35. Different

If I was of a mind to agree with Donald Trump, I should probably be happy.   I mean, I’m a white, American male.  I’m going to be on the winning side from now on according to the newly-elected president of the United States of America.   Shit, I’m even a baptized Catholic.  Wait, Catholics are good, right?  Or is it just Christians? I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to the religion I was born into for quite a long time. I don’t know where it stands among the righteous going forward.   Anyway, I should be optimistic, on this historic election day in 2024.   

Yet here I am, one of those beta-males, who is indeed a bit worried.   Like so many who spend too much time on their phones and listening to others tell us about all of the things that there are to worry about, I have indeed grown accustomed to worrying about things.  You too may have noticed just how much there is to worry about.  Maybe I should just chill out, and ride the coming waves.   

As cool as surfing sounds, there’s a problem.   I’m different.   I’m not different in the cool, Steve Jobs or Elon Musk way though.  You see, I don’t live in America.  A long time ago, my curiosity and a strong ability to speak foreign languages set me on somewhat of an adventurous path that led to me settle in Italy of all places.   I married an amazing Italian woman and our two children were born right here in Italy.   I even applied for Italian citizenship years ago and, well, they gave it to me!  Essentially, I became Italian.   I am the only person among all of my friends from Denver, the city where I grew up, to have become Italian.  Not even any of my friends from college became Italian.  So, you can see why I feel a bit different.   

However, here in Italy, not a single day passes where I don’t also feel American.   Let me reassure you Alpha-Americans that I often do feel very American.   For me, I don’t think that Denver will ever not be home.   That’s where I’m from.   My values were forged there among family and friends.   So, I also find myself feeling a bit different from all of my Italian friends and family.  Not a single one of them grew up in Denver!

One of the constant reminders of my Americanness is yet another, constant reminder that I’m different.   I made the choice to raise bi-lingual children.   When I say that, I want you to understand that I went fucking all-in on the bilingualism.   What does going fucking all-in on bilingualism mean, you might ask?   Well, I’m writing this to tell you exactly what it means.  It means that I speak English to my kids all the time.   Like, literally all the time.  That may not sound that hard.  Linguistically, it’s not very hard.   I graduated from college in the US.   My grasp of the English language is pretty solid.   Incidentally, I ended up learning a lot more about my own language by learning how to speak another language.   Whoops.   Sorry, I didn’t mean to stray off topic, especially to espouse on the benefits of learning new things.   Anyway, speaking English to my kids is well within my capabilities.  

I can confidently say that my kids speak American English really well for having not grown up in America.   The reason that they can speak so well because I’m so all-in.  I suppose that you could even call my devotion patriotic.  I speak English to my children inside and outside of our house.   I know that’s it’s pretty beta of me to say this, but I go all kinds of places with my kids, often just by myself.    My wife is employed full time, so we share the responsibilities of child-rearing.  I find myself in all kinds of places with those kids.   We go to parks and to the supermarket.   I take my kids on the bus (I know, I know… the public bus? sooo beta).   I speak English all over the city where I live.   There’s pretty much nowhere where I’m not patriotically imparting my language and culture to my two kids.   

Things get difficult though when you have to live your bilingual choice outside and in public.  People stare.  They stare all the time.   Assumptions about me and my children are made constantly.   I am treated differently because I am perceived as different, and so are my children as they respond to their father in his native language.  

Now, I know that most people don’t look at me or my children as the bad kid of different.  I mean, I don’t look like one of those immigrants.  Remember, I’m a white, American male speaking American English.  The worst I have been treated is when people mistake me for a tourist.  I’ve overheard countless comments about those stupid tourists and about how they should just stay at home.   I admit that I do relish those occasions because I get to show off my linguistic muscles.   I have freakish skills in Italian for someone who wasn’t born and raised here.  To the dismay of many a shopkeeper, I can switch languages on-the-spot, and join in on lamenting upon tourists in a credible, Tuscan accent.  I can also explain the history of my legal residence in Italy in perfect Italian.   Kinda alpha, if you think about it.   

So, I get stared at all the time.   My kids and I are a constant novelty, having chosen to not blend in.  We’re different.   I don’t know if you’ve ever felt different.   It’s not comfortable.   I have made the choice to feel uncomfortable in order to share my language and culture with my children.   Do you know who didn’t do that?   So many immigrants to the US, who left their homes due to persecution, seeking a better life.  They didn’t speak their native languages to their children because they had fucking had it with persecution. They had fucking had it with feeling different.   If you’re a white, American male, these were likely your great grandparents.  They thought that they were giving their children the gift of not being different.   The reality is that they withheld an important part of themselves just to blend in. Think, you could have spoken another language (and thus known more about your own language), but your ancestors feared what it meant to be different.   

I have never feared being different, despite feeling uncomfortable all the time.   I have always taught my children that it’s OK to be different and I will continue to do so because the beauty of our world lies within our differences. Now I worry.   People who fear difference are dangerous and grow more dangerous as they increase in numbers.   Yeah, I’m a white American male.  Yet, I’m a different kind of white, American male.   I’m the kind who has felt what it feels like to be seen as different.   I can’t help but worry for all of those who are different.