DEAR ENGLAND
ALM No.72, January 2025
ESSAYS
Do you know I studied your language for thirteen years? Obligatory English classes that you would think taught me something. Well, wrong. I stepped onto London’s soil, and not a word came to me.
Maybe you could relate to this feeling, after all, you step onto Spanish land every summer for a holiday with the lads. But you don’t. Because your entitlement allows you to speak English in a land that does not know your language. You drown yourself in their alcohol, piss in their fountains and mock their lingo. While in ‘your land’ I down pint after pint to build up the confidence to out words I heard you speak.
You point your knife at my foreign words, you force me to jump into a sea of unknown and build a raft out of the sticks I had. You cornered me, laughed at the Hs I inhaled when there were none, pointed your finger at the Rs I rolled and ridiculed my hand gestures. You shamed my origins out of my words. No matter how hard I would hide my heritage, you would find me and parade how I could never be part of ‘your country’.
What country? Who really belongs on this land? You made it your home, so why can’t I?
Layers of freshly dug-up soil buried my accent. ‘Your soil’, on which you stomped and stomped with your now made-in-Asia boots. I bet you felt just like your ancestors stomping on human faces. Drunk on power and privilege. You frightened me to seek acceptance by your kind to then cover me in a bomber jacket and tell me I could call this land home too. You poisoned me with a brew made out of leaves you stole. You held me down and fed me food from my homeland which recipes you had butchered.
I hid from those whose origins I had in common like they were infectious. You made sure I learnt how your country pronounces my name so that it could only betray me when spelt. Even fewer of you could know where I was really from, now. However, no matter how hard I tried to camouflage, nothing would split the crowd around me like the red sea as the squeak that comes out of your mouth every time one of you discovers I wasn’t born on your land.
‘Italian?? - but you don’t sound Italian!’.
How dare I mask my identity to you by learning how to properly speak your language? How unfair to you that you cannot tell where I am from by the way I talk, you must know. You must know if I am one of yours or one of them. I hid behind Queen’s English and East London slang. You trusted me. But now that you know it was all a play, I am your enemy. I see it in the way your teeth grin at my olive skin.
I travel to no man’s land and cannot answer the question ‘Where are you from?’ Where am I really from? Have you moulded me enough into your culture that I can honestly say that’s where I belong? Or is this my chance to break free from your ties and embrace my roots?
You must be happy now that I don’t belong in my homeland either. I walk into galleries and my eyes turn to the English descriptions rather than the ones in Italian. The grammar of this language, once mine, has now left me. I feel illiterate in a country whose words were once all I had to express myself with, you could never understand.
My body lives through the intensity of a loving touch and I have to scrape for words that ask for more because my thoughts still speak your language. I am now also you. I cannot fight you anymore. I just have to find comfort in knowing that you would rage at the sight of my now-tanned skin.
Giorgia Ziliani is an Italian-born writer known for her evocative nonfiction and deeply personal essays. Her work explores the intricacies of relationships, the evolving experience of being a young woman in today’s world, and the raw, often unspoken truths of self-reflection. Beyond her published works, she connects with her audience through Splat, a weekly newsletter about candid reflections and essays on life, love, and self-discovery. Currently based in Berlin, she draws inspiration from the city’s eclectic energy and her own experiences as an expatriate, infusing her writing with themes of identity, and belonging.
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