“On not being able to” speak Italian: Linguistic domination and intergenerational trauma

Abstract

Drawing on autobiographical, biographical and historical materials, this article examines the experience of linguistic domination in the context of Italian Americans’ experience with both the Italian and English languages during the second wave migration to the United States (1880–1924). These accounts are illuminated by the psychoanalytic insights of Marion Milner with a specific focus on her concept of the “framed gap.” To illustrate Milner’s concept of the framed gap, I turn to the linguistic creativity of African-Italian rap artist Anna Maria Gehnyei, known by her stage name Karima 2G. Karima 2G, born in Rome to Liberian parents, is part of a generation of black Italians and Italians of color who are denied citizenship due to restrictive citizenship laws in Italy. While fluent in Italian, Karina 2G intentionally sings in Pidgin English (her parents’ native language) about Italian racism, her Liberian history, and the complex relationships between the United States, Africa and Italy. Her music offers a clear case of creating a diasporic vernacular aesthetics that generates a form of linguistic creativity which performs in opposition to linguistic domination and racial violence.