Sticks and Stones?

by K. Greer
In Italy, the hands activate the words. Certainly, words possess meaning on their own, but with the appropriate gesture, “delicious” becomes perfetto.

So, it’s no surprise that when speaking with a non-native – even through a translator – the Italian people might swipe or bounce their hands in one of those familiar ways to clarify hard-to-translate ideas.

Since I’ve been in Italy, I’ve witnessed the capacity of hand motions at work. I've had people point to me and gesture about my weight more than once – lifting their arms and bouncing them in a way that Americans might use to reference Saint Nick or pointing at their own girth and comparing it to mine. 

Now, I know that I am no small woman, but I wouldn’t consider myself Santa-esque; and, while I knew that Italy was a country of thin people, I didn’t realize that being part of the overweight sub-culture here would subject me to the ridicule I’ve experienced on three separate occasions, in three separate Italian cities, thus far.

Some of my new Italian acquaintances gesturing during a
conversation that is decidedly NOT about me.

My program director prefers the less stigmatic term “co-culture,” and while I agree that religion, education, and race are just some of the co-cultures in America and beyond, "co" implies that something is different and equally valuable. The critical way that some of the locals have referenced weight suggests that there is little sense of value in the "other."

I’m already an American in small-town Italy. Now, I consider how I am to successfully mitigate the consequences of being so many "others” at the same time? That's what I'll spend part of the next 10 days discovering.

I am being tested and stretched and grown by this experience – and I’m having a ball – but, every now and again, it’s really difficult to not feel “sub.”