Identity. Identity is something I have always struggled with.

Yesterday I was asked a simple question, “where are you from?”, a question that most people would be able to answer instantly, but it took me a couple of seconds to decide how I was going to answer it.

The issue doesn’t really come to me when I’m on holiday in a country I don’t really have any relation too, it comes when I’m in one of three countries: Italy, the United Kingdom and Malta.

My mother is Maltese, her parents are Maltese and her entire family as far as anyone knows is from Malta. My father, on the other hand, is half Italian, my grandfather was from Sicily, and half English, with my grandmother being fully British.

This mix makes my brother and I half Maltese, a quarter Italian and a quarter English. We were both born in Malta and, although my father’s side of the family has scattered around the world, my mother’s side stayed unified on the little island.

So, with this information you would pretty much have to say “ok, you should classify as Maltese”.

Well not exactly.

Although I was born in Malta in 1998 and my brother was born there in 2001, we never lived in Malta. My father was working in Italy before he married my mother and she moved to Italy to be with him. So, up until I was 19-years-old I lived in Italy.

Also, I never learnt Maltese, neither my mother nor my grandparents really thought me the language when I was young and as I grew older, I wanted to learn but it’s a really difficult language to learn and I always ended up quitting.

And now I’m Italian. Except I’m not, because at school I was always know as the “English girl” because English came really easy to me, since I have always been bilingual in English and Italian. You might not know this, but English has only now become more of something kids should learn in school to have a better future.

When I was in primary, middle and even the first couple of years of high school, English teachers didn’t really give a crap if you could speak, read or write in English, so many of my friends struggled heavily with the language when things started getting serious at the end of my high school years.

After I finished high school I decided to move to the UK for university. I had wanted to move to England for years prior to that and luckily my parents favoured my move. My father had also studied at university in the UK at Bristol Polytechnic, now University of the West of England and was particularly happy with the choice I had made to study away from home.

Well I arrived in Canterbury for my four year University course ad everyone just assumed I was American because my English didn’t have an Italian accent, but I didn’t sound British either. I just told people I was Italian and left it at that.

I am now doing a year professional placement in Malta, and when people ask me “where I’m from?” it’s a hard question for me to answer. I was born here so do I answer that I’m Maltese? I lived most of my life in Italy so does that make me Italian? I am currently studying in the UK so do I answer that I am English?

Normally I would answer that I’m Italian, however I find it weird to say that when I’m in Malta, as if I was denying that side of me. So, I end up telling the person that asked the simple question half of my life story because I don’t really know what else to say: “I’m Italian, but I was born in Malta.” That usually brings the person to ask me one of two follow up questions, (1) “So, do you speak Maltese?” – Emmm no, which kind of demoralises me because I feel like I should have learnt Maltese by now – and (2) “Why is your English so good, I wouldn’t have guessed that you were Italian?” – Because I’ve spoken it all my life and also for the past two years I have been living in the UK.

So, yeah, the answer doesn’t come easy to me. I always feel like I need to explain myself to people because my origins are so seemingly complicated.

Funnily enough, I asked my brother if he struggles with identity too and he said “Nah, I’m Italian.”