Elisabetta Canalis: “My daughter Skyler’s first” mother “”

Un little Italian, a little English. The reproaches hissed in their mother tongue. Elisabetta Canalis, to his life in California, he attributes different, distant sounds. «When Skyler Eva was born», in September six years ago, «I promised myself to speak to her in Italian. I would never have been able to use a language with my little girl, English, which I only know 80% of ”, says the former tissue, who made a point of honor of Skyler’s bilingualism. A mission. And, at times, a game, intimate and secret, with her daughter had by Brian Perri. “I explained to Skyler how Italian could be our language of secrets, something that senior citizens, children and adults, could not understand.” It would have been the shared good of a mother and her baby girl. But this never led the little girl to bully her playmates, relying on sounds they couldn’t understand. «Skyler, on the contrary, has learned to translate very quickly, almost simultaneously», explains Canalis, who left a part of her heart and a project in Italy: «To come back. In old age, however, because it would be nice to do six months here and six months there, but my husband has a business in Los Angeles ».

And once retired, would he be willing to leave the city that is his home?
“Yes, Brian would move right away. Or, at least, that’s what he says. In words, everything is easier ».

Why come back? In Los Angeles she seems to have found a dimension that is her own.
“And so it is, I have my own business in Los Angeles, friends. I have built a community in which even Skyler is well integrated, but Italy is a unique, wonderful country, a place whose value, perhaps, can only be fully understood through distance ».

In the United States, however, they have a somewhat speckish idea of ​​what it means to be Italian.
“It’s not always true. Of course, there is an average American, who has studied the minimum wage and traveled even less, who just pronouncing Venice makes us think of the Hotel Venice in Las Vegas. However, there is also another America, an America that looks at Italy and the Italian spirit with admiration. And then, let’s face it, we Italians too often have a speckish idea of ​​the United States ».

What do you mean?
“I don’t want to go into political or political issues, but, often, I find myself having to explain what the United States is, health care, how it is governed and why. Basically, I find myself clarifying to the Italians those same social aspects that the Americans ask me to account for ».

How much does Skyler perceive of the cultural differences between Italy and the United States?
“At the moment, I don’t think so much. She is small, a child. However, she is definitely Italianized. It is in her character, in the world of looking at life ».

Explain.
«The good fortune of being Italian is the ability to see the world with detachment and irony. we are too good, at times, to play down, to live with lightness what happens to us. In America, they take everything very seriously: they are precise, methodical, they respect every rule that is given to them. Skyler, although she has descended into an American context, has the irony of an Italian ».

What language do you speak at home?
«When he is with me, the Italian. When he’s with Brian, the Englishman. ‘

And when are you together?
«So, everything is talked about. If I have to tell Brian one thing that is important he understands too, I speak in English. If, on the other hand, I have to contact only Skyler, I speak in Italian and, perhaps, I translate for my husband. He understands 60%, he is very American in that. English speakers neither try nor are stimulated to learn another language ».

So why did you decide to enroll your daughter in a French school?
«Because I was unable to enroll her in an Italian school. The closest was an hour’s drive away and would have been too great a sacrifice for such a small child. So, we opted for a French school, where she could breathe and study European history and culture. It is important for me that you get closer to our world ».

But isn’t it tiring for a six-year-old girl to study in a language that isn’t hers?
“Skyler doesn’t study entirely in French. I chose the International course of study for her, which requires that only mathematics and art, in addition to French, are taught in the language. The rest is done in English, and Skyler has excellent grades. For this reason, with the French, we decided to give her support with an online platform called GoStudent ».

How did it go during the DAD period?
“It seems ridiculous to me to do five, six straight hours of teaching on Zoom. Children so young stagger: they begin to climb on chairs, to write on the walls. An hour and a half done well would be enough ».

How did you manage to get Skyler to learn Italian?
“I followed my instincts. Without calculations, without giving rise to particular studies. We are a couple made up of an Italian and an American, we live in America. Once she left home, with kindergarten, Skyler would be placed in an American context, with American friends, American teachers, American books and games. If I hadn’t preserved the Italian language, I would have lost it in the course of its growth ».

Prejudice has it that bilingual children find it harder to start talking.
“Skyler, then, is the exception that proves the rule. She said mom the first time at five and a half months. She did it in Italian. My husband, again, says I’m crazy, that I made it up, but that’s how it went. “

A good predisposition to languages, his.
“And I think it may come from my family. My mother is a teacher of Greek and Latin. After my classical studies, I would have liked to enroll in Foreign Languages ​​and Literatures. Skyler started being on a plane when she was three months old, she has always traveled a lot, unlike many American children who have never left their state. She is creative and, today, when it happens I speak in English she scolds me ».

Hasn’t this always been the case?
“No, to teach her Italian I pretended not to be able to speak English, not to understand. So, I forced her to make an effort. I find that bilingualism has led her to learn faster. She has nurtured her creative streak. Where she did not reach her with language, she had to arrive with something else ».

Why, in the videos you post online, are Skyler speaking in Italian?
“My choice. I have many, and more fun where he speaks English. I don’t want to lie. She speaks better in English than in Italian Skyler, she has a richer vocabulary, she is faster ».

However…
“However, I like that it is ‘my thing’, that you speak my language, addressed, above all, to the country where I work”.

And who knows that one day he may not find himself studying in Italy.
“For compulsory schools, I don’t think it can happen. The French school, however, gives us the possibility of transferring it to other French schools, in Milan or Rome, for example, for short periods. So if I have three months to work in Italy, Skyler can study here and then return to Los Angeles. We’ll see how she goes. From middle school, you will have to introduce a fourth language, to be chosen from German, Mandarin and Spanish. Then, he will do Latin. “

Photo by Mickaela Tombrock