Why I’m a Fan Enzo Giordani
When I’m asked where I’m from, it’s a complex question without the easy answer people expect of me. If I was quoting my whakapapa, I would probably tell you that my mountain is Rome’s Janiculum and my river is the Tiber – the home of my ancestors on my father’s side. Despite that, I was born in Auckland and lived there until I was three. I live in Auckland again now and have done since I was 20. But if home is where the heart is, for me it would probably be the home of my ancestors on my mother’s side, the place I grew up and where I became who I am today – the Waikato, and more specifically a little place, on the banks of the river, by the name of Huntly. It wasn’t always easy being half-Italian in a small rural New Zealand town though. The odd-sounding name that the kids used to tease me about was one thing, but as I got older and my tastes developed things grew increasingly awkward. I preferred the perceived `girl’s drink’ of wine over the more ‘manly’ beer, Italian foods such as pasta over the more traditional Kiwi ‘meat and three veg’, but most treasonous of all was my preference
for ‘sissy soccer’ over the oval ball game that shapes New Zealand’s national identity. Italians and Waikato folk do have one thing in common though - they often put province before country. The one thing they dislike more than football loving wine drinkers down in the Waikato, is Aucklanders. When it comes to sport, I grew up supporting two teams, Waikato and whoever is playing Auckland and despite having lived in Auckland for the past 20 years, that sense of Waikato parochialism will be with me for the rest of my life. The overarching consequence of this strange mixed upbringing is that I am both out of place and at home in each of the worlds I belong to. In Italy I can’t speak the language so get treated like a tourist. In New Zealand my Italian heritage marks me out as being different. Where I live, the Waikato is the butt of many jokes. And I’ll never forget the first time I returned to Hamilton for a Waikato Ranfurly Shield game after moving to the big smoke – I went up to a bar to order a drink only for the bartender to ask me Continued on page 11...
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