Posted by annam on Thursday, June 1, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

For my one-on-one interview, I spoke with Jessica, a hostess/waitress at Cathedral Coffee at Piazza del Duomo. She is a middle-aged woman, born and brought up in Cefalu. She works at Cathedral Coffee from 7am-3pm; then she gets involved with local Cefalu politics. Jessica is the daughter of the owner of Cathedral Coffee. She started working at the shop cleaning glasses at age 11; then when she came of age to work at the register, she ran off to Tuscany to work. She said she wanted to speak to customers, and worked at a slew of jobs in Tuscany. Most notably, she worked at a hotel and a bar, interacting with the tourists. After 13 years, she came back to Cefalu to join the family business. Her passion is talking to clients, so she is one of the front employees at the shop.

Jessica finds her job fun since she likes to talk to people and help tourists. She mentions that Cathedral Coffee is a great central location because tourists ask her questions regarding locations of famous sites in Cefalu. She makes them feel comfortable by trying to speak their language. Jessica speaks Italian, German, French and English (listed in the order she is most comfortable). She learned German and English in school, and picked up French from talking to customers. She never went to a university, so her language education was never solidified. Though she is uncomfortable with English, she says she always starts out advertising in English. Jessica can often be seen standing outside Cathedral Coffee calling out “Good morning!” at tourists and chatting with locals. She believes English is the most important language– she says that everyone speaks English and is thus the international language. By hearing a familiar language, tourists feel comfortable coming to sit down and order. She feels that tourists appreciative her effort to communicate with them in a language they feel comfortable with.

It is amazing how our American mentality differs from Jessica. Clarification: I am not making a sweeping statement and saying all Europeans in the tourism industry are like her. But I do want to point out that Jessica is attempting to learn about different cultures and their languages in order to do business. I acknowledge that she says English is the most important and is an international language, and I agree with her. At the same time, that does not limit her to learning just Italian and English to speak with customers. Back in the US, we have the mentality that everyone needs to speak English, and that is the only way to do things. We sneer at tourists who do not speak English and try to get around. Our attitude towards foreigners who do not speak English is very different. Even in tourist areas, not as many people try to make an effort to learn another language to communicate. Jessica taught herself French, speaks Italian, and learned a little German and English. In most of my friend circles and what I have observed, most people can only speak English and maybe a couple words in the language they learned in school. We seem to expect that everyone should conform to our ways because we are seen as the world leader. I remember discussing in history class that this is a typical phenomenon- that the rest of the world will start to pick up the language of the leading superpower. I specifically remember the example of everyone learning French at around the time Versailles was built since they were the influential empire. I fall into this similar mentality too- I feel as though everyone should know English as well. But I do attempt to embrace other cultures and pick up other languages along the way. Perhaps as a society, we should all try to put in more effort to learn different languages to be more accommodating, just as Jessica did.

Here’s my full interview with Jessica: https://vanderbilt.box.com/s/a82fto8cuzmksv7e7b3u78kpwqyxfihb