Experimental/Experiential Voices: Unheard Stories from the Afro-Italian Diaspora By Karina Mascorro B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 2006 M.A., Brown University, 2012 Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Italian Studies at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2015 © Copyright 2015 by Karina Mascorro This dissertation by Karina Mascorro is accepted in its present form by the Department of Italian Studies as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date ___________ ______________________________________ Massimo Riva, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date ____________ ______________________________________ Lina Fruzzetti, Reader Date ____________ ______________________________________ Alessandra di Maio, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date ____________ ______________________________________ Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii Curriculum Vitae Karina Mascorro was born in Sahuayo Michoacán, Mexico and was raised in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006 with a B.A. in both Psychology and Italian Studies. During the 2004-2005 academic year she studied abroad at the Università di Bologna, (Italy) where she completed work in Psychology, Anthropology, and Contemporary Italian Literature. She has taught beginning, intermediate, and advanced Italian language courses at Brown University, Colgate Universty, and is currently teaching at Rhode Island College. Her academic interests include Postcolonial Italian Literature, Ethnography, Migratory Culture and Citizenship, Transnationalism, Hybridity, and Photography. iv Preface My 2004-2005 academic year abroad in Italy, a country I adore, had a profound impact on my future professional endeavors. It all started a week after my arrival to Bologna when I enrolled at Fitness First, a gym on via San Felice. It at Fitness First that I first met Agazit, a charismatic Ethiopian-Italian Marketing student and her childhood friend, Ilaria, an Italian Economics student obsessed with Brazilian culture. That same night, after our workout, and upon Ilaria’s request, the three of us headed down to Florence to dance samba. After bonding over a night of dancing, we became inseparable friends. Hanging out with Agazit and Ilaria on a regular basis immersed me immediately into the great splendor of the Bolognese lifestyle, but it also exposed me to the harsh racism and discrimination women of color face in Italy. It was thanks to Agazit that I first learned about Italian colonialism, and specifically of the Ethiopian resistance. At the time, I could not believe that I had studied Italian language and culture for three years, and until that moment, I had not learned anything about the Italian colonial era. Agazit's wonderful stories from the people of her country, “persone dal suo paese,” as she would utter in Italian, captivated me to the extent that I took it upon myself to dig into this buried chapter of Italian history. My dissertation Experimental/ Experiential Writing: Unheard Stories from Afro-Italian Diaspora is my effort to understanding this disavowed chapter of Italian history. I dedicate this dissertation to the loving memory of my grandfather Francisco Valencia, a generous man who always treated everyone with kindness and respect. v Acknowledgements This project came to fruition thanks to the unconditional love and support of all the inspirational people in my life. I would like to start with acknowledging my role model Professor Tricia Rose for empowering and motivating me to stay in academia when the journey turned bleak. Professor Kay Warren for taking me under her wing and challenging me to think critically across different disciplines. Professor Massimo Riva for his unrelenting support and patience. Professor Lina Fruzzetti for her provocative critiques delivered with kindness. Professor Alessandra di Maio for providing me with wonderful insights regarding the postcolonial Italian condition. Rachel Gostenhofer for enthusiastically reading and helping me edit multiple drafts. Cristina Abbona-Sneider for turning me into a vibrant teacher and my students for everyday rekindling my passion for learning. Professor Caroline Castiglione for thoughtfully offering advice and for being the best DGS (Director of Graduate Study) ever. Alexis Devine for keeping me physically fit and mentally sane throughout my graduate career, God knows that without her kickboxing and spin classes I would have ended up depressed and overweight. Mona Delgado, Nicki Toler, Laurie Lindemann and her beautiful daughter Lucia, for providing me with family warmth in Providence while being away from my beloved California. My great friends: Maria Stournara, Amena Ogio, Yesenia Calderon, and Liza Wolff for their wise, sisterly love and support. Rita Danielle Steele and Shamila Ahmed for motivating me to take a break from my studies, “glam-up,” and enjoy a ladies night out downtown. Danny Alasha for sharing his love for cooking with me, and making tasty dishes for us to vi enjoy, while I was at times busy preparing lesson plans. My wonderful colleagues Elena Daniele, Stephen Bocskay, Sara Hayat, and Zoe Langer for cheering me on through every milestone, last but not least my amazing family. A big hug goes out to my parents, Sigifredo and Rosa, for raising me to be an honest and compassionate human being. They have relentlessly supported all of my dreams, big or small, without hesitation. My brothers Alex, Carlos, Jesús, and Abraham, whose tough love has shaped me into the resilient, fiery, and independent woman I am today. My wonderful sister-in-law, Alma, who keeps me balanced amongst all the men in our family. I specifically would like to give a big THANK YOU to my brother, best friend, and confidant Jesús, for consistently listening and providing me with brutally honest feedback regarding my character, boyfriends, academic papers, teaching, but also for generously depositing money into my bank account when the graduate stipend proved to be insufficient to cover my lavish monthly expenses. Thank you! Gracias! Grazie mille! vii Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1………………………………………………………………………………..24 Erminia Dell’Oro and Luciana Capretti’s experiential expression of the (post) colonial experience Chapter 2………………………………………………………………………………..89 Your story is my story: Gabriella Ghermandi’s Search for Atonement in Regina di fiore e di perle Chapter 3…………………………………………………………………....................122 Unheard Fusions: Multimodality, Plurilingualism, Code-Switching, and Polyvocal Transmissions in Cristina Ali Farah’s Madre piccola and Igiaba Scego’s Oltre Babilonia Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..166 Appendix……………………………………………………………………………….168 Textual Analysis Grid for Novels by “Postcolonial Italian Women Authors” Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...172 viii INTRODUCTION This dissertation examines the interplay between experimental and experiential writing in the postcolonial Italian novels of five different women authors, Erminia Dell’Oro’s L’abbandono: Una storia eritrea (1991), Luciana Capretti’s Ghibli (2004), Gabriella Ghermandi’s Regina di fiori e di perle (2007), Ubax Cristina Ali Farah’s Madre piccola (2007), and Igiaba Scego’s Oltre Babilonia (2008). Their novels are all situated within the genre of postcolonial Italian literature, a fairly recent body of works that initially began to flourish in Italy alongside the first significant migratory waves to the country in the 1990s. While people originating from former Italian colonies (e.g., Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Libya) were already residing in Italian cities since the early 1960s, most fleeing dictatorships or civil wars, it was with the greater migratory fluxes of the 1990s that a specific literature by first generation and second generation immigrants developed. Initially referred to as “italophone literature” and later as “migrant literature,” it can be considered part of postcolonial literature. However, not all migrant authors residing in Italy are necessarily postcolonial. The multiple points of view and different histories of postcolonial authors are often subsumed under the category of “migrant literature” effacing the differences between them, as well as their diverse gender and racial perspectives. Indeed, one of this dissertation’s central points-of-departure is that the cultural production of postcolonial Italian authors significantly differs from the postcolonial literary tradition developed within other former European colonies. As Cristina Lombardi-Diop reminds us: Contrary to other postcolonial literary traditions, italophone literature did not develop during colonial times. The lack of state-run schooling system at secondary level in Italy’s former colonies of the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia) and Libya has prevented the formation of a 1 postcolonial literary tradition. Unlike their French counterparts, Italian colonial policies were anti- assimilationist and discouraged Italianisation.1 Italy engaged in colonial pursuits in Eritrea (1890), Somalia (1908), Libya (1912), Dodecanese Islands (1923), Ethiopia (1936), and Albania (1939). For a variety of ideological reasons, the history of Italian colonialism was nearly omitted from Italy’s national history and school curricula and colonialism as such was almost never considered from a critical point of view in relation to Italian