Jetsetting Raffaele Piccolo has been overseas recently, which has made him think about the true meaning of 'Australian'.
TRAVELLING BRINGS WITH IT many great opportunities. The chance to meet new people, see amazing places, experience new cultures.
Also, it brings with it the chance to consider what identifies us as Australians.
I found it was usually the accent that gave my origins away.
However, not infrequently, I do get some questions about the origins of my name. Most guess a Mediterranean origin — in particular Spanish (for the record, my family is Italian). I have even been asked if the name ‘Raffaele’ is a common Australian name.
At the time, I could not help but chuckle at such a suggestion. However, in hindsight, I feel somewhat compelled to ask myself: why can’t the name ‘Raffaele’ be considered Australian?
In contrast, when I am home (in Australia) and I introduce myself, other (Australians) automatically assume that my family origins are other than Australian because of my name. I know that people do not mean any disrespect by such assumptions — nor do I take any.
Yet, I do wonder if the same inquiry is every made of somebody with the name say of ‘William” or ‘Robert’. My assumption is no — however I could be pleasantly corrected.
I assume that people with the surname ‘Smith’ are neither asked the origins of their name in the main. Yet this is despite the fact that it is expected that the ‘Nguyen’, a surname of Vietnamese origin, will become the most common surname in metropolitan cities in Australia within ten years. Perhaps people will start to ask ‘Mr Smith’ the origin of his surname in the future?
My point is that I am well aware that modern (European) Australia has its origins in Anglo-Saxon traditions. However, surely we now understand that since that time the makeup of us, as a people has changed. That people of non Anglo-Saxon culture and origins have had an impact upon what makes Australia ‘Australia’ and what it means to be Australian.
I would like to use my family as a case in point.
Every summer, we gather as a family in a corrugated steel shed to make sauce. There are crates of tomatoes as far as the eye can see. It takes all morning and much patience, but we eventually complete the task. This is followed by a lunch of pasta with freshly made sauce.
This tradition is probably not uncommon amongst many Australian families which have Italian origins. The Australian novel and film Looking for Alibrandi somewhat accurately portrays what the greater Australian public have come to know as ‘sauce day’.
Whilst the origins of ‘sauce day’ are undoubtedly Italian and the families that partake in this practice are also undoubtedly Italian, to label the tradition as ‘Italian’ is somewhat inaccurate. If one was to go to Italy today and attempt to seek out such a practice, most Italians would consider it a tradition from a bygone era — a time when sauce was made at home by the family out of a matter of necessity.
Thus, whilst the practice has its origins in Italy, I for one think it is a practice that has very much embedded itself in the Australian landscape.
The story is probably the same for many others foods that have their origins outside Australia. Over time, these foods have become intertwined with the Australia we know and love today.
'Chinese' food readily comes to mind in this regard. Whilst ‘special fried rice’ probably has Chinese origins, I would be very surprised if such a dish would be readily recognised in China today.
I figure we have come to the point where the dishes such as ‘spag bog’ (a common nickname for spaghetti bolognese) and ‘special fried rice’ have become food so common and less ‘exotic’ in Australia, they are no longer seen as purely the domain of the ‘other’.
I think the same can also be said about names such as ‘Giuseppe’ and ‘Nguyen’ — names which now dot the Australian landscape. Whilst these foods and names originated beyond the shores of the Australian continent, I believe they have become so truly imbedded they are part of what makes Australia.
You can follow Raffaele on Twitter @RaffPiccolo.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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