I was suprised to discover that here in Italy there is a word to describe one’s attachement to their place of birth, or campanilismo. I was born in the heart of Los Angeles, but feel no such attachment to it. A lot of peope who live there or have visited the city are not shy about expressing their dislike of the sprawling metrpolis, and I’m no different. I find that a lot of Americans, when asked where they are from, say the city they currently live in, but then sometimes add later where they were born. Italians, in my experience, have great pride in their hometown, and do not need much encouragment about describing all the positive elements about their place of birth that make it unique, whether it be about the local cuisine, geography, or particular historical momunment. But Los Angeles? If you are visiting California, I would say to skip it and go to San Diego, where the California surfer stereotype lives, or San Francisco, where the bohemian sensibility meets unique Victorian architecture.

If anything, we do have attachemento to something – the universities we went to. It’s easy to spot an American on the streets of Rome. Chances are, if the American is in their early 20′s, they’ll be wearing their university t-shirt. On a university campus, there is always a store in which you can buy all sorts of things with the university logo on it – license plates, clothes, mugs, stickers, temporary tattoos (which come in handy for showing your pride and rooting for the football or basketball teams), and even welcome mats. My Toyota Corolla back home in California sports a blue license plate that says “UCLA Alumni” and I even take my university sweatshirt abroad with me when I travel. To go one step further, we even have a special league dedicated solely to college sports, the NCAA. Important basketball and American football games are broadcast on national television channels.

The next time you do spot a person wearing college gear, however, be careful before you automatically brand them as an American. Chances are, if the person in question is wearing a Yale or Harvard t-shirt, is a girl around high school age, she’s probably an Italian who bought that outfit at the Brandy store on Cola di Rienzo.