WORDS & PICTURES: Johanna Picano
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Imagine a hot summer evening. I’ll let you pick the city (I’m choosing Lisbon this time) but picture yourself on a rooftop terrace with a sparkling and refreshing drink in your hand. You’re sitting at a table with a bunch of strangers that are about to become new friends. Maybe you’re on that solo trip you’ve been longing for, or maybe you’re new in town and this is an opportunity to connect with the locals. You’re looking at these people that somehow ended up here at your table tonight, wondering where they come from and where they are headed. You’re curious to here their stories and maybe also eager to tell them yours, eager to share and to connect. All of a sudden it’s your turn to introduce yourself and answer the question; where are you from? And this is where it gets interesting. Because where do you actually come from, if you have mixed nationality? Do you come from where you were born? Or from where your parents were born? Or maybe from the country you live in?
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I love answering that question beacuse I feel that it teaches me a little something about myself every time. I’m Swedish – Italian, so of mixed nationality. My mother is Swedish, my father is Italian (very common combo by the way) and growing up, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I was more Swedish or more Italian. To be honest, maybe I wouldn’t have given that so much attention if it wouldn’t have been for the fact that people kept asking me all the time what culture I felt more attached to. To me, the mix of traditions, languages, places and families was natural, so the simple answer to the question was of course: I’m half Swedish and half Italian.
People were not always happy with that answer, though. And neither was I, from time to time, especially during my teenage years when I was trying to figure out who I was and where I belonged. There would be people questioning how I could even feel Italian at all, since I was born in Sweden. But then, since both my physical and personality traits are classically Mediterranean, a lot of people would claim that there was nothing Swedish in me. I really tried to analyze myself, trying to measure how I felt in different situations in order to calculate the exact percentage division of my personality. During the European Football Championship, if I felt a little bit happier when Italy won over Sweden I would say to myself that I was 80% Italian and 20% Swedish. But then I would decide the other way around if I came back to school in Sweden after summer vacation in Italy and felt connected to my Swedish friends. I truly felt that both cultures and countries were mine in the same way, but I also felt that I had to split myself into two equal, or sometimes less equal, parts.
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I grew up. I moved abroad. I started to work in tourism, travelled a lot and met people from all over the world. I met people like me, that lived between two (or more) countries and I felt so inspired. I realised that I didn’t have to choose between my countries, that I was the mix and that the mixed nationality itself was my identity. Feeling at home in more than one place had always been natural to me, and I was grateful and happy to feel that way for even more places. Whether it’s where we grow up or where we choose to live, all the places we make ours shape us, and that wonderful unique blend builds our identities. We’re not defined by where we are from, but we are shaped by our origins and by all the other destinations we reach along the way.
I’m sitting on that rooftop terrace overlooking Lisbon with the sparkling drink in my hand. It’s my turn to answer the question, and I say that I’m 100% Swedish and 100% Italian. I think and dream in both languages. I feel as much at home in frozen Swedish landscapes as on Italian sun-drenched beaches. And when Sweden and Italy meet in football championships, I choose not to watch. It’s better for my nerves and no matter the outcome, my team will win.
