Reflection

By living in Sorrento and making visits to Naples, I’ve been able to see the stark contrasts between these two places and other cities in the area. While Sorrento is a beautiful place, it’s also a very popular tourist destination which leads to a lot of inauthentic aspects as people cater to the tastes of visitors from abroad. This can be seen in the takeaway restaurants that advertise burgers and fries, streets filled with shops selling aggressively lemon-themed items, and even iced coffee being readily available in a nearby coffee shop. Sorrento is also much smaller than Naples, so tourism has a larger impact on the town and its economy. Alternatively, I noticed during my visits to Naples that it still caters to tourists in some areas, but it’s easy to locate the more local, authentic areas. I feel that this realness that Naples offers also affects it’s image to foreigners. I’ve often heard Sorrento described as beautiful with great people and food, but Naples sometimes gets a bad reputation as dirty and unsafe. By spending time there and talking with Neapolitan locals, I instead view the city as authentic Italian with rich culture and history along every street (and even underground). This of course comes with other problems such as economic disparity that you don’t see in Sorrento because most of the people who work in Sorrento can’t afford to live there. After my initial observations, I knew more about what to expect when in each city, and I adjust my mindset accordingly. 

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This study abroad experience has affected my identity as a woman and monolingual English speaking American in ways that I didn’t imagine when applying for this program. One of the major culture shocks I experienced here was the treatment of women in Italy. While catcalling and sexual assault is very common in the US, there’s also a strong feminist movement and these actions are becoming more widely condemned. However, here it is normalized, and even encouraged, to objectify women loudly and often. It’s sad that these instances have even become normal for me after such a short time here, and I now automatically tune it out and keep walking. It was even more upsetting to learn about the history of treatment of women in Italy, including horrifying concepts like “Honor Killing” which was allowed until the late 1900s. In this way, my identity as a woman and a feminist has been reaffirmed and I’ll be returning to America with gratitude for this aspect of our culture and with a new clarity about women’s rights around the world. Furthermore, the way I see myself as an English speaking American has changed extensively during my time here. Because my internship has brought me to very local, authentic places, I’ve briefly experienced belonging to a minority with respect to my nationality. In a small campground in the town of Palinuro, my blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin outed me as a foreigner before I even opened my mouth. The other people staying in this campsite would blatantly stare and even sometimes talk to their friends about “la americana” right in front of me. It was very odd to have this spotlight constantly pointed at me, and it made me feel very vulnerable but also very motivated to speak the little Italian that I knew and try to blend in with the culture. I noticed this confusing many people when I would say “buongiorno” or “come stai” in passing, and they would respond politely but continue to clearly stare and assess me. This is obviously very different from my experiences in America, where I’m in the vast majority and almost never receive this kind of scrutiny. This has made me more aware of what non-English speakers face when traveling to America, except English is still widely spoken here and the only common language found in America besides English is Spanish. Now, I can confidently say that I view my identity as an English-speaking American woman in a more global context, better understanding the privileges and challenges that come with it and just a fraction of the feelings that minorities in the US experience.