Stanley Tsizin
Professor Zarour Zarzar
ENG 2850
Due: 9/25/19
Racism and Xenophobia
Humans are all creatures of habit and have no intention of switching this. The thought of
change provokes people as they think that any small change would cause their life to become
unbalanced. As people adapt to the society and the community that they are a part of, they
develop different habits that if they see that others don’t have will be confused as to why those
people are so different. Each person thinks of themselves as superior to others and fear anything
that is different or foreign to them. Humans tend to make their way of life the standard for
everyone due to the fact that humans are naturally self-centered and believe that they are doing
everything right and everyone should follow behind them. Both novels Clash of Civilizations
Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio and Remembering Babylon convey the points that humans
have a tendency to fear everything that is different from them and tend to make their way of life
the standard for everyone. The novels relate all of these ideas to the topics of racism and
xenophobia. Both of the novels portray their stories around an immigrant to show how people
that are different are treated in a society.
In the case of the novel Clash of Civilization Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, the
author portrays the story of Amedeo in a polyphonic view, having each character play a role in
showing how racism and xenophobia was portrayed as a role in Italy. The whole book is
composed of characters from different countries that came to Italy and all of which describe the
ways that they experienced racism and xenophobia. This situation could be connected to the
modern day as many people fear the threat of undocumented immigrants and diversity.
Therefore, they hold a prejudice against these immigrants without trying to actually understand
the immigrant’s culture or reasoning for coming to where they are. Although these people will
hold a prejudice against immigrants, they will not admit to this, rather, just keep profiling them.
In the novel, most of the characters could be seen saying “I’m not a racist” however, based on
the wails of Amedeo, it could be recognized how some of these characters are profiling anyone
that looks different; for example: Benedetta Esposita would assume the origins of some of the
characters such as Parvis and others.
