When my husband told me he was accepted into a Montessori training program in Italy, we celebrated. Not unlike Little Rock, Bergamo is a quaint, beautiful shithole. The number of Anglophones is few, and one feels compelled to befriend anyone who can speak English, even if he is only twenty-three, a lecture-prone asshole, or incessantly creeps on your girlfriend. The oppression of a language barrier is not to be underestimated. As privileged white American people who idly study Spanish as a second language in public school, we take this for granted.
Since I had no clear obligations in Bergamo other than spousal support and napping, a friend suggested that I take free Italian classes.
Desperate to travel outside of Bergamo for any potentially enlightening activity, I looked to Milan, a mere 51 kilometers away, 48 minutes by train. This same friend told me about a forty-year-old squat called Leoncavallo, which I discovered offered Italian classes specifically for foreign nationals, whether possessing a residence permit or not.
Having been denied a visa by the consulate, even though I am married to a person permitted to be here legally, and never registering with the Italian police, I am technically here under the radar. In this region in present day, Leoncavallo is perhaps best known as a party venue. Nobody lives at Leoncavallo anymore. Its reputation is a somewhat convoluted oral history. As an institution named for the street of its original residence, since its inception in , Leoncavallo changed not only its address, but its purpose and community services over time.
What is largely agreed upon as its most significant milestone was the attempted eviction by myriad police powers between and After the property was sold to another real estate firm, dozens of police arrived to remove residents from the premises. In response, some of the Leoncavallo population lashed out aggressively. The remaining supporters established a precedent of nonviolence, and, with the public support of hundreds of protesters from the general Milanese community, agreed to negotiate peacefully with law enforcement.
