Identity In Looking For Alibrandi By Melina Marchetta

“Looking for Alibrandi” is a novel written by Melina Marchetta. The novel is written in the first person, through Josephine Alibrandi’s perspective. Josephine Alibrandi is the main protagonist in the story, she is seventeen and is experiencing her final year at St. Martha’s. Throughout the novel, Josephine is trying to discover her true self and identity as she is stuck between her Italian and Australian culture. She believes that her Australian culture is her sole identity, but at the end, she realises that it is not only one culture but both of them that form her identity.
The Australian lifestyle that Josephine is currently experiencing causes her to reject her Italian heritage. She finds it difficult to adapt to her heritage as it is different to the one she is currently living in. She doesn’t want the Italian to clash with the Australian culture as she reckons she won’t

fit in with the other Australians. Tomato day, also known as ‘Wog Day’ or ‘National Wog Day is a yearly tradition, which Josie and her family celebrate. Josie hates this day as she labels this day, ‘National Wog Day’ or ‘Wog Day’. She doesn’t want anyone to know. “I can’t understand why we can’t go to Franklin’s and buy Leggo’s or Paul Newman’s special sauce.” She is embarrassed about being about of this tradition as no Australian celebrate this tradition. “Where is the culture? She asked in dismay. She’s going to grow up, marry an Australian and her children will eat fish and chips.” She does not want to be a part or inhale this Italian heritage as it is embarrassing.
Josie’s school, St. Martha’s is a prestige high school, full of upper-class Australians, who used to label her as a “wog” and “illegitimate”. She deals with the name calling by sticking up and defending for her Italian culture, even though she doesn’t want to accept it. But an innocent with Carly made Josie realise that both of her cultures forms her identity. When Carly makes a racist remark about Josie, by calling her a “wog”. She immediately takes action, “’I’m an Italian. I’m of European descent. When an Italian or another person of European descent calls me a wog it’s done in good warm humour. When the word “wog” comes out of the mouth of an Australian it’s not done in good humour unless they’re a good friend. It makes me feel pathetic and it makes me remember that I live in a small-minded world and that makes me so furious.” From this, Josephine realises that it is not only her Australian culture that is her sole identity but both her Italian and Australian cultures that form her identity.
Josie’s grandmother has strict expectations for Josie to absorb the Italian culture; just like John Barton and his parents’ expectation of how he should live his life.

Josie feels as if her traditions will only give her more problems. “She wants to know why other Italian girls have Italian boyfriends and I don’t. If I want to go out with Australians, she objects. ‘What do they know about culture?’ she asks. ‘Do they understand the way we live?’”Nonna wants Josie to marry an Italian man in the future, but she herself had an affair with an Australian when she was young. She decides to hide the guilt and take the frustrations out on Christina and Josie by saying that “a daughter’s behaviour always reflects on how a good mother is.”. Josie’s relationship with Jacob lets her understand how relaxed the Australian culture is. Josie doesn’t want Jacob to meet her parents as she knows that they won’t accept him as he lives “without religion and culture.”, but it has let Josie understand that Australia is a multicultural country and that living there with another background does not make you

different.
At the start of “Looking for Alibrandi,” Josie is a seventeen-year-old who is lost in two different cultures. She is put under a lot of pressure by her grandmother as she wants her to fully absorb the Italian Heritage. She was naïve at first, thinking that she could run away from it one day, “to be free and think for myself. Not as an Australian and not as an Italian and not as an in-between.” Later on, she realises that it is “nailed into you so deep you can’t escape it.” She realises that it is not only one culture but both of them that form her identity.