for someone else, or how well they’ll cope with its challenges.

After all this, one last confession, one that’s usually hard for an immigrant to admit. No matter how successful you become, how much money you make, or how much your life improves by moving overseas, there will always be moments when you feel a sense of regret, when you’ll be tempted to reply to those people on Facebook and tell them, “No. Don’t leave. It’s not worth it.” Then those moments pass, and life goes back to normal. They are simply part of choosing one life over another.

Today, becoming an Australian citizen made that choice feel more permanent than ever. I don’t know whether Australia will ever feel like home in exactly the same way Italy does, and perhaps it doesn’t have to.

And now it’s time for me to celebrate. For the occasion, I’ll have a chicken parmi with gravy. Wish me luck.