Turin's CIE - International University College of Turin

● ● ●
G.’S STORY (INTERVIEW 21)
When we interviewed G. he had been inside CIE for ten days and his story immediately
struck us. His answer to one of our first questions – “What is your country of origin?” – was
as decisive as bewildering: “Italy!”
As a matter of fact, G. was born in Italy in 1983 from a Moroccan mother and an Italian
father. His father did not recognise him legally since at the time of G.’s birth his father was
in prison. G. has a birth certificate stating he was born in Italy from a Moroccan mother
but his Italian father is not mentioned therein.
A short time after G.’s birth, his mother decided to go back to her home country and to her
family because in Italy she was completely alone with her baby and to her great distress
nobody was willing to help her, not even the family of G.’s father. Therefore, G. went to
Morocco with his mother when he was nine months old and he was raised by his mother
and continued to live in Morocco until the age of twenty-two. Meanwhile, in 1999 G.’s
father died.
In 2006, G. decided to leave Morocco for Italy, feeling that half of his identity was Italian:
“I came back to Italy because I wanted to claim my rights because I was born here in Italy
and my father was Italian”. His decision to leave for Italy was not an easy one and his
mother was actually against this idea, given the bad experiences she had had as a young
woman in Italy. Nonetheless, G. paid about 5,000 euros cash and entered Italy irregularly
by boat.
G. went to Padua because he knew that he could find his father’s family there. He was
hoping they could help him to get Italian documents but his hopes were soon shattered.
They categorically refused to help him or to have anything to do with him: “in my family I
only found racists”. In particular, G. has an older half-brother because before meeting G.’s
mother, G.’s father was married to an Italian woman and had a child with her. G. asked his
half-brother to do genetic tests together with him, in order to prove that they both have
the same Italian father. Although at first his half-brother seemed to be helpful, in the end
he refused to do these genetic tests. G. believes that his half-brother was worried that if G.
was legally recognised as his half-brother then G. might be able to claim part of his
father’s inheritance. This situation caused G. great frustration and disappointment: “when
I came to Italy I thought it would have been completely different. I thought Italy was
completely different. I thought they would have provided me with documents. I thought my
family would have helped me”.
After working on a farm for one year without a regular contract, G. found himself
unemployed. Shortly after he run out of money, he met “the wrong people” and he began
stealing. Caught by the police, he was sentenced to prison and spent seven months and
fifteen days in jail. Once out of prison G. wanted to change town in order to transform his
life and avoid the bad crowd that he had been part of. So, G. came to Turin where he had
some Moroccan friends who were long-term residents. After three months in Turin G. was
caught by the police on the street: “They took me to Questura, they kept me in Questura for
one day and then they took me here [inside CIE]. I asked the people, “what is this?” And, they
told me, “it is a reception centre [centro di accoglienza] for migrants””.
89 | P a g e