Meditation of Self
By: Lucia Bruzzi
You often hear that as humans we are intersectional beings, we are the creators and the result of our environments. We are the makers and the embodiment of our history, present and future. Within every history, story and myth there is truth. We are the observer of our worlds, and it’s only by sharing how we come to be that we can ground ourselves in our realities. Social biographies are important because they allow the reclaiming of identity to those whose voice was lost in the fabrication of history. But, social biographies also help us understand our privilege and positionality in this intrinsic world, they allow us a moment of meditation and understanding, no matter your background. So here is my meditation, here is my story.
I always find it extremely hard to tell my story because of the privilege that surrounds me. Privilege is one of those forces that is most of the time hard to recognize, but once you see it and perceive it, you can’t seem to not notice it. This is because, privilege is something that is unearned, it’s a social structure of power that can’t be given nor accumulated but instead it’s maintained through the dominant caste. It is so invisibly salient that in order to understand your own privilege you have to know your history and put in work to fully understand it. Therefore, my story is going to be a story that reflects on my power and privilege within my perception of my own reality.
I am Italian, therefore European. This means different things within different environments. In Italy I am a part of the dominant caste, I am also part of the community. In Italy there is a sense of belonging, of home, of traditions and values that were passed down to me through the interactions with my grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and extended family. In Modena, the city where I am from, everybody knows each other, everyone looks like me and everything has a story that connects and relates to my existence. “Lucia, Guarda! This is where your grandad served in the war,””this is where your mom and I got married” “You see, this is where your great grandma laid the very first brick of the house, a house that now has seen the upringings of generations.” In the U.S, being Italian symbolizes something completely different. Here, in America being Italian is a symbol of migration, alienation and disconnection. The location no longer is associated with my past but only to my future, the life that my parents envisioned for my sisters and I. In the U.S it’s hard to blend in, my voice becomes a carrier of my culture, even though I recognize that my accent is not nearly as strong as my parents. Here people don’t understand the culture that my family passed on. Dinner everyday at home, as a family, is something that my friends see as unnecessary, but to us it’s a ritual. Nevertheless, with the eight years of living here, I realized that I don’t want to blend in. And this is where my privilege comes in. Yes, I am an immigrant and do suffer from the anxiety that follows with every immigration status, always having to hope that soon this feeling of being perfect in order to be worthy of a passport and a home will go away. But, I am an European immigrant, part of the dominant caste even in this foreign place that has now become my own. In the U.S my foreignness is praised, almost envied; seen as something that somehow makes me exotic, different and valued. My accent has almost become an accessory, something that I can, involuntarily, use to enrich me. My skin fits with the dominant caste that the U.S bases its system on. In America, I am not just European or foreign, I am also white. And being white gives me power over others whose skin tone is darker. Being white, is partially the reason why I never had to experience undocumentation or the fear of discrimination for the way I looked. I never had and will ever know the trauma of having your land conquered and your history erased, because my history is a history of oppressors, conquerors and dominance. So, even though this doesn’t take away from the struggles that I face of being an immigrant it is also important to recognize the privilege and power that I hold. And if I have to be honest, it is during this quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that I have come to understand more my positionality within the boundaries of caste. It is the Black lives matter movement that truly opened my eyes to systematic racism and oppression and that encouraged me to understand that sometimes giving the resources to empower others just means to sit back and reflect on your identity.
Another thing that makes me who I am, is my identity centrality of the fact that I am a woman. Being a woman, in almost every country in the world still means to be less of. It means living with the trauma of feeling inferior and only useful when granted the opportunity to be by the male dominant. As a woman I carry the innate feeling of unease, I also carry the history of torment and violence that other women before, and currently, experience. I am the subject and victim of rape culture. Nevertheless, even though these are inexplicable feelings that are part of my everyday life, I am once again privileged. I come from a family that is dominated by women. Therefore, the example of women in my personal history is one of strength, courage, leadership and hunger for equality. In my immediate family, I also am the product of a loving, caring and long lasting heterosexual marriage, where home has always been a strength never a weakness. And again there is power in my identity as a woman because I identify as a cisgender heterosexual female. I once again agree and fit within societal norms. I can resonate with the depiction of women in history, my history and existance wasn’t erased like the one of the queer community. I also am a femminist but a white femminist, which means that my sense of activism is one of liberation not of silencing or marginalization. So, once again I have some power.
Here comes the trifecta of the term W.E.I.R.D. which is often used in psychology to denote the dominant sample of the population: western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. The area in which my privilege is most palpable is social and political. Even though I come from a family of farmers and artisans, my parents have been able in their lifetime to position us in the high socioeconomic status. Such a shift was not without sleepless nights and hard work, but nevertheless took advantage of the capitalist and unjust society in which we navigate. As my arrival to the U.S. I was able to attend one of the best private schools in miami, and it is also for my social economic status that I have was given the opportunity to go to college outside of the state, decide my own future career and focus on my studies without worry and, be able to have the luxury to apply to med school without fear of a life of debt. This, unfortunately, is something that the majority of society can’t afford, and it’s important to acknowledge. Even though it is not my individual fault that I have the luxuries I own and am forever grateful for them, it is important to understand the visible and tangible power that money and status quo can buy in a highly capitalistic society. Where the right to live has a price. Finally, the last letter of that acronym also belongs to me. My family has a long history of democratic sentiment in terms of politics. My dad at a very young age in Italy was part of and romanticized a life in politics. He followed the teaching of Craxi and always passed on the importance of public duty and the ability that we have as individuals to change the system.
Finally, the last thing ,and lately the one thing that has been resonating with me the most in terms of identity, is spirituality. Because of wealthy social status, I have had the privilege to travel the world. My family and I moved from Italy to Miami by sail boat, lived on our boat for a year and are now slowly traveling around the world. I believe that such an opportunity and exposure to different cultures and communities has allowed me to reshape my understanding of religion and spirituality, along with my positionality. In Italy, religion, more specifically christianity and catholicism, is part of our culture and history. Nevertheless, my family has never been one to centralize religion as a main value, even if my grandmas would identify as catholic. My parents grew up doing religious rituals but at a pretty young age, they both realized they were agnostic. They never wanted their view of their world to be imposed on my sisters and I which is why, even though they didn’t baptize us (which is something completely unusual in Italy), they allowed us to explore each continent, country, state, community and village to try to understand and appreciate other people’s beliefs. It wasn’t until a few years ago that my dad became buddhist and as his spiritual journey began, and so did mine. Even though I don’t identify as a buddhist I do appreciate its teachings. Partly because Buddhism introduces a sense of spirituality that is raw and unbound, almost of magical and complete abstract form. And it is this sense of magic that has always surrounded my family. From having aunts that read cards, to my grandmas’ stories of being able to sense and see spirits. Therefore, once again I don’t think that my attraction to spirituality, energy and nature is solitary, but instead comes from a familiarization and wanting to discover. Once again though, my spiritual longing is one that also holds privilege. This is because whether I decided to identify as catholitic or agnostic or even more importantly have the option to decide, these forms of beliefs are again part of the dominant caste and therefore accepted. No matter how many shabbat dinners I go to at my friends’ house, I will never know the feeling and trauma of persecution in the name of religion. If anything, I know the feeling of having to actively seek other people’s religious experiences because most often they are not represented. It is a combined sense of spirituality and travel that has also brought me to the understanding of the need and passion for activism. It is by traveling and coming into contact with realities different from mine that has led me to pick up an urgency to use some of my privileges for the promotion of justice but especially health justice and health rights.
Too many cultures today have to suffer the injustice of persecution, isolation and lack of health resources just because they don’t fit the dominant idea of caste. Which is why, a part of my identity in the last few years has become to try and provide basic needs to communities based on their necessity, resources and wants through the promotion of teleadvice as a way to offer communities the resources they need to empower themselves.
It is only by working collaboratively and understanding our interconnectedness that we can create change. Even though this is just part of my story and identity, and there are parts that I still have to discover, it is important to acknowledge that all the things discussed above can’t exist on their own. Privilege and power can’t be separated from hardships, and my experiences can’t be thought of if not in relation to one another. This is the power of social biography and understanding of one’s own positionality. As an individual, it gives you the power to rewrite your history and sense of self in a way that fits your reality and in a way that deepens your understanding of the realities that, even if different, surround and influence you. Therefore, I take this opportunity to put into words and conceptualize my sense of existence as a moment of meditation, rediscovery and discovery of history, truth and interconnectedness.