Before my departure, in August, 2001, I expected my nationality to affect my experience as an exchange student in Italy. I couldn't have expected how the nationality, which I barely recognized or claimed, as a Californian college student, would have more significance to me when I returned home, than it ever had in my life.
On September 11, just three weeks into my stay in beautiful Siena, Italy, I returned to my adopted home, after an afternoon in Florence. The woman I was boarding with, who spoke only Italian, did her best to explain this incomprehensible event to me in clearly spoken, simple Italian. She used the universal language of pantomime to recreate an airplane flying into a large building and quoted the estimated number of deaths, in an attempt to inform her American student on the news. As I tried to understand what this woman was saying to me in a language I hardly spoke, I realized it was not so much the words I was having a hard time understanding, as it was the events that had occurred on that tragic day.
I repeatedly watched the collapse of the symbol of American ingenuity and consumerism on television, as I would have, had I been back home. It is possible that I watched it more than I would have, had I been in California, because my host was glued to the television coverage and there was a television on at all times in the kitchen, where we shared our dinners. She probably thought she was doing it for my benefit, as I needed to be informed of the events that had just occurred in my home land. Watching the once-startling footage over and over, and having easily memorized the Italian words for "terrorist" and "September 11th," I began to become familiar with the sight of the massive towers collapsing, as if their destruction was routine. After some time, Italian television broadcasters discontinued the showing of the footage as U.S. broadcasters did the same, but the images become a permanent of my memory, accompanying the fear and uncertainty that accompanied the horrid attacks.
As a group, we, the American exchange students, were advised by our cautious advisors, to conceal our nationality. I was far from home, experiencing a national tragedy in another nation, and like the rest of my fellow citizens, I had no idea of what to expect. But, I experienced absolutely no anti-Americanism, perhaps even less than I would have if it had not been for the attacks. The Italians citizens were extremely sympathetic, offering their condolences to all Americans and holding candle-light vigils outside of their Gothic Cathedrals for the lives lost. As I am partially of Italian decent, it was easy enough for me to blend in when I wanted to, but as soon as I opened my mouth, or opted to wear my tennis shoes, I was unmistakable, but I never felt ostracized because of it. While it was difficult to comprehend these tragic events as I was trying to adjust to a foreign culture, the European familiarity with loss as a result of attack, was comforting to an American student, who had no idea how to process such an event. It is a shame that the sympathy we once had was gambled away by the way our country responded to the events of that day with the wars we are still fighting as a result of the images that littered not only our own airwaves, but the airwaves of so many other nations around the world.

Natalie Conforti