I am Italian and proud of it.

even if economically talking rating agencies are downgrading us, being italian means still the same thing in the world: everybody love us! Italy, the “Bel Paese”, the country of sunny and smiling people, where you eat delicious food and drink amazing wine. The perfect place where to spend your spare time. DUring three years of studies in the Europea contest, I san that the most frequent asnwer at the sentence “I am from Italy” is a big smile, followed most of th time by the sentence “OH, PIZZA! SPAGHETTI! I LOVE YOUR COUNTRY!” . The very next minute, another sentence takes place: “aaaah, MAFIA! MAMMA MIA!” with a nonsense hand-movement, more similar to a muscle cramp, centrainly meaningless for every Italian gesture. No doubt this is a stereotype.

But to be honest, in Italy we use them a lot, including everyone from every country. But going back to the image we have in the world, a tipical italian is normally associated to Super Mario with mustache, constantly shaking hands meanwhile talking, always looking for Pasta Barilla. Impossible not to mention food: every italian is proud of his culinary background. Every Italian talks about food and about how good is the home/made food that only mothers and granmothers can prepare. Every conversation between italians begins and ends talking about food or with bad food experiences. For an italian is shocking been served with a toast with cut edges full of cheddar cheese and cutted cucumber, filled with a pink unknown sauce. However, Italy is not only pizza, spaghetti or food in general. Is very well known that our country is the mother of arts, stylists, designer and directors. People with an italian surname are working in top level organizations. nearly seventy million italians are spread all over the world, proud to be italian or to have an italian cultural  background, But on the other hand, there is a sad association between “italian” and “Mafia”. Due to the great success that moves as “the Godfather” ofr tv series as “The Soprano”, the stereotype of the italian Mafia is very uneasily to be cancelled: infact, every italian is sees as potentially related to the Mafia world. And it hurts. It hurts because Italy is the country that most severely fights against Mafia organizations. Likely for us, we are all recognised as “the smiling people”. Smile is something that is difficult to lose for us, even during dark times. Something that many would like, but that belongs to Italians only. Not even during a life time you will find someone that will not at least smile hearing the world “Italia”. That’s our best visit card. Something that make us adorable and nice to everybody. We are unique. So, don’t sorry me, I am Italian and proud of it.