ODYSSEUS 2000
Personal Identity and social living
 
 

ITINERARIES
stories of voyages into the world

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Fourth chapter
Is a child more flexible?

Is a child more flexible? Who knows? Maybe can he/she bear even a “dive into the void”? Is he/she able to extemporize some strategies in order to fit-in in the new reality, to adapt these strategies to his/her needs? Who knows?
Children weren’t the main characters of the stories we collected. Sometimes they appeared next to their parents.
More often children were described as little “diplomats”, “cultural mediators of the family”, that correct their parents when they speak the new language in a bad way. Some of them even act as interpreters when their father has to bargain over the rent with the owner of the house. These children belong to the new generation, the one that was uprooted from their environment when they were very little. Sometimes they were born in the new country and have the duty (or perhaps it is their destiny) to take a further step in this new itinerary.  Some of these children moved from their countries with their families many years ago, they grew up and they told us their past and present experience. I am going to begin the last part of our “travel” with them, following a sort of registry criterion, paying attention to the length of the immigration. Then we are going back to the newcomers.
I am starting from the stories of two Turkish women living in Waiblingen. The former is 33 years old and she moved to Germany in 1972, when she was only 6.

“Are there any problems connected to the cultural differences between your country and Germany?”
“At the beginning, maybe. I have always considered myself as a German for my way of thinking, but my eyes and hair are black and my name is Ayse. I can be nothing but Turkish! I’ve always cared about it because it’s my parents’ will. My mother has always done anything to make me look like typical Turkish girl: I had to be a good cook and housewife. I had to be able to do manual labours to make dowry. But all this was against my will to improve my learning. At the end I realize that there is no contradiction in being a Muslim and learned and cosmopolitan woman at the same time. That’s why I’m still going on with my education and I’ve been wearing the veil since I got married.”

The husband too moved from Turkey to Germany with his family when he was 16 years old. For what concerns their experience, it seems that also the habits and traditions have moved to Germany without any significant variation. In effect there are one million and a half Turkish people in Germany, it is almost a whole society.

“Where did you meet your husband?”
“I can’t say I met him, he made a “request”. My father and my father-in-law have known each other since their childhood because they are from the same village. They have been together during the military service and after that they went their own ways. They haven’t seen each other for 20 years. When a girl is 14/15 she can get married and a boy begins at 18/19 to look for a wife. His parents, relatives and acquaintances begin looking for the right girl for him. It happened for my husband and I. I was with my parents in Berlin. I was running along a street to go to a wedding. I was well dressed without my veil on. There we met my husband’s uncle who was staying in Berlin and he liked me. When we were in Cologne, two weeks later, my father-in-law called us and said he wanted to come and see us. We wondered what he should want after 20 years, but we suddenly understood he wanted to arrange a wedding. Before they came to our house I called my husband’s uncle to know something about his family. I wanted to know if they were very devout and he told me they had been to the Mecca once. I realized that at my first date with my future husband I should wear the veil. Then that day came. After he had entered the room my mother told me: “Ayse, that’s the man!”. I was 18 and about 25 men had already asked me for my hand but I had refused them all. My husband was tall, with a dark brown complexion; he had straight black hair and little moustache. It was very important for me. He sit down and my father began asking him how he was, what he was doing, where he was working and was very interested in his answers. The way a man answers is very important. If he is spontaneous, if he smiles, if he’s kind. It’s also important that he has his head screwed on and that his answers are logical and he strikes favourably. My father, his family and acquaintances have the task to value inwardly the suitor, and I only decide if I find him attractive from the physical point of view. My father-in-law asked me if I used to wear the veil and I frankly answered: “No, I’m only wearing it because you came.” He also wanted to know if I used to pray five times a day, but I said I couldn’t do it because I was going to school. But I usually prayed on the weekends as our religion provides. When I would be married and able to have a certain life-style I would do it. These answers pleased him and two weeks later my husband’s family came to our house once again and ha officially asked to marry me. I said I wanted to talk to him in confidence.”

“How long did you wait for your wedding?”
“We got engaged first. We took the imam and we celebrated the religious wedding. We can compare it to the German one. Islam forbids a man and a woman to go out or to be seen together if they are not married. But this hindrance didn't exist anymore for us and we could go out together. It was very important for us. After this “wedding” we didn’t live together. We have met two or three times in Cologne, we have gone to Backnang twice. The second time my mother-in-law gave me a two metres long golden necklace and said we had to certify our match. We got officially married one year after our Islamic wedding.”

“Are there any cultural differences between the two cultures about the education of children?”
“I think the German way of upbringing is excellent. The mothers do a lot of things with their children and with the other parents. The teachers at school take care of the children. All this lasts till they are 18. In Turkey we never say: “You’re 18, it’s time to live your own life!”. You are a member of your family no matter your age. I’ll bring my children up as cosmopolitans and they are not forced to leave our house when they are 18.”
 

“I will bring up my children in a cosmopolite way”, this is her plan. What may this mean in the daily life?

“Are there any cultural events for you in Waiblingen or in the surroundings?”
“I don’t know very well because I’ve been living here just for a year. If our religious meetings can be considered as part of a cultural life, yes, we meet in the mosque. Murrat has read for the second time the Koran in Arabic. 100-200 people gathered for a big feast in the mosque and he has been given some money as a present.”
“Have you ever organised any events?”
“In the mosque I give some Turkish girls a help for their everyday life at a course. For example about the use of tampons, cleanliness, about defloration and the way they can find the right man according to the Islamic principles. Or if they are allowed to have a German boy friend I tell them the way they can organize themselves.”
“Have you ever been asked to talk about your country and your life in Germany?”
“Yes, I spoke at a seminary on Turkish habits at the University with a Turkish professor. We talked about circumcision and only German managers took part to the seminary.”

The “further step” and the fitting in are really evident, even if it is different from what we have imagined before. Now this lady has got three children: they are 12, 6 and 5 years old. We can find another interesting statement through the words of their son, who was born in Germany. He has only seen the German flats.

“Are you still in touch with your relatives in your country?”
“When we go to their houses my son is very charmed by the way they are built. The flat is made of one single room on the ground floor. On the floor there is usually a little brick where the cases are heaped. Almost all the families have a telephone and a TV, a fridge, but nothing more.”
For the son it is only an experience told by other people. On the contrary his mother lived this jump from a situation to another one. Now she is paying attention to the economic disease: “When we face this indigence we realize that we live a quite easy life. So we give alms a lot as provided in Islamic principles. Sometimes I give money to families in need, sometimes my husband buys some sugar, olive oil, pasta and my father delivers them by his truck. You can’t give money to all the families because you don’t know how they would spend it. Sometimes men can spend it in coffee-houses for alcoholic drinks or for gambling.”

The other fundamental dimension is the religious one.

“Can you practice it here?”
“Yes, better than in Turkey even if I miss the big mosques and minarets. I’m free to profess my religion in my everyday life. After the evening prayer I go to sleep and I wake up at 6 a.m. for the Morning Prayer. In Turkey it’s hard to wake up so early. During the day it’s hot, you stay with people till late in the evening, so I can’t wake up so early even if the Imam calls. Another advantage for my religion in Germany is that the ingredients of everything you buy are written on the labels, so you can immediately check if there are some stuff forbidden by our religion. If a food contains jelly, lecithin, emulsifying agents it means that it’s made of pork and I don’t buy it. In Turkey the ingredients of a food are not written, so you have to hope it doesn’t contain any forbidden stuff. But I wonder if some speculators without any scruple could make use of some cheap pork. In Turkey the 99% people are Muslims, but you don’t know if they all follow Islam rules. Here in Germany I trust the laws more, because they are very strict. When the kids come back from school in the afternoon, I say my noon prayer. When they finish their homework we go to the mosque together, but without my husband who’s still working. In Waiblingen there are two mosques that cannot be recognized from the outside. The mayor didn’t want to build a real mosque with minarets. The citizens answered: ”No” to a sounding about it. But we consider these places as real mosques because every place where you can pray, read the Koran watching towards the Mecca is like a mosque, even my house. Some time ago I was in the waiting room at the doctor’s. I asked the assistant if he could show me a room where I could pray because it was the prayer time. He soon took me to a near room where I spread my coat on the floor as a carpet. I think this episode shows that in Germany people are quite tolerant towards the ones with a different mentality.”

“Is there any R.E at your children’s school?”
“No. But I think it’s very important for a child to be taught some Islamic principles. And I also believe that it’s very good for children to learn something about Islam during the Catholic or Evangelic religion lessons in German schools. Once a German girl saw me praying and she knew I was turned towards the Mecca.”

The link with the home culture is very strong. It seems that the whole cultural universe of their home country has emigrated and adapted to the German reality.  This dame even says that it is easier here to maintain one’s own traditions and further more life is more comfortable. This link is enormously strong but at the same time she doesn’t want to come back to Turkey at all. She has lost the contact with the language (“My Turkish is twenty years old”). Further more many relatives live here. So, this lady seems to be a new German, with a Turkish and Islamic culture: she’s German because she has been living here from thirty years and she assimilated the habits of this country. She is also Turkish and Islamic because this is her first culture. For what concerns her children, it seems that the only problem is the lack of Islamic teaching at school.

The other Turkish woman too moved to Germany at the age of six. Also her husband likes better speaking Turkish, while she often speaks German with her children. She doesn’t feel like coming back to Turkey either. Most of their relatives live here. Her parents, who are retired, bought a house in Ankara but they only go there on holidays. In their experience too the link with the Turkish culture and traditions is still very strong, but they have ally entered the German cultural situation. Ideally I should say: with the German daily life.

“Can you practise your religion here?”
“Yes, with no problem. In Pforzheim and in Sindelfingen some minarets and mosques with a dome were built, they were almost as beautiful as the ones in Turkey. Here in Waiblingen we have an ordinary house that we usually call a mosque. We have also our priest (Hoca in Turkish) who teaches the Koran to us. Usually, during the Ramadan (the month of the fast), Muslims go to the mosque every day. We pray even on the first day of the feast for the killing of the Lamb that took place last week from Sunday to Thursday. Otherwise men meet every Friday, our holy day, at 1.00 p.m. at the mosque for the prayer. Of course, women too can go to the mosque, but it happens rarely.”
“Do you ever pray at home?”
“My eldest son and are very devout. After our Purification we pray five times a day, at 6.00 a.m., at 1.30 p.m., at 5.00 p.m., at 8.00 p.m. and at 10.00 p.m. I have always believed in God and in our Prophet Mohamed, but I have only been praying for six years. I was not brave enough before, because I don’t want to wear the chador, even if our religion imposes a headdress to women. One day I phoned the great Hoca (he is like the Catholic Bishop) and I told him the problem. He said: ”We must pray, that’s what God wants us to do. But you have to choose whether to wear a headdress or not. Anyway, start praying maybe you will change your mind.” From that time on I have regularly prayed at home. But I go to the mosque only on very important days. Obviously, some of my country-fellowmen speak in a bad way of me when they see me entering the mosque with a pair of trousers on and with no headdress, but I don’t mind. My eldest son began praying about a year ago. He was the first. His aunt came from Turkey for a visit with a sick cat with her. Tayfun wanted that cat to recover at any rate and he asked God’s help. But there was nothing to do for the animal, the vet had to narcotise him. Tayfun went on praying even if God had not listened to him because his daily prayers had comforted and cheered him up. My youngest son, on the contrary, never prays. I think he won’t begin. He is like his father who considers religion very superficially. My husband never interferes with Tayfun’s and my devoutness.”
“Do you miss Turkish culture in Germany?”
“I miss the exhortation to the prayer made by the muezzin. He cries five times a day during the prayer: “God is great, God is great! Get ready for the prayer!”. Last week my sister called me from Turkey. She lives near a mosque and I had heard the muezzin crying. It was beautiful for me and I was taken by a melancholic and dismal sensation. Here in Germany I miss my religious tradition.”

This witness is very funny.  At the beginning the dame says, “ I suffer a lot from the lack of the muezzin exhortation”. In her real experience it goes back to her childhood, when she was six years old. Then she tells her emotion in hearing the muezzin through the telephone: it is a whole world of atmospheres and appeals at the end of the cable.
In this case too the cultural link with their home country is very strong, but it seems that they feel it at distance, living together with the German cultural context.

“When did you went to turkey the last time?"
“Five years ago, for my youngest brother’s death.”
“Do you still have any cultural bonds with you country?”
“We don’t read any Turkish newspapers, but we watch the Turkish news and amusing programmes by satellite. I like reading religious books and I know lots of them. I would like reading cultural books, but they are too difficult for me because I only understand colloquial language but not the high and refined one.”
 “Are there any cultural events for Turks in Waiblingen or in the surroundings?”
“Sometimes someone organises some Turkish evenings in the city centre, where there are some Turkish folk singers and a band. There is a wide range of Turkish food and drinks. You can dance too. When we were living in Andersbach, the church usually arranged these Turkish-German evenings. All the people in the town sit together in a friendly way and they were in touch with different cultures. In Stuttgart you can learn Turkish folk dances. There is also a Saz (an instrument similar to the guitar) teacher.”
“Do you feel welcome here?”
“Thirty years ago in Andersbach im Tal, we were welcome with open arms. I still can’t understand that people were so enthusiastic to have foreigners in their town. When I played in the streets the old women who saw me usually caressed my hair or were charmed by my black eyes. There were not so many foreigners in Germany at that time. In the small town of Andersbach there were no others. Nowadays things are very different, there are too many foreigners here.”
“Are you in touch with your neighbours?”
“In the area we live there are German families, above all. I had a good friendship with one of my neighbours, a 27-year-old German girl. We met every day for coffee. I got along well with her 50 year old friend, too. We spent Sundays together and we sometimes engaged in something together. Unfortunately they moved to Spain, they didn’t like Germany. We are still in touch, we usually phone each other and they also came and visited us. We often have a chat with an old lady living in the neighbourhood, but we have never invited each other. On the floor upstairs lives a German family. We always greet each other but the husband is very snob and he doesn’t want to have anything to do with us.”
“Do your children ever play with the ones in the neighbourhood?”
“Both our children had good mates (German, Turkish, Italian) to play with, but they all moved. Maybe they will have new friends in the summer.”

I have already said: German with a Turkish and Islamic culture. Probably this definition is exaggerated. Naturally it doesn’t describe a stable situation, because reality is still changing. For example this lady defines her husband’s language “The language of Tarzan”, only the first child is bilingual, the second one has got more difficulties. Further more the relationship with German people is not so quiet.

The story of these two dames can be compared with the one of another Turkish woman, who moved to German at the age of twenty-five, with her husband, and not following her family. At her home the prevailing language is still Turkish: German is not so common and, even in this case, it is the wife that can speak this language in a better way.  Her children were born in Germany and they grew up there. The first two guys are 23 and 20 and can speak Turkish quite well. The younger is 15 years old and he isn’t able to speak a good Turkish. They obviously know German very well, they went to school in Germany and they do not think that they will go back to Turkey. They hold themselves for cosmopolite people.

“Do your sons feel at ease in their German schools? Did they have any troubles with it?”
“No. Only my eldest son had big problems at the John Kennedy-Schule. His class was made up of 18 pupils; among them there were lots of Turks and Greeks, an Austrian and German. The teachers were always asking what the foreign pupils were doing there. They should have gone to work in a factory! In the other schools there have been no problems. The teachers were very good both in Stuttgart and in Waiblingen.”
“Was it difficult to learn German for your sons?”
“Not at all. They were born in Germany and have attended German schools, so they learnt German there.”
“Have they ever studied with any of their German mates?”
“Our eldest son used to study with his German school mates. Our second-born son used to play with children from all over the world but he didn’t need them to study. His older brother used to help him. Evren usually does his homework on his own. However we have always behaved the same way with people from different countries. And our sons too have always been in touch with children of all nationalities: Greeks, Italians, Turks of course.”
“Are there any problems with the cultural difference between Germany and your country?”
“We are part of three different cultures: Turkish, Caucasian, Circassian. In Stuttgart and Esslingen there’s a Caucasian cultural association that cares of the traditions of this culture. Every month we meet there to chat and learn some folk dances.”  “There are obviously great differences between the two countries ?says his wife. In Germany your job determines and rules your life and both men and women can work. But housewives are always busy in the same occupations, they drive a pram, do the shopping, cook, clean the house. In Turkey women stay at home but they are not alone. They often meet their neighbours to chat. When we lived in Stuttgart I have tried to keep this way of living. I often stayed with my Turkish neighbours and I was very happy that even some of my German neighbours took part to it. I think they liked it very much.”
“Are there any cultural events for you in Waibliungen or in the outskirts?”
“In Stuttgart women meetings often take place. But no one from Waiblingen but me goes there. In Esslingen there is a Turkish cultural club. We meet there once a month on Saturdays to talk together, to eat, to dance.”
“Have you ever arranged any cultural events?”
“At the Turkish school in Stuttgart I used to arrange some meetings with a friend of mine. In Waiblingen I don’t have enough time because I’m busy with the Imbiss-Restaurant.”
“Do you have any problems with German mentality?”
“No. I get along very well with it.”

A German with a Turkish and Islamic culture and with a cosmopolite vision? In this way this sentence seems to be superficial. It seems that the cultural identity, religion, festivals, engagement and marriage aren’t an obstacle to the feeling of being also German (perhaps it is better to say: cosmopolite) in the daily life: the way they live, the school, the people they meet, the dreams for their future. But this way of living still meets some difficulties, which underline differences. For instance there still are some racist or reject episodes. There can also be their difficulty in learning German well and at the same time they tend to loose contact with their home language. So they are hanging in the middle of two different worlds.
In these stories of Turkish families it comes up the image of a whole community that moved definitively to another country, keeping its habits and adapting traditions to the new place. On the contrary in the stories of Greek people it seems that there is a much greater provisional character, just like they are always going to go back home, to their country.

“Your eldest son attends our school. He is in a fourth homogeneous Greek class. Why have you made this choice?”
“We have chosen this school because Georgios has the possibility to learn both German and Greek: I had to attend at the same time both the German and the Greek school. I don’t want my children to live that double stress. I would not do it for anything in the world. But we want to avoid a univocal education, because we cannot know whether we are going to stay here or not. That is why my children have to be able to read and write both in German and Greek.
 “Does Georgios feel at his ease at school?”
“Yes, he likes it, but he would like to attend a German class, because he asserts that Greek teachers exact too much from their pupils. Further more he would have less lessons: it is obvious.”
 “Does your child study with his school friends sometimes?”
“At the beginning he didn’t. But now children often meet, do their homework together or examine some tests.”
 “Was it difficult to make friends here?”
“No. Sometimes the parents of our children’s school friends come and meet us. Since our eldest son attends a Greek class we have many relations with Greeks. But our younger son attends a German nursery school and we feel at our ease also with German families. I chose this nursery school purposely because our children have to learn German as soon as possible. But we don’t cultivate deep friendships.”
 “Do your children have some friends in Waiblingen?”
“They have got many. Georgios get on very well with his school friends. But he also plays football and taekwondo and he has got other friends there: Greek, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian children, well mixed. Sometimes they come here, sometimes Georgios goes and meets them.”

To be hung in the middle of two worlds is more fatiguing for the eldest son; his brother attends a nursery school with a few foreigners: it isn’t so hard.

“Can you observe your religion?”
“Yes. We are members of the Greek Orthodox Church. We pray everyday: in the morning, at lunch, at dinner and before going to bed. According to our tradition the youngest has to say grace before meals. On Sundays and on Holy Days we usually go to the Mass: our eldest son is an altar boy. I am very happy that Georgios has got some Orthodox religion lessons at his school. I only attended catholic and evangelic lessons when I was a child. Anyhow it was interesting to find out something more upon these two religions.”
“Are there any problems concerning cultural differences between Greece and Germany?”
“Once there were problems. Nowadays there aren’t. People are quite tolerant and everybody can live, as they like.
 “Are there any cultural possibilities for you in Waiblingen or at least in this area?”
“We have got different possibilities to cultivate our culture. For example our church often organise some meetings or, on holy days, beautiful and crowded fests. Furthermore there is a group -“Greek folk dances”- and there are also Greek football and basket teams. These opportunities are available both for children and grown-up people. Naturally I also take part to German festivals as for example Carnival balls, sport events etc. When I was young I was always with German people because there were no Greek celebrations.”
“Did you feel accepted here?”
“As I already said, at the beginning I had an awful impression of German people, because of the owner of my house. She imposed me many rules and prohibitions. Then the other owners were very kind.”
 “Can you give some other examples o racism?”
“When I was at school there were only two foreigners in my class. My schoolmates usually insulted me using awful expressions like “you are a shitty foreigner” and I ran away weeping.
So I decided to show everybody that a foreigner could attend the school with good marks: I succeeded. At the vocational school there was a teacher who wasn’t able to deal with foreign people. He always considered me as a German: “If someone speaks German very well like you, he/she cannot be Greek. You are a Greek Swabian or a Swabian Greek”. Furthermore he always grumbled:" I can’t understand why German people go abroad on holyday: there are so beautiful places here. Do you agree with me Miss Tzanidou?” He wanted me to repeat continuously that Germany was beautiful. I was scared and I couldn’t say that I loved my home country more than Germany, because I should have had to discuss with this teacher. He even treated me worse than my mates.”
“When we were in our first rent house in Waiblingen we had a neighbour that was very kind with us but that always insulted foreigners: “If in Germany there weren’t so many foreigners, there would be less unemployed people”. She was cross particularly with Turkish people. Those insults hurt me a lot because I felt foreigner, even if she considered me a German citizen.
I guess that my children have never had this kind of experience, nor at the Nursery school neither at the Primary school.”
“Have you got any relationship with your neighbours?”
“We live in a big rent house with another Greek family and a Turkish one. All around us there are German people living in detached houses. When we arrived here German families stared at us sceptically. Anyhow they tried to establish some contact by answering how was it going with our restructuring. An old lady, who is now in a rest home, always complained that our children didn’t go to bed at 8 p.m., but I answered in a diplomatic way: “You know. Greek children go to bed at half past eight. It is nothing serious or does it disturb you?”
Through these exchange of views we created a sort syntony. We have never had the sensation of being excluded because of our nationality until this moment. On the contrary, our neighbours are all very kind with us.”
 “Have they ever invited you or have you ever invited them?”
“No. During the summer, for example, when our neighbours work in their gardens we always have a chat. Sometimes we give them a cake passing it over the fence. But there is no time for direct invitations. Further more our neighbours are mainly old people they are sixty-seventy years old) and we would prefer to have contacts with some people of our same age.”

“We give them a cake passing it over the fence”: this picture is typical of some old Californian TV serials. In many European towns it has become a normal reality. In this kind of gesture we are probably all homologated, autochthonous and migrant. I am driven by this picture to make a digression.

There is something that doesn’t convince me in the questions made in this part of the interview. We prepared the questionnaire together, we experimented it in four different countries and then we compared the answers. But I am doubtful. We asked our Greek or Turkish friends what kind of relationship they have with their neighbours, if their children play with the others and we try to understand the level of acceptation and welcome from their answers. But we are forgetting the difference of the social and urban structure between the two countries, their home country (we don’t know it) and ours. They don’t have any relationship with their neighbours: neither do I and I have ever given them a cake passing it over the fence. For what concerns our children’s friendships, they all were born at school. In order to fill their time we bring them to the gym, to a dance lesson and so on. Perhaps we cannot obtain any significant answer upon the level of integration and welcome from these questions. I even guess that this problem doesn’t concern our individual or psychological skill to welcome foreigners. Perhaps it is our social structure, the organisation of our life, that isn’t able to welcome someone else: we don’t have any place and any moment in which we can exchange our experiences. After this digression I am going on with the story of another Greek mother. She is a teacher and she is working in that Greek school, which was already described in other interviews.
She is the same woman who told us that she “emigrated twice” and that failed an exam to be an interpreter because she couldn’t speak her mother tongue, Greek, quite well.

“How long have you been staying in Waiblingen?”
“I came to Germany for the second time in September 1996. I teach English to Greek children at Karolingerschule in Waiblingen and my daughter Margarita is attending the same school. She is in a Greek class in which they speak the same language. Nevertheless we live in Fellbach-Schmiden.”
“Have you ever thought about going back to your country?”
“That's the situation: I'm a Greek State employee, paid to teach in Germany and education abroad lasts for five years by contract. During this period you get a double pay, the Greek one and the German one. There are lots of waiting lists because many Greek teachers want to take advantage of these financial advantages. In particular cases for example, when a German man or woman gets married, such a contract can be extended one or two years longer. But if you are staying there any longer the status of employee of the Greek State decays. If I wanted to stay here forever with my family I should apply for a job as a teacher at the school office, but I'd have the lowest chances to be employed. However I couldn't be a State employee because I don't have German citizenship. We want to go back to Greece at the end of this school year, for two reasons: first of all my husband's work conditions. Since he can hardly speak German he's been working in a factory for three years, but his monotonous job doesn't conform to his education as a building engineer. He is still in touch with the firms, which he used to collaborate with, but if he keeps not practising his job a reintegration in Greece wouldn't be so easy. For this reasons I applied to several firms and I hope I get a positive reply soon. Another reason is my daughter's school situation. At the Karolingerschule she's taught a bilingual teaching and I think these Greek classes, speaking the same language but with supplemented German lessons, are an unsatisfactory arrangement. In Joannina, where our house is, she will be in a Greek class: there is no alternative. But I fear she will be at a disadvantage in comparison with her school-mates, because she had too little mother-tongue lessons.”
“What kind of school are your children attending?”
“Margarita goes to the Karolingerschule, she’s attending the third year in a Greek speaking class, Spyros goes to the nursery-school.” (Spyros is the child that we have already met talking about the “dive into the void”)

“Do your children feel at ease or they have some problems?”
“In Spyros’ nursery-school there are not many foreigners, besides him there are other four or five, but from a different country. Once a week a German teacher gives a language support to these children and Spyros can make himself understood. I think he is too young to realize that he’s a bit different from the other German children.”
“Does she study with her class-mates?”
“Since we don’t live in Waiblingen but in Fellbach-Schmiden, a little village some kilometres far, she has no school friends, she studies alone. I try to help her if I can, but she often does not let me. She thinks I’m only an English teacher and I can’t do anything else.”
“Are there any differences between the Greek and the German school-system?”
“Primary-school in Germany lasts for four years. Then, children got to another school to carry on their education (Hauptschule, Realschule or High-school). In Greece all the children attend the primary school first. It lasts for six years and they go to the compulsory-school for three years. Compulsory education lasts for nine years, after that you have several choices. For example you can attend a high school for three years and do the school-leaving exam, a good mark allows you to go to University. But you can also serve your apprenticeship while you are attending a vocational school. Practice shows that in the countryside young people leave school after the nine compulsory years of study to work with their parents. On the contrary in the city about 80 % of students attend a high-school.”
“Are there any differences in the strictness in schools?”
“We can talk of two extremes. Once in Greece there was much more strictness than here. For example we had to wear the school uniform, which was a blue dress for girls and a blue shirt with dark blue trousers for boys. In half 70’s it was abolished. Today there are new uniforms: Levi’s, Nike, Adidas…There has been a strong strictness in the class for a long time. But things have radically changed. I’ve taught for many years in a class of the last year in a high school; black marks on the class register or on diaries are part of the educational order measures in Germany too, but we hardly ever write them. Some time ago the conduct mark was very important because it negatively affected working opportunities, because it meant that one misbehaved within society. Eventually, this mark has very much decreased in value.”
“Are you satisfied with the school your daughter goes to?”
“I’ve always wanted Margarita to learn Greek and German in the same way, but after three years I realized that my hopes were vain and that I was wrong. I know some of her schoolmates and I teach English in some Greek classes. Almost all my pupils speak bad German because they are not used to listen to people speaking German; they have from five to seven hours of German per week according to their level. Otherwise their mother tongue would dominate. Their teachers are Greek; they usually speak Greek with each other and with their parents. If my husband doesn’t get any reply in some months, we will have to stay in Germany for a long time and Margarita will have to attend another school, the Fellbach-Schmiden, I’ve already told her. In the classes of the Fellbach-Scmiden there are also foreign students, but the teaching language is German. I hope she will listen to her mates speaking a better German than the one her present mates speak. Hearing her making constant mistakes about declension and conjugation is a half-disaster. For example my husband, who hardly speaks German, was surprised by a sentence my son said. Spyros said: “
Daddy, Margarita is sleeping”. My husband turned towards me and said: “ Why did you say “is sleeping”? We say “sleep” “. So I explained: “ If he feels a real German he speaks correctly, so he does not use the infinitive form but the personal one and you say “he is sleeping” instead of “he sleep”.

To be hanging in the middle of two different worlds makes you live your situation in a different way. Despite the possibility of going back to Greece (or perhaps because of that), the Greek school in Germany has been described from this dame as a satisfactory compromise.

“You are all Orthodox. How can you practice your religion in Germany?”
“I have a peculiar attitude towards the Church and I don’t know if I am a real believer. Sometimes when I’m in a difficult situation, I think or say: “ Oh, my God!”, but I never really invoke God’s help. On the occasion of the main religious feasts (Christmas and Easter) we go to the church service, otherwise we go to the mass on Sundays, two or three times a year maybe. On special occasions such as weddings or christenings. Yesterday was the most important national holiday in Greece and a religious feast at the same time. Tradition provides that we have to eat fish on this day as on Holy Friday for Catholics. This morning I spoke with my mother on the phone and she wanted to know what kind of fish dish I had cooked yesterday. But yesterday we ate some meat because I don’t care too much for Church rules and I forgot it was holiday. My mother reproached me very much for that, she doesn’t like that we are not bringing up our children in accordance with religious principles. I just try to honour the Holy Week by renouncing animal products but the reasons or that are not very much related to religion, I want to test my conscience on it.  At school Margarita has two hours a week of R. E. and she goes to ecumenical services.”

“This morning I talked to my mother at the phone. She wanted to know what I have prepared for lunch”: this is a simple example of a link with the traditions. In the next story it isn’t the mother that controls the religion from far away but the son, who is defined “the driving force in this field”.

“How do you practise your religion?”
“In Waiblingen we have a church, a priest and we can practise our religion without any problems. My family is believer but we don't live strictly the usages and customs of our religion. We have several images of Saints at home. In front of them there are some oil-lamps. On Sundays and festive days these lamps are lit-up to honour the Saints. My husband and I don't regularly go to the mass. The Sunday service starts at 9 and lasts for 2 hours. Personally I prefer sleeping or finishing off some works amassed in the week. Our son Georgios, on the contrary always goes to the church. If I'm not going, my husband takes him there. Georgios is, moreover an altar boy and he's always very happy to wear his mass-suit and to help the priest during the service. It's his own choice; we don't put pressure on him. When we eat at home Georgios often points out that we have not said our prayers and that we should cross ourselves. He's very painstaking and he's certainly the force that leads the family in this sphere.”
“Germany is culturally different from Greece. Are there any troubles because of that?”
“In Waiblingen there are a lot of cultural initiatives specially for Greek people. So we have no problems. The Orthodox Church arranges holidays, while is the Greek community that is involved in the organization of manifestations on national holidays. On May 25 the 1821 Greece was set from the Turks and on this day we celebrate a lot, the Greek community busies itself to celebrate according to the tradition. In the centre of Waiblingen a varied program is offered: Greek specialities to taste, children reading poetry, in the evening an orchestra amuses the guests etc.”
“Do you take part in these celebrations?”
“Yes, we don't only when we have huge problems because this sort of manifestations take place 2 o 3 times a year. All the Greeks participate with enthusiasm because meeting fellow-countrymen is beautiful; so we take a piece of our country to Waiblingen.”
“Are there any problems for the difference of mentality?”
“In Germany I don't have such problems .On the contrary the situation becomes very hard when we spend our holidays in Greece for long. Obviously I love my country; the landscape is beautiful and the climate pleasant. But we got used to German order, punctuality and rigour. The typical Greek routine is rather annoying for us. For example when I go to the doctor's in Greece I'm always waiting. Sooner or later they examine you, they make up a prescription, but at the same time, the doctor has a coffee break or he talks on the phone for hours, Even if the waiting -room is crowded. Normally everybody wastes too time. Another example: in German hospitals the nurses and the rest of the staff take care a lot of all the patients. On the contrary in Greece the members of the family busy with the cure of the patient. They cook at home and take the food to the hospital. Only singles and seriously ill people are healed by the medical staff.”
“Do you feel welcome in Waiblingen?”
“Quite welcome. Most of people are tolerant and they accept my family and me. But there is also a discrimination with foreigners.”
“Can you mention any episode of racism?”
“I often had bad telephone experiences. When we were looking for a flat, I called some readers who had put an offer for rent in a newspaper. First of all they asked me how big my family was, my age, my job etc. Usually the readers I called were quite pleased because I made a nice impression on them. When it came to fixing a meeting to see the flat and I had to give my name, they often said:” You’re not German!” my reply was:” No! I live in this country and I speak German but I'm Greek, proud to be it and I will always be it!”. The meeting was cancelled. Unfortunately, lots of people's behaviour changes when they hear we are foreigners. They become impatient, hostile and they stop speaking German to start mocking ours. I've always deeply stroke to meet people who don't think of me as a person but just as a foreigner. Obviously there are some black sheep among the foreigners but there are also many among the Germans and no one should be negatively labelled only for his/her nationality. On the other hand it happens that some people, sometimes become enthusiastic hearing that I can speak German and Schwabian dialect so well even if I'm Greek. So I have no reason to complain. When I realize that someone is a racist I avoid him not to have any clash.”
“You live in a building with 7 German families. Are you in touch with them?”
“The closest touch is with the people living opposite. When I have been a housewife for a year after Despina was born, we used to meet very often. Since I started working again for the whole day I’m always under pressure. I have to deal with the housework and my children and I can’t have any invitations. The other 3 families and us greet each other or we chat a little but all is rather fair. No one scowls at us just because we are not German.”
“Do your children play with your neighbours’ ones?”
“In the building only the people living opposite have young children. When Georgios’ sister wasn’t still born, he often used to play with our neighbours’ daughter who is the same age as him. Our children go to school together and in the evening they play together.”
“Do you have any friends in Waiblingen?”
“Yes, but just a narrow group. My husband has a Greek friend, a colleague of his. I have a Greek friend either. I see her every afternoon and we meet to do something together. We first met at work 10 years ago and we realised we were on the same wavelength; I can talk about everything with her, it’s good.”
“What about your children’s friends in Waiblingen?”
“They both often play with the children of some of our relatives or friends. Georgios is not much in touch with his class-mates after school.”
“Do you still keep a cultural bond with your country?”
“When my husband can, he often reads Greek books and newspapers. He also listens to a radio programme everyday at 8.20 p.m. It’s for Greek people living in Germany. They tell the most important events occurring in Greece and abroad.”

In these passages of conversation we have read all the elements already presented come up: the German mentality, above all for what concerns order and precision, the better functioning of social services, even if people can be “more or less” accepted. Problems emerge people go back to Greece, traditions and the religion are very strong, the language is still very spoken at home, people listen to Greek radio programmes and take part to the activities organised by the orthodox community. An important day is the anniversary of the liberation from the Turks.
These stories of Greek and Turkish people living in Germany offer some interesting information upon the methods people use in order to fit-in. They try to adapt themselves to social and economic events, which compelled them to leave their home country and to find a new life in another reality. The process of individual fitting in is not nor easy neither taken for granted.
The sociological literature explains that migratory flows began in Germany in 1955, with an agreement between the German federal government and the Italian one.
It is the period of the economic boom. The compensation effects on the labour market caused by the massive movements of German population after the war have been exhausted. It is estimated that, between 1945 and 1948, 12-13 million German people have been deported from East to West Germany according to the agreements of Yalta. Further more there are all the refugees, the people that ran away from the advance of the Soviet Army during the war or after the following division in two of the country.
Such movements overwhelm the deficiency of labour due to the human losses of the war. In 1955, in consequence of the economic recovery supported by the American      funds, there is a new tension in the labour market. It can be faced by way of an opening up of a new labour market:  the Mediterranean basin.
The first agreement is with the Italian government. Then there have been other agreements: in 1960 with Spain and Greece, in 1961 with Turkey, 1963 with Morocco, 1964 with Portugal, 1965 with Tunisia and subsequently with other countries. Until the 60s the biggest community was the Italian one. Only during the70s it has been outclassed by Turkish and Yugoslavian people. There is also a quite large Greek community.
From the 70s on the Italian and Spanish communities have dropped. One of the regions that host the highest number of foreign workers is Baden. At the beginning the male presence is prevailing but, from the half of the 60s, the feminine presence too begins to be significant and constant. The highest number of foreigners working in Germany has been reached in 1973, with 2.5 million people.
During the 70s familiar reunions increase. There are also many cases in which a whole family moves to Germany.
In spite of the structural reasons that make the foreign labour necessary, the German government always considers the permanence of foreign workers as " temporary”. Such a vision constitutes an ideological justification, which is functional to the maintenance of a sense of precariousness among immigrants. It also helps to favour the competition among national groups, diversifying the flows, thanks to new agreements with other governments. The strong migratory spur and the agreements with the governments also help to unload the training costs of the immigrants upon other countries.
The flexibility of the labour market is also useful in order to reduce the costs in the periods of low conjuncture in an easy way. Moreover such a conception tends to favour the image of a " transitory " foreign presence, a sort of " foreign body ". The foreigners seem to be something that the country has to bear in order to allow the economic development. It is something necessary and not eliminable at all during the unfavourable moments.
However a large part of the workers, in spite of all this, develops in the meantime different attitudes, behaviours and plans for the future. These projects are different from those of the previous years and the “hosting” country didn’t plan them. The initial plan of going back to the home country, which is functional to the ideology of the " guest worker", transforms itself: the definitive fitting-in in the new country begins.
The return home, that has been turned into a legend at the beginning and then always put off to a later date, makes the immigrant enter a spiral of ambivalence, even in the cases of a continuous commuting. The values of the new country press on the old ones and the old values try to find a compromise that can make life acceptable. The immigrant lives in a sort of trap. The foreigner is dangling. The immigrant is looking for a new adaptation outside this trap; he/she lives in a permanent conflict between ambivalence and intercultural contrast, in a situation that is open to different solutions. In the meanwhile, the immigrant has become a constant of the new country this new situation of passing and it is no more a transitory variable. When foreigners are holding their identity, they’re a "transitory variable" for the host country, when they are no more themselves they become a constant.
In the meanwhile, during the 90s, there are new flows: on the one hand there are people coming from the East, after the fall of walls and boundaries, on the other hand there migrant people from Croatia and Bosnia because of the war in Yugoslavia.
Going back to the 60s and the 70s, the flexibility of the labour market of the immigrants is managed by the federal German government. One of the most important dates is 1973. The government introduces a law (the Anwerbestop) that declares the cessation of the entrance flows. It also prepares the emanation of some measures that should stimulate the return home of immigrants in order to favour the Konsolidierung (the consolidation) of the more solidly fitted-in groups or of the groups with great difficulties of repatriation. The objectives have been only partially reached.
The new flow of arrivals from the Mediterranean countries has been only discouraged but not prevented. From this period on clandestine entrances increase and above all there is a reversal of a trend in the European Mediterranean countries. From the second half of the 70s migratory balances of Italy, Spain and Greece begin to be positive, even if at the same time the flows of departure from these countries will never completely stop. There will be a mixed situation.
In Italy, in particular, at the beginning the phenomenon interlaces with the flows of the “return emigration”, which was quite hefty in the second half of the 70s.People are coming back not only from the European countries but also from South America. (It is necessary to remind that the Italian people emigrated in the course of the century are approximately 24 million, above all towards South America. Nowadays the immigrants or the descendants of the immigrants that are still living in foreign countries are approximately 56 million. 5 millions of them are still holding the Italian citizenship).
The flows of immigration from the South side of the Mediterranean begin to be significant in the 80s. In this period the new immigrants, coming from new migrant countries, find in Italy more open frontiers than in Germany, Switzerland or France. In Italy the same debate upon immigration appears only during the 80s: before those years the phenomenon was not seriously considered.
In 1986 the government introduces the first law that should favour the regularization of immigrated employee workers. Only from the 90s the data concerning immigration begin to be more reliable, even if they often are discordant among the various sources. The phenomenon can be finally better understood.
In lack of a conducting comparable to the one realised in Germany starting from the 60s, the attention to the migratory phenomena has been developed in many ways: associations of voluntary service, trade-union organizations or Local Agencies. During the 90s all the Italian Regions pass regional laws and measures and institute organizations and councils, often open to the participation of immigrants’ associations.
At a national level there have been various legislative measures in the 90s. But only in 1998 a new reorganization law has been introduced. One of the still biggest problems is the good coordination between the different initiatives. Between the 80s and the 90s new political movements emerge, which assert the necessity of introducing very strict measures concerning immigrants: to stop entrance flows and to reduce social interventions in immigrants’ favour.
One of the characteristics that have been pointed out since the beginning of migratory phenomena is the concentration of some national communities in precise geographic areas: Tunisian fishermen in Sicily, Philippine, Eritrean and Salvadorian servants in the big cities, Yugoslavian building workers in Friuli in occasion of the reconstruction after the earthquake. Later there are hefty flows from Morocco and Senegal. These groups tend to spread upon all the territory, above all in North and Central Italy, where small industries are concentrated and above all where there is an enormous lack of labour.

Moreover, during all this period, there are temporal concentrations of flows coming from many countries that alternate and don’t always consolidate their presence. The result is a disseminated current presence of many various nationalities, with different migratory motivations and typologies of fitting-in in the country. From the second half of the 90s the entrance of people coming from Albania and from other East European countries (first of all from Poland and Rumania) increased in considerable measure. The presence of migrant children at school is concentrated in some areas and begins to spread in a significant way in all the country only at the end of the 90s.

After this long digression, in order to remind some macro features of the general scene, let’s go back to the individual stories that take place inside this scenery and that are our principal interest. I am going to begin the stories collected in Italy from my friend Mohamed, who has collaborated to this entire project from the beginning. He has been living in Italy for twenty years.

“When we arrived here in Italy, because of our studying, there were just a few foreigners in this country. People looked at us full of curiosity. They tried to outdo each other in meeting us. They offered us a coffee when we were in a Café, or they invited us for dinner in order to tell the others that they had a foreign friend. For example, when I was a student I have never queued up at the University or at the canteen, because all the people let me pass. They always said: “You are a foreigner, you have got more difficulties than us, we have to help you.” There was this kind of behaviour, in Ancona at least. But after 1986 the situation has changed. There has been a higher flow of foreigners, also because job reasons, and then there has been the first “amnesty” in order to have a residence permit. Many immigrants that still were clandestine and that worked in the South of Italy have made their situation legal and then they moved to the Central or North Italy. Also in the Marches there was a high request for foreign labour, in the tourism, the fishing and other fields. In that period the presence of Africans has increased in a significant way. Therefore there were more black people in Italy and that has changed the way Italian people consider foreigners.
On the contrary once there were more Tunisians or other peoples: for example the most considerable community was the Iranian one. Further more people usually came here because of studying, so they normally had a bigger skill I in order to fit-in in the society. It was not a problem for a foreigner to find a house. Then the situation has changed and the perception of the people living in Ancona towards foreigners has changed too. The new immigrants also had greater difficulties in fitting-in, in finding a house. I remember a lady I knew who told me: “Now foreigners have become all dirty”. I answered: “Why do you say that? How were foreigners before?” And she added: “Once you were cleaner, clever people. Now you aren’t good anymore”. I tried to explain her that it depended on the bigger difficulty that new immigrates have found here: some of them have no house, there are a few public toilets. There are more diseases: they need more help but they only find a close attitude. Perhaps they have a degree, a high level of education. Their appearance depends only on their disease.

“So, you are saying that this opposition towards foreign people has emerged in the last ten years, aren’t you?”
“Yes, the situation has got worse and worse in the last ten years. At least this is my opinion on the basis of my experience in Ancona. This close attitude even caused the same reaction among immigrates, emphasizing their difficulty or opposition in fitting-in. Such a kind of ideas: “You are hating me, hitting me, rejecting me. I can’t understand why I should have to respect you”.

“Perhaps this is the first psychological reaction of the immigrate but, anyhow, he/she wants to fit-in in this society. He/she went here because for this reason. Perhaps this close attitude doesn’t prevent immigrates from fitting-in, but it modifies the strategies, which are used in order to realise the same objective. Do you agree?”
“I interpret it in this way. At the beginning the immigrant has got a project. When he/she arrives he/she finds out that the realisation of this plan is more difficult than what he/she thought. But he/she doesn’t give up, he/she insists, changing the methods. The change of strategies takes place at this moment when the immigrate finds out that it is impossible to realise his/her project of fitting-in the way he/she imagined before. So the question is: What do I have to do? Should I prolong my stay here for a few years or should I go back to my country? Should I stay here and find new ways?”

“The project we are talking about is the same for everybody? Have you already begun the definitive move to the new country?”
“The plans can be various. I am speaking of the immigrant’s immediate reaction to the situation of the host country, when he/she must decide how his/her future will be. In that moment the foreigner can postpone the choice, he/she is dangling. The immigrant does not try to find a strategy in order to fit-in immediately or he/she does not decide at the beginning if he/she is going to stay or to go back.
The situation is different when the foreigner truly decides to remain. Then the problem is: how is it possible to understand this society, its rules and its norms? There is this kind of effort. I found a confirmation to this attitude when I was responsible of the centre for immigrants and many foreigners and ask how they should fill in the income return. In fact they wanted to pay taxes in Italy .To pay taxes was a method to feel  “inside” the rules of this society. “

“This plan of staying here was it already clearly developed at the beginning of the trip or is it a new idea that emerged after your arrival? “
“No, most of people plan to remain in Italy for a certain period and then they would like to go back to their home country. They change their mind after a period in Italy. It happened to me too and to some Palestinian friends of mine. We have decided to remain here later. If I am going back to my country, to Jordan, what will I do? I do not have a job, a perspective, because now my perspectives for the future are here and no more in my home country. It happens in this way, it is the situation that evolves. Only a few people, a minority, have got this project of staying here from the beginning.”

“Is there a difference between the people that leave their country because of studying, job or political reasons?”
 “People who are running away from their country because of political reasons have less hopes than the others. They know that the situation will hardly change so they’re trying to fit-in quickly in the new country. On the contrary people who are coming because of job reasons often think to stay here for a certain period in order top earn some money and to go back. Then they change their mind because things too are changing. There are also some people who are dangling, because they have no more perspectives in their country, but at the same time they aren’t well fitted-in in the new society. They are dangling because they haven’t conquered a certainty in Italy yet but they haven’t a certainty in their country anymore.”
“ They live in a dangling way: they want to go back to their country but it is just a wish and not a real plan. Is that what you mean?”
“It depends on what will happen in the next years. I belong to a generation of immigrants that arrived here about 20 years ago. At this point we are almost all well fitted-in. Then there is a younger generation, which arrived here when the situation was already different and more difficult. In this generation there are more people that still live in an uncertain way. In their case it is difficult to make some plans for the future. It is almost impossible to know what kind of projects they had at their arrival and if they have already modified them. There are different examples according to the home countries of immigrants. For example there is a little community of Bengali. Those people arrived here eight years ago and they all work in some mechanical factories. They have no problems of fitting-in but not all the people began to get the papers for the familiar rejoining. It seems that they haven’t decided what they want to do”.

“What kinds of elements do influence this decision?”
“In my opinion there are three main elements, if we want to schematise. The first element is the objective situation of the family. This happens mainly among North African people. A Tunisian wife normally doesn’t accept to stay alone with her children, her mother-in-law, and her father-in-law. She insists in order to anticipate the familiar rejoining, even if there are no plans for the future. The will of the couple to be together overcomes all the obstacles.”

“In fact I have found cases of Tunisian women that even commuted from Italy and Tunisia at the beginning: a period in Italy with the husband and a period in Tunisia with her children, waiting for a definitive move to Italy of all the family.”
“There are Tunisian families that have rejoined even if they do not have a good economic position. They try to do their best to be together, even if they have to break a law. The familiar rejoining is instrumental according to certain aspects: it is an “economic” plan, in the sense that it is a way, at least in their intentions, in order to shorten the permanence in Italy. Further more the re-united family allows greater familiar economies: two people can work, or anyhow the familiar union is better guaranteed and therefore it is easier to make plans to go back home. You can find this kind of behaviour also among Philippines, Dominicans and South Americans. Above all the Philippine ones behave like this; not only the wives but also children and other relatives come to Italy. In this way they can have four-five incomes and they can earn more money. Therefore many of them go back to their country after a certain number of years. Also many Dominicans and other South Americans behave in this way. One of their peculiarities is that women often are the first to move to Italy and, after some years, they succeed in making their children come to this country. They often are single mothers or anyhow young women divorced or separated from their husband: they move to Italy and after a few years they obtain the their husband’s permission to welcome their children
In a third case the familiar rejoining is an evident signal of stability: it means that the family has decided to move definitively to Italy. In this case there is no hurry to unify the family. On the contrary people usually wait a long time in order to guarantee a higher stability, to find a good job, to organise a house, to have all the conditions of certainty.
In my job experience at the centre for immigrants I have verified these different behaviours. At the beginning I believed that the familiar rejoining always was the sign of the will to live definitively in Italy. Then I realised that it isn’t always the truth. There are also other reasons. Perhaps, even in the cases in which the rejoining is instrumental, the plan to go back can evolve and change after some years, with a new situation and new factors.”

“These ways to make one’s choice, have they got an influence upon the lifestyle in Italy? For example: which newspaper does a person prefer to read? The Italian one, that speaks of Italian events, or the newspapers of one’s country?”
“People who haven’t decided to stay here, are suspended between the two choices or have clearly decided to go back to their country prefer to read the newspapers of their country. They also follow television programmes of their country using satellite dishes, they tend to meet people coming from their same country and they don’t care about Italian events.”

“But this happens also among people that have already reunited the family, not only the wife, but also the children. Kids go to school here, or they were even born in Italy. Therefore their situation is not so clear, there are many contradictions. Do you agree?”
“Obviously! It is true. Many people tend to follow different behaviours towards themselves and towards their children: for what concerns themselves they still think of their home country and want to come back. For their children they choose to make them fit-in here in Italy. I even know some Muslim families where parents bring their children to the parish in order to make him fit-in with other Italian children. The presence of a child or even his/her birth in Italy is a fundamental element of change for all these families. The child represents the occasion to open one’s mind in comparison to a previous tendency towards a bigger narrow-mindedness.
We can perceive a clear sign of these contradictions and of this transformation with the birth of a child in Italy and the choice of his/her name. Some years ago this contradiction was more evident in the mixed families; nowadays the number of the families who decided to live here is higher and more children were born here, therefore the problem of the name is remarkable also for families with both parents coming from the same country. They search for their children Italian names or names of their country which are used in Italy, too. The name should aid them by their settling in. For example, the Arabs use names such as Omar or Laila, which can be used in Italy or can be confused with Italian names. Another possibility is that of choosing a compound name, an Arab name first and then an Italian one, so that they can use the first or the second one according to the place (Italy or their country) where they are at that very moment. The choice made from the parents for themselves is consequently different from the one they made for their children: “I cannot come back to my country anymore, even if I don't want to stay here anymore, so I choose to let my children settle in, so that they feel here as they feel at home.”  Many of the immigrants, actually, request ceaselessly to help their children obtain the Italian citizenship, for the ones who live here and particularly for those who were born here.”

“It seems a mechanism of generating a new family from a founder: usually the founder is neither one of a population nor one of that country, he doesn't belong to his old country anymore and still doesn't belong to the new one, he has no precise identity. The children are the first members of the new family”
“Anyway, I think it's the will and the effort they make in order to avoid their children the discomforts and hardships they suffered in the moment of the “passage”. The parent has experienced the moment of parting, the incertitude, the adaptation, and for his child he wants stability, fitting in, new and better life conditions than the ones he could have in the country of origin. We should never forget that when we talk about immigration we refer to poor countries in the south of the world, with difficult social and economical conditions.”
 

Let's go on with the couple of Tunisians from Kairouan who already told us their experience of the birth of their first child in the first days of immigration of the mother.

Husband: “Yes, here in Italy the situation is very difficult if only one of the parents works, when they both work it's better. If I had come to Italy to work just to bring home something to eat, then I would have preferred to stay in Tunisia. But I wanted to do something good, I wanted to buy a house, to do something for my children.”
“Do you think you'll go back to Tunisia when you'll become older?”
“I can say absolutely nothing in this moment, I stay here for now because every day there is something new, from day to day. I don't know how much I will get when I retire; there are also problems with the school of my children, for example he begins the elementary school in September and until he doesn't conclude we cannot move, and there would be big problems also afterwards because he will have learnt with the Italian system and culture, if he comes back to Tunisia he wouldn't understand anything.
I talked to my friend Mohamed, he's a very good friend of mine and I know him since 1990, he says that if we succeed in putting together some Arab families with children in scholar age we could organise two or three times a week some lessons in order to teach Arab. We have the same language.”
Wife: “Sure, Iraq, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, all these countries a common language.”
Husband: “for example Mohamed is Jordan, and his country is very far from Tunisia, but when he speaks I can understand him very well. Look, this is an Egyptian programme, this one an Algerian one, and everyone speaks Arab.”
(They show me many TV-channels of different Arab countries).
“Do the children speak Arab? When you are at home which language do you usually speak?
Husband: Arab, yes.
Interviewer: The children can understand you, then?
“Yes, but they answer in Italian. Kassem speaks Italian in the kindergarten, outside he speaks Italian, at home he understands but mostly speaks Italian. I speak in Arab to him and he answers in Italian, not in Arab.”
“He will come to Tunisia with me next month.”
“The language is very important, of course; so you wanted to organise a school for the Arab language?”
“Yes, so that they can learn it. When they'll become older, they will be able to understand both here and there.”
“… I think to the whole problems they will have, because we'll come back to Tunisia.”
Husband and Wife togethar: “It's sure, we'll come back there. If we die here, they'll have to bring us there. That's the problem. And if I come back there with my wife, can they stay here? We cannot come back old and without children. After that we assisted them in their whole childhood, they cannot let us leave alone.”
“Because you want to come back to Tunisia. I mean your desire is to come back there and they should at least know both countries.”
“But if they'll have the girlfriend and whole friends here, then… But Tunisia is a very beautiful country; I want to buy there a house near the sea. But if they'll have the girlfriend and whole friends here…”
“Do you know that there are many Italian girls who got married in Tunisia?
“Yes, Yes, a lot!”
“Italian girls who got married with Tunisians and decided to stay there?”
“In my family, too, there is an Italian girl who got married with a son of my aunt. Do you understand? There are lots of them, and there they live well, have everything they need. Well, of course there are those who have a lot of money but also the poor ones, there are agreeable and disagreeable things all over the world.”
“When you decided to go, were your parents very sad?”
“Of course they were. When we get back and then leave again everyone's crying.”
“They cry also when I phone them…”
“How often do you phone in Tunisia?”
“Once in a month, and they always cry.”

From Tunisia to Nigeria. We meet again a mixed family (Nigerian husband and Philippine wife), in which the child says: "Hey you, talk in my language, in Italian!".

“You have a university degree in economics. Have you ever look for a job suitable for your education level?”
“Yes, very often, but I have always failed. I applied to such organisations as Fao, Uno, World Bank, as well as international companies and Italian firms. They usually replied: “We’ll let you know...”. I’ve got ever 200 such reply letters. I applied to foreign firms and organizations, because Italian firms don’t answer at all. They don’t need people like me. I am really downcast. Last year I was called for an interview in France, where personnel were selected by an international oil company. They were looking for staff to send to Nigeria, Iran and Venezuela. I asked to be sent to Nigeria, because I didn’t want to go to Iran or Venezuela or another continent, and start from scratch once again. When they chose, they selected people who had studied in France, even though I could speak English perfectly. If I had been selected, I would have moved house with all my family. I would have liked even another African country, but not another continent. I keep on applying to multinational companies, and I really hope I can leave one day.”
“So, your plan is to leave Italy in spite of your twenty-year stay here?”
“Yes, I’ve always been a foreigner here in spite of all these years. No Italian considers me as part of the town.”
“Is it a cultural difference problem or it also racism?”
“Both. It’s the Italian mentality towards coloured people. For examples, a week ago I went to the hospital to ask for some information, I knocked on a door and the person who opened it expressed fear when finding herself facing someone with a black skin. This often happens. Before cultural difference, there is really a problem of acceptance which makes everything difficult. The conditions for trying to overcame cultural differences are lacking.”
“But will going back to Nigeria be difficult ?”
“Yes, it will be painful and difficult also because everything is more complicated without money. With a factory worker’s wage, less than a million and a half a month (1500 ECU) it isn’t possible to save anything for returning to Nigeria. I’m also thinking of returning to go into politics. I think that if I try, I have good prospects of being elected at the next political elections, even if it’s a little dangerous being politically active in my country. I think; it’s risky but if I stay here I’ll always treated like a “child”. Here in Italy, we foreigners are all treated in the same way whether you have just arrived and are here on your first day or whether you have been here for twenty years, as if nothing had changed during those twenty years. No evolution and no history: you are always treated as on the first day of your arrival. Italian laws never help you to integrate, dealing only with the emergency of the latest to arrive, like what’s happening now with the Albanian and the Curds. Instead, they makes no provision for integrating those who have lived and worked here for twenty years and are still not Italian citizens. You remain a guest for ever. At each deadline, I have to continue to renew my “permit to stay” like it is no longer renewed. So, even prior to cultural differences, the conditions for being accept need to be created.”

The myth of the comeback or the myth of the settling-in? Coming back or staying? Keeping on with the initial idea of coming back or betraying it? There is a very interesting metaphor we normally use in order to describe this situation: the climber in danger, stuck on the rock face, who can neither go up nor down. His cultural model has deep ties with his country of origin and is part of his personal biography. In the new country he got in a new group. What for the autochthonous is normal, ordinary, is part of everyday life in an almost "natural" way, is for the stranger a different reference mark, already created outside his personal experience. It's not ordinary. He has to evaluate it. It's not simple for him. What for the others is a something sure, a certainty, for him is a sort of adventure full of incertitude. In this adventure he can loose his social status, he is exposed to unforeseeable situations. When he shows all these difficulties he risks to be considered an ungrateful person since he seems not to accept, in fact, the cultural model they offer him.
The way to stabilisation is very difficult from both sides. In the phases of this way there is an element of innovation coming from the children when they begin to grow up and to experience the different moments of their life. In that moment they allow new relationships between the people and the environment that is around them. Also this changes happen step by step.

“How does your son feel about the school and in the town here?”
“He’s happy here; he likes going to school. This year he’s in the fourth year of the primary school. He’s made a lot of friend and even now he’s at friend’s house where they’re doing their homework together. He likes school and he’s happy here, he doesn’t have any problems, not even with the language because he was born here and was learned to speak Italian well and much better than me; sometimes he corrects me when I make a mistake with a word.”
“Does your son have any italian friend at school?”
“Yes, he does. It’s different at school and among children. Pheraps there were some problem at first when they used to say him: “Your skin has a different colour”, but then everything passed off and now he feels ok. He knows other boys, frequents the Boy Scouts an so on.”
“Don’t you think that taking your son to the Boy Scouts (or other) meetings helps you meet other Italian families?”
“Yes, of course. The relationship with other people is changed a little, but it is always formal, never real friendship.”

Our South American friends from Peru and Ecuador describe the same change.

Wife: “Over there we have our brothers, our parents and relationships are very strong. Now we can have contacts every day. Once we phoned twice a month because it costed too much. In our opinion Internet is very useful. Of course our families are not here. We miss them even because of practical reasons as, for example, the children. But we have to organise our lives in this way, all alone. But we got used to it. I can say that we felt more alone before our children were born. They filled-up the gap.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean that they substituted our parents, because it isn’t possible: it is a different kind of love. But now we don’t feel alone.”
Husband: “Alone because we suffered the distance more than others. We also had some Italian friends who invited us, for example at Christmas, but our habits and yours are different; for example, you eat fish on Christmas Eve, we have another tradition, there are many differences that remember us the distance to our country; but now with the children, with a family that grows, we live these things in a different way, too…”
“And furthermore we too have all the tasks the Italian parents have, problems of organisation or tasks such as taking the children to school, to the church, to the catechism and the choir, and so we live social activities with other families, sometimes we have dinners with them or we take part to other activities together. There are then other activities outside the school, for example taking them to the swimming pool and there we know other people.”
 

The reasons and the stories are very different one from the other, but in each of them we always find this element of the change in the relationship with the birth of the children. The same happens for our Albanian friends, who, differently from the others we have already heard, live in a situation of extreme and objective incertitude as far as the possibility of coming back is concerned.

“If you come back to Albania they will have the problem of learning the language?”
Wife: “This isn’t a problem, because you can learn it in a short time. The real problem is that they have all their friends here and if we come back they will have to fit-in again. We live for them, so it doesn’t matter....but we’ll see....at the moment we are not deciding anything, we cannot do it because in Albania there isn’t a government that rules.”
Husband: “We can decide nothing. We are hanging in mid-air. Albania is in poor shape.”
“Do you follow the main events of your Country?”
“Yes, of course! Our relatives tell us, then there are newspapers and TV. Adriatico goes there quite often and he can see with his eyes what happens, there are people dying of hunger, just like in many other countries. There are many people who have nothing, poor and there are also reach ones. There is this difference...We always think about it. We have been here for 8 years and we have always been thinking about our country. Even here during all this time we were hanging in mid-air, we didn’t meet any friends...”
“But you said that people helped you and received you well?”
“Yes, it’s true, people helped us but the way they live is different. There is sympathy but less friendship. In the evening everyone stays at home. It was our habit to be more sincere, open. There was more friendship. The way they live is really different.”
“Are you religious?”
“Just a little. Our parents were more religious than us. During the communist government in Albania religion was not allowed. Only our parents told us something about it. Things changed after 1991.”
Husband: “This year she respected the Ramadhan for the first time:”
“For the first time?”
“Yes. Once we didn’t know anything about religion, I didn’t know what a mosque was either, because the government forbade it and sent you to jail. Now it’s different.”
“Why did you decide to respect the Ramadhan?”
“I did what other foreign Muslim people do: Tunisians, Moroccans  and the others. I believe in God.”
“Do you frequent a mosque or groups of prayer?”
“No, I’ve done it on my own, I observed my fast. I don’t even have  the possibility to frequent a mosque. I did it because I believe in God and wanted to demonstrate it. Nothing else.”
“In the school how do you act with religion for your daughter?”
“We chose to attend religion courses even if I am Muslim. I guess that God is always the same and there are no differences. At her age I did not have the possibility to learn anything about religion. In this way she can learn something. Then when she grows up she will decide on her own:”
H.: “I believe less than my wife in  certain rituals, as for example the prohibition to eat pork or to drink red wine. I don’t know, I can’t understand it above all here in a country  with other habits. At home we usually eat all, we don’t observe these rules, anyhow....”
“On the  contrary I didn’t drink red wine and I didn’t eat pork during my fast because I wanted to respect the idea of God:”
H.: “Perhaps  it is more logical to follow a religion in its home country, but you go to another country with different religions and rules...”
“But here are many Muslims, there are Tunisian families nearby...even here it can have a sense.”
“Marina, how does she feel at school?”
“She feels really at her ease. She went to the nursery school too, for two years, she is well fitted in, she doesn’t have any problem with the language, she has got many friends. Today she got two good marks, two top marks and she is really happy.”
“Are there other foreign pupils in her class?”
H.: “No, there some others in other classes, but not so many foreign people live here.”
“Which are the differences between Albanian and Italian school?”
H.: “She goes to school from a short time. I took part to some meetings with teachers; they told me how it goes and how Marina feels at school, but is soon to understand. Anyhow it is very different.”
“It is more rapid in learning. Marina is able to read, to write and to count after a few months. On the contrary in Albania at the end of the first year we didn’t learn it yet, we drew pothooks, we proceeded very slowly. I  prefer the Italian school. Teachers too are clever. At the beginning of the nursery school marina was very shy, she did not speak with any children, she was too reserved. Even when she went out with me to the public garden she was afraid of other children, she wanted to hide. I was worried about her. That’s why I wanted her to go to the Nursery school. Then she began to make friends. Now she is more open, her teachers say that she takes part to the activities in little groups of 4-5 people. But when she has to speak in front of the whole class she still is shy. But this can be normal. I am very happy because now she has got friends.”
H.: “She is a child and she doesn’t feel the problems of being foreign. She lives in a calm situation.”
“No, she does not feel foreign, she feel Italian and I think it is better. She never had unpleasant episodes; for example children saying: “You are not like us, you are Albanian”. Luckily it never happened. But we feel different, foreign. (...) Next years we’ll see what we will be able to do. For us it is not the same thing than for Tunisians or moroccans, that came here only because of job. They have a safe country,  they can go back if they want, there is no danger. In Albania we don’t what will happen, if and when the situation will be better. At that moment perhaps we will decide what to do, we and our children, that learn and grow-up here.....”
H.: “Yes, heaven knows what our children will decide to do.....”
 

The migrants situation in Spain is very similar to the Italian one. Also Spain is one of those countries which experienced in this century migrating out-flows of about 7 millions persons. It's a number that corresponds to a third of Spain's today's population. Until the 50ths and 60ths they mostly moved direction South America and partly towards Africa. From 1960 until 1975 about 1 million Spaniards moved to the centre of Europe, mostly to France, Switzerland and Germany. The typical mechanisms of the migration chain  encouraged also a sort of regional specialisation in the different Spanish regions in the direction of particular foreign countries. The most important migrating in-flows begin in the 80th, become more recurrent in the 90th and many of them come from European countries. Among the extra-European countries the most important group is made by the Moroccans. At the beginning the geographic areas where the in-flow was more evident were the region of Madrid and the Mediterranean Coast, particularly Barcelona, Murcia, Girona, Malaga, Valencia, Alicante, Almeria and Tarragona. The average percentage of strangers compared to the total inhabitants oscillates around 1%, in the areas of biggest concentration it reaches on the average around 3-4%.

Some situations -we have seen lots of different stories in Lleida but we can find them everywhere- concern women for whom the separation or the familiar difficulty is the mainly reason for emigrating and searching a new country where they could rebuild a more satisfactory sentimental life. Another aspect which is common for all the women we have interviewed -both those who have a familiar life or a fixed partner and those who experienced very difficult situations- is the loneliness of the long days they spend at home with their children, alone, without a net of social relationships which could protect them.

The stories we collected in Lleida concern all very particular family situations. The migration, the voyage, often corresponded to fractures in the family and to hard personal circumstances. There is a girl who left her husband in Cameroon and came to Lleida with her 1-year-old child. Her young parents (40 and 43 years) had already moved to Spain with her 5 brothers, all aged between 7 and 13. Her child lives with them, he's a sort of "sixth brother" and she has in the meanwhile a new Spanish boyfriend. We have already met this young mother while she's talking a little bit in French and in Castilian, even if not so fluently, with a psychologist of the educational psychology team..

“Sometimes I go away to work for a week or a month, so I have to leave Maiva with my father but I don't want him to be going from one house to another always.
I have been in Barcelona to assist a couple where the husband was blind.  Now I can work as a seamstress here in Lleida. I came here to Spain because I was ill and my father didn't want me to go away.  In my country there were things which I didn't understand and which made me feel bad.  Here I feel very safe. I live well here while there I wasn't well. I had to get up very early to go and sell things (I sewed socks, etc..... ) but there were weeks when I didn't sell anything.  My husband has stayed in my country and now I have a new fiancé.  It'll be difficult to -o back to my country because Maiva's father's family wouldn't like it.”
“Do you go to the cinema?”
“Yes, I love action films, while I don't like the too "serious" films. I don't like discos as well; I went there twice but if I want to go dancing I go to Barcelona because there is an African disco there, a boy of my country has opened it. Here, at the "Wonder", they only play techno-music and I prefer, on the other hand, tango and salsa.”
“What kind of hobbies do you have?”
“Every Saturday and Sunday my father goes out with my brothers and lets them play. Two of my brothers play in the team of Atletic Segre.”
“What kind of tradition do you keep here?”
“In the summer I usually wear clothes of my country. There I used to go to my uncle's house etc. but here we don't do that and I prefer so. Maiva came here as he was one year old and went to the nursery school. I would like to have a daughter but my boyfriend disagrees; I had an abortion few times ago. My boyfriend loves Maiva as he was his son and says he's already enough. Maiva loves Dolores (his teacher/tutor) and always talks about her.”

It's a very particular and strange situation and we cannot consider it as a model, as an example for other situations. The migration, the situation in the family and the separation, the new structure of the family, the culture of the new country, the desire of having another child, the linguistic difficulties, the young age of the child who grows up in a house with other "5 older brothers" that, in the reality, are his uncles, are different elements mixed together. But, perhaps, it's also true that in these stories of migrations all those different elements are always mixed together. We can identify them here from the beginning because it's an extreme story. In other stories we have found, on the other hand, reassuring witnesses who try to reassure us while hearing them and, at the same time, the speakers themselves while telling their stories, in particular when the parents talk about their children: "he feels good at school", "he likes it", "he has no problems", "he learnt the language better as we did", etc. It's not important if in the same stories we often find "little" episodes of racism or of detachment, of difficulties in organising and finding new friends, etc. Is there perhaps a sort of intention of hiding the contradictions?

Also the Algerian lady who is forgetting her mother tongue and is no more able to understand her father when she calls him by phone has a difficult situation in the family. She is separated from her husband and lives in Lleida with her two daughters, aged of 9 and 7. She has a new Spanish boyfriend from some years. Also in her situation, as we had already seen for the young mother from Cameroon, the tie with the country of origin is very difficult ("I have suffered so much", tells the lady to the interviewer). She is also very proud of her daughters (they are my daughters and I don't like it when other people want to interfere", tells the lady).

“What traditions do you keep up from your country?”
“The Mussulman religion that I try to explain to my daughters too. I do not go to the mosque because it is not compulsory for women and I do not like wearing the veil. There are women who wear it but it is because their husbands oblige them, many men look unfavourably to women who don't wear it but I don't care. I sometimes cook cus cus and some typical sweets of my country, my daughters like them very much and they usually ask me to prepare them. I have always loved cooking. I would like them to follow my religion but I am not going to oblige them, there is only a God even if there are many prophets.”
“What new traditions have you learnt?”
“Not the religious traditions, just  the "mona" (a kind of cake). I like that my daughters go on practising my religion, I am Mussulman and I don't know almost anything, I did not go to school. Furthermore in my original country relations between parents and sons are very different from here, there is not intimacy, they only tell you what you don't have to do.”
“Do you feel well in Lleida, in this quarter?”
“Yes, I like Lleida very much.”
“Do you join at the celebration of the "Fiesta Mayor"?
“No, I don't like going out very much. It is difficult to go out with all the family because I always work on Saturdays and on Sundays.”
“Do you go to the cinema?”
“I haven't been going to a cinema for many many years.”
“Where do you bring your daughters when you go out?”
“My husband brings them wherever they want, at the "fiesta mayor".”
“How do your daughters feel at school?”
“Very well, The youngest is very alert, the eldest sometimes tries to hide me her homework but I tell her I'll go and speak to her teacher. My eldest daughter, when she was 4, used to go alone to school, I like them to be independent. Somebody told me they were too young, but they are my daughters and it is a problem of mine. I don't want that other people interfere with my life.”
“Do they practice any activity after the school?”
“Sometimes, but they don't practice any activity regularly. I entered them to aerobic gymnastic but they got tired and gave up. In summer they usually go to swimming lesson.”
“What kind of future would you like for your daughters?”
“I would like them to study and have career. I would like to work all my life for them. My eldest daughter says she would like to be a doctor, the other one would like to be a lawyer. I started to work last year, I was unemployed before and I got the familiar subsidy so that I could look after my baby daughter. Last year, in September, I received contemporaneously three offers of a job. Life is strange I had been unemployed for a long time and suddenly... Now I have got a regular job.”
“Express three desires.”
“I would like to go back to my country to visit my father, he is old and I would like to see him before he dies. I would like to travel, I adore it, I would never stop! I would like to celebrate my marriage with my husband according to the Mussulman religion. I am not in order with my religion but my husband does not give many importance to that. He is divorced and his documents are not in order, he says that before we have to pay our flat and when we finish, we can get married. Sometimes I get angry with him and I say I will go away from him but he answers he loves me very much. Anyway this is very important to me.”

A similar situation of a re-organisation of the family and an adaptation to the new country is told by the Peruvian-Mexican mother. She too came to Catalunia after her separation from her Mexican husband. She lives here with four daughters and has a Spanish boyfriend, but they don't live together. In her case the "myth of the comeback" (the tie with her country of origin, even if she always talks about Mexico and not of Peru) is very strong.

“How do you feel now, here in Lleida?”
“I like the opportunities it gives to study and I like the town because it is not very big and you don't need to use public means of transport. It is a nice town but I don't like the people because some of them don't accept foreigners. This school is the one where my daughters are best treated. My three older daughters, as soon as we arrived here, went to another college, the headmaster and the teachers helped us very much, they gave us a scholarship for the school canteen even if we hadn't our documents, but some of their schoolfriends   were very cruel with them, they called them "negroes" and "starvelings....I suffered very much for them because they had never heard words like those before. Sometimes they didn't want to go to school but I wanted them to be brave and to struggle. Even many adult people behaved very badly with us; two neighbours of us don't want to speak with us!”
“Have you ever felt observed or sexually persecuted for being southamerican?”
“Yes, of course! As we have a different colour of the skin, men think we are prostitutes. In our country, when it is very hot, we use to wear short trousers; when I wore them here, a lot of people stared at me so I decided not to wear them any more. Sometimes they asked me if I worked in a night club! What if my mother knew that! Anyway people are changing and are becoming always less racist.”
“Do you feel resentment or anger for all these things you are telling me?”
“Yes, enough. I was born in Peru and I felt Peruvian, I went to Mexico and I felt Mexican, here I can't feel myself Spanish. My brothers have been living in Barcelona for many years but they don't feel themselves Spanish.”
“Why?”
“It's because of the people. Mexican people are different, they are very kind with people who go to their country, they are friendly, they don't distrust people, of course not all of them! Sometimes here, even while you are doing your job, people asks you what you are doing or where you are going. In Mexico people always speak with their neighbours, you can trust people and ask them whatever you need. When I went back to Mexico last month, my family noticed I had changed, I was less loving, less friendly, I mistrusted Mexicans, I was not the same person.”
“Do you have a partner at present?”
“Yes, I have a partner but he doesn't want to get married with me and he doesn't want to live together. He is 48, we usually see each others four times a week and he speaks Spanish to me. I have got a brother who speaks perfectly Catalan, Castilian, Potuguese, English and French.”
“Would you like to speak Catalan?”
“I can understand it and I can read it perfectly but I can't speak it. I would like to learn how to use a computer and learn a lot of things. My daughters don't speak spontaneously Catalan.”
“What about your relations with other people?”
“I haven't got many friends and all of them are Southamerican. We are like the Arabs, they have relations only with people of their same culture and country. This is not very good because it does not foster progress.”
“Is there something that makes you feel inferior to other people?”
“Regarding my relations I don't feel myself inferior but I feel myself inferior in the field of work. I realized that my best friends are all Southamerican a few months ago but I know that is not good to keep in touch only with them because it prevents you from progressing. Anyway I think that Catalans feel themselves superior to others.”
“What do you usually do when you go out with your daughters?”
“We do not go out very often but sometimes I go to the cinema with my two younger daughters. On Sundays all of us go to my boyfriend's house in the country.”
“And what do you do in occasion of the "Fiesta Mayor" in Lleida?”
“I go to dance with my older daughters and I make enjoy my younger daughters. I have to divide myself; anyway we do not go out very often. When we lived in Mexico, because of my husband's job, we travelled very much.”
“What kind of religion do you practice?”
“I have been Mormon for 13, 14 years. I was Catholic before but I was not a practising Catholic.”
“How do you practise your religion?”
“We use to go to a church here in Lleida: we try to put in practise what we hear at church. Two best friends of mine are members of this church.”
“Tell me three desires you would like to realize.”
“A good job, well payed. Health. Go back to Mexico and buy a nice house; this is a dream I often share with my daughters.”

Always in Lleida we meet another mixed family. This time the mother, a very young lady, is Catalan, she was born in Reus, and the father comes from Morocco, from Fez. This time it seems that he is the one who has no ties with his country of origin. They only have a child, 3 years old, and one of the parents calls him Diego, the other one Omar. The mother tells this story to the psychologist of the educational psychology team.

“I hold him in my arms all day because he doesn't want to walk.  He takes advantage-e of me.”
“What customs from his country does your husband keep now?  Praying, etc.?”
“None. He says they're all foolish.  He doesn't believe you shouldn't eat pork or fast after six in the evening.  He doesn't practise any religion and this is why I have no problems. He phones his family more or less once a month.”
“And you have no contact with his family?”
“One of his sisters came once and she's a very pleasant person. He has two other unmarried sisters.  The married ones have children.”
“Does Omar have any other activities apart from school ?”
“No, he's very little and comes home tired from school.”
“Do you do anything together during the weekends?”
“I clean the house and they go out.  We haven't been going out with our friends recently.”
“Are you satisfied with the school ?”
“Yes, very satisfied.(...) He likes to play with his friends and stay active.  When he comes  home  I ask him what he-'s been doing and he tells me I did this, I did that.”
“Does Omar have many friends in and out of school?”
“Yes, he also has friends out of school.”
“What future do you hope for Omar?”
“His father wants him to go to university and have good marks.  His father studied, went to lessons, has many diplomas and is a plumber, etc.”

If we resume -tells the interviewer-: Omar has adapted well to college.  He has good relations with his schoolmates (the majority speak Catalan) and has a good relationship with his teacher/tutor, so said his mother at the end of the interview.  The mother talks of a good relation as a couple and admires Omar's father who she considers more cultured and intelligent and capable of education Omar.
The couple has relations with Moroccan families and seems to be integrated in the neighbourhood where they live (the old part of town where the inhabitants are mainly immigrants from other countries).  She expresses very positive feeling towards the school, the neighbourhood and the town.

The marriages. In our stories we have met lots of different situations. There are marriages made after the arrival and the protagonists are people who have both travelled from far countries, very different one from the other. We can also have marriages between people coming from the same country who knew each other in the country of arrival. One of these couples is made of two Albanians who knew one another as they were during the voyage in that ship we have repetitively seen in our TV news.  The passengers were compressed one on the other and stuck everywhere, symbols of a humanity far from us, spectators who watched those scenes on the TV comfortably seated on our sofa. The difference, when we watch TV, is that we mostly forget that they are people as we are. There are couples of people from the same country who knew one another in the country of arrival, as for example two Italians who met in Waiblingen. In an interview there was even the case of a lady who told us that her Italian parents knew one another and got married in Germany. It's almost normal that people keep on developing social relationships mostly inside their national communities who re-organise themselves in the new country. We have found the same situation in the Greek communities and in the ones from Turkey. Some couples were already together in the country of origin and moved together. We have seen some Turkish families, some Tunisians, a Chinese family. Different reasons and situations. Other couples who were together in the country of origin couldn't resist to the change and separated. Someone has found a new partner in the country of arrival. For these ones the way of living the contact with the new culture is very different from the one of other migrants. Many intercultural conflicts, the contrasts in the "passage",  can be experienced not only outside the house when they have to bring their children to school, but also in die the family, for example when they have to decide the language or languages to teach to their children, the habits and many other aspects.  Some situations - we have seen lots of different stories in Lleida but we can find them everywhere - concern women for whom the separation or the familiar difficulty is the mainly reason for emigrating and searching a new country where they could rebuild a more satisfactory sentimental life. Another aspect which is common for all the women we have interviewed -both those who have a familiar life or a fixed partner and those who experienced very difficult situations - is the loneliness of the long days they spend at home with their children, alone, without a net of social relationships which could protect them.