Summary

Jhumpa describes an incident in which a store clerk assumes Jhumpa is not a native of Italy because of her physical appearance but compliments Jhumpa’s husband, who speaks Italian with a Spanish accent but looks like he could be from Italy, on his perfect Italian. Jhumpa believes that she will always be seen as a foreigner in Italy because of the way that she looks. There are two different ways people talk to her because she is recognized as a foreigner. Her friends, who know she speaks Italian, speak to her freely in that language. When she goes into a store where people don’t know her and she tries to speak Italian the clerks don’t understand her. She believes these people don’t understand her because they don’t want to accept her. Although she has worked hard to learn...