Here to Leave?

A bit of homesickness and a good airfare deal brought me back to Italy for spring break. Travelling home confronted me with some questions of identity and choices, which I believe lie at the back of the mind for many students who hail from overseas—and which are especially loud for those who are the first in their families to attend a university. Engrossed in the reality of my town, where customs and concerns always feel so different from those that preoccupy me at Harvard, I could not help but ask how going to university in the United States has changed my relationship to my homeland. There is a certain atmosphere home that I now perceive more strongly: Together with the warmth of voices speaking a familiar Southern dialect, I could sense a numb hopelessness at a rapidly precipitating economic situation, at rampant corruption, and at the seemingly inescapable conditions of unemployment and lack of opportunities that trouble even the brightest of my peers.

Childhood friends told me again and again never to come back to a place that they thought ill-fated; family members similarly urged me to seek a good life far away; I wondered in turn if all this advice made sense to me. Going? Staying? Can it be true that my country has nothing more to offer me, or that I have nothing more to offer to my land? I want to believe that this is not the case. There has to be a way to take full advantage of all the opportunities I am now fortunate enough have, without putting aside my home country and my identity as a citizen of Italy for a long period of my life.

If one thinks along merely economic lines, then the “brain drain” is not necessarily a bad phenomenon, although the expression itself does characterize fleeing young students and workers somewhat negatively. It is rational that one should seek to study and be employed where his or her productivity is highest, the argument goes, and the resources that a nation does not spend on the education and training of one fleeing national will after all be available for the instruction of another one who stays. There is certainly nothing wrong with the decision to leave made by many, but there are also deep emotional implications whenever the question of leaving or staying is brought into play: The idea of seeking permanent or semi-permanent employment outside of my home country feels more and more like the plan to abandon a beloved boat, its crew, and its passengers when the waters start getting a bit troubled, without seeking to lend a hand in rougher times.

So here is another lesson from classical economics, that of diminishing marginal returns: Wherever a situation is bad, there is the greatest potential for improvement. Granted, for many international students working in the United States after graduation might signify living in a society that affords significantly lower levels of corruption, higher standards of life, and even more social tolerance. (Think of same-sex unions, which are a distant dream in Italy as well as in many countries around the world.) But there must be rewards in going back as well, perhaps at the cost of greater challenges. The very fact that the home countries of many of Harvard’s international students are not doing as well as the United States means that there is more room to do better and sow the seeds for something good, with the right spirit of entrepreneurship and patience.

My parents, who have lived a modest life in the Italian suburbs, were emotional when they pointed out to me that my life is my own only, and so are all my decisions, as I presented them with my thoughts and hesitations.  Sometimes it is not easy to confront the gap between the two different realities of home and college without being assailed by doubts and uncertainty. Looking at Harvard’s driven, meritocratic atmosphere, and then at the cherished but languishing environment of home, one really wonders if there is much that can be done by going back, or if attachment to one’s homeland is just naïveté in the face of a harsher reality. These are questions that form part of the college experience for a first-generation international student.

Perhaps it is because of my young age and limited experience that I see such a dichotomy between leaving and staying, and time will show that all can be reconciled. As of now, I however refuse to accept the sense of resignation that I am so often faced with when I go home, and the assumptions made by friends and family that I should want never to go back. There is much that can be done, and many opportunities for those who choose to return to their home countries.

Antonio Coppola ’16, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Hollis Hall.