I Got a Temporary Part-Time Job! But First... Part 2: Privilege & Racism in Italian Bureaucracy

Ok, this is Part 2, so first, a quick recap:

I have already done 12 things to get ready to accept a lovely position at a local high school teaching English once a week after school to prepare 17-18 year-olds to pass the Cambridge English B2 exam.  I still don't have the electronic ID card I need (la CIE) to be hired and the position starts in two and a half weeks.  It's supposed to take 10 business days to get la CIE but first I have to get the physical card proving that I have my permesso di soggiorno so that I can establish residency in Bologna so I can start the application for the CIE.  I'm sweating because I know that means there are at least 3 steps for which I am completely subject to the whims of Italian Bureaucracy.

Here is a photo of the Italian State Police headquarters for Immigration in Bologna (la Questura per Immigrazione).  A sight that brings shivers to permesso seekers from all over.  You don't know when you enter if you will be successful with your task, you don't know how many times you will have to return, and on a really bad day you might get yelled at or completely ignored.  An American student posted a video on instagram of her visit and said, "It went great!  I didn't even cry!"

OK, I'm going to jump ahead to the spoilers.  I was successful.  I got my permesso di soggiorno card, and I was able to apply for la residenza and the CIE on the same day and get a temporary paper CIE that worked fine for entering my hours.

My class started January 21st.  I was able to get everything taken care of on January 15th- after spending about 10 days where I woke up early to go to the Questura and the Comune several times each.  I stood in various lines, asked for help, did everything they told me, got yelled at and mocked, but more than that I met people who were not so lucky.  

On one of those extra attempts at the Questura to retrieve my permesso di soggiorno I met a woman from Cuba who had been living legally in Italy for 13 years and had been trying, without success, to get her permesso di soggiorno that comes with being the mom of an Italian baby.  Her baby is now three.  She told me that the Questura messed something up on her paperwork and that she comes back occasionally to see if they can fix it.  Her Italian was perfect, she followed all the rules, she was just asking them to review the documents to iron out any wrinkles so she could get on with her life.  After three years, she said, she really doubted that they would ever admit to and fix their mistake.  She wished me luck with my permesso.

I met an African man that same morning.  We commiserated a little about the long waits and the lack of transparency in the process.  He shared that he had applied for his permesso in November and was still waiting for his card.  He said his legal employment was in jeopardy if he didn't get the plastic card soon.  I said, "Me, too!  I applied in November and I'm still waiting."  He asked "November 2023?"  He had been following the rules and waiting patiently and checking in in person for a year and two months.  My new acquaintances from Cuba and Brazil and I watched as he was called in to share his receipt so someone could look up his permesso progress and we were there again when he got the bad news that there was no news.  He left with a look of frustration and disappointment.

In this story, my privileges were many: my skin color, my US passport and my middle-class life where being in Italy, not to mention working here, were a choice, a bonus.  Based on what I saw and heard, I believe the Italian systems for immigration are not currently set up to treat everyone fairly.  Your chances of doing everything by the book and succeeding are less if your skin is dark and you have a passport from somewhere South of Florida or Ragusa.  And that's a kind of racism.

I'm writing this a little over 4 months after the fact.  Coming up next weekend there will be a referendum in Italy on 4 issues related to worker's rights and one related to citizenship- the referendum question number 5 something like this 'should Italy return the number of years of wait time for legal residents to request citizenship back to 5, from the current 10'  The Meloni government has suggested everyone just sit this referendum out.  I hope 50%+1 of Italians (the quorum) vote that the majority of them say Sì! 

 

I Got a Temporary Part-Time Job! But First... Part 1: Advanced Italian Bureaucracy for Foreigners

I have not added many posts in 2 months.  This is in great part due to an exciting new development.  I was offered a lovely, very part-time and temporary English teaching position at the High School where I did my volunteering this Fall.  Whereas my position is compelling, getting through the bureaucratic hurdles to start it was draining.

First, the fun part!  I am an esperta madrelingua for a Cambridge English B2 Test-Prep course after school from Jan-May this year.  I have 22 delightful students once a week for two hours on Tuesday afternoons.  I work with lovely colleagues at Liceo Copernico, I get to learn lots, and make a contribution I really enjoy- it's a joy in every sense!  

There's an interesting context to the position, too- it is a project of the PNRR, Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza.  The plan is co-sponsored by the European Union, and plays out on several fronts: Innovation, Green Revolution, Infrastructure & Sustainable Transit, Education & Research, Inclusion & Cohesion, Health, and Energy (non fossil fuel, non Russian).  It's inspiring to think my weekly classes are part of a future- and sustainability-oriented multinational collaboration.  

I will share more about my classes in the coming weeks.  But for now, the less-fun part.  I was invited to apply for the position about a week before Christmas.  Here's a quick tally of the things I (initially) had to do in order to start the position on time:

• Verify that I can, in fact, work in Italy before I receive the physical, plastic card for my permesso di soggiorno (applied for the first week of November, not yet ready 6 weeks later)- All official Italian websites agreed, I can!  Luckily I also had my codice fiscale (like our American Social Security number) from 2008.
• Complete application, including a survey of my experience for the point-based selection process
• Quick, write a resume in the European format in Italian (see first page below)
• Ask my teacher, Corinna, to proofread my resume- Grazie, Corinna!
• Go to the high school and officially upload my application materials.

Whew!  All done before the Dec 23rd deadline.  I was feeling pretty good.  This is the land of bureaucracy, so I saved a little room in my heart for possible additional steps.  It's a good thing I did, because I found out on Dec 30 that there's an electronic ID card I need for the online time-tracking system for a position that accesses EU funds.  I just needed to get that.  

Here's the next quick tally of the things I needed to do to get my electronic ID, part 1:

• Go online to get an appointment to get the electronic ID at the Comune (City Hall, main local government office, located in Piazza Maggiore)
• Swear a little, because the soonest appointment available was for almost two weeks later
• Go to the Piazza Maggiore Comune office first thing in the morning anyway, and ask if I could be helped in advance of my appointment time given that this is for a project of the PNRR.  The answer was Si
• Find out that before I can get an electronic ID, I need to get la residenza in Bologna.  "No problem," said the woman helping me, "you just need to go to another office a couple of km away, they're open right now, see you later."
• Go to the via dello Scalo Comune office, chat with someone who said "We're closed right now, but you can come back tomorrow first thing and one of us can help you."  I asked him to preview my documents, just to be sure I had everything in order.  He did, and said, "You're all set!"
• Go back to the via dello Scalo Comune office, and hear from a colleague of the person who spoke to me less than 24 hours prior that I can under no circumstances get La Residenza and therefore not the electronic ID without first getting the physical, plastic card for my permesso di soggiorno.  I tried quoting from the website and the colleague who had helped me the day before.  No luck.
• Go to the Questura per immigrazione (State Police Headquarters for Immigration) to see if I can speed up the permesso di soggiorno.

See you soon for Part 2: Privilege & Racism in Italian Bureaucracy