Liana Cusmano reveals the linguistic landmines from the past and the present.
LEARNING HUB
PUBLISHED
March 8, 2025
WORDS BY
Kristal Trotter
Liana Cusmano is an Italian-Canadian writer, editor, filmmaker, and spoken word artist. In their recent work, language attracts and repulses meaning, like magnets in a magnetic field, ingrained in the intersecting worlds the writer is part of.
Download an excerpt of BOYFRIEND here.
When I first met Liana Cusmano on a video call, they were exactly how I expected them to be, kind, approachable, confident and soft spoken in a way that didn’t indicate shyness, rather, an unwavering calmness that reeled me in to listen to every word they said. We talked about the Italian diaspora, contemporary Italy, and the role the Italian language plays in our lives. I came across Cusmano’s poetry back in 2023, while attending the launch of a digital platform on queer Italian-Canadian artists, co-directed by Paolo Frascà, assistant professor of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Licia Canton, founding editor-in-chief of Accenti Magazine. It’s during this online event that I learned that if you are a queer Italian-Canadian person raised in Canada, you must come out twice, first as Italian, then as queer.
Reading the language used in Cusmano’s most recent writing, all reflective of their non-binary Italian-Canadian identity, I hone in on the words that seem to be the markers of this chapter of their life. Before I can ponder properly on each word and corresponding significance, I think about the aforementioned three, “queer,” “Italian” and “Canadian,” and I trace a circle around each descriptor with an imaginary pen in my mind. A venn diagram emerges. It is here, at the intersection of identity through language, that the linguistic landmines happen to be. It is here, in this minefield, that words are no longer just words, but codes for something else. It’s within this delineation that I think about the push and pull that language creates in interpersonal relationships.
Three more words, “nonna,” “boifréndi,” “bella figura.”
Cusmano’s view of Italian culture has been through the linguistic lens of their grandparents, two immigrants from Calabria who settled in the Italian community of Saint-Leonard, in Montreal, in the 1950s. It’s with a mix of Italiese and Calabrese dialect that Liana’s perception of Italy was formed, frozen in time like the social norms that came with it. In their work, Cusmano challenges a world view loaded with personal histories and cultural projections in a way that only someone in limbo between worlds can do, with wordplay. In their spoken-word poem, “Boyfriend,” Cusmano asks how to explain to their Italian grandmother that it is ok to be with someone even when you have no intention of marrying them. It’s a rhetorical question, of course, because the definition of a boyfriend in Cusmano’s world does not coexist with their nonna’s idea of a boifréndi — Italiese for “boyfriend” — which only translates to “fiancé” in her reality. This word, “boyfriend,” and the expectations that come with it, are in service of the bella figura, a cultural code embedded in Italian social mores, where the adherence to proper comportment and the aesthetic dimensions of such performance are imperative. Anything else is a brutta figura (a bad impression).
Download BELLA FIGURA here.
Watch this interview for the Queer Italian-Canadian Artists Spotlight
Learn about more queer Italian-Canadian artists here.
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It’s only recently that Cusmano’s transness and Italian-Canadian identity began to intersect, and with that, the development of an Italian vocabulary to describe a queer and transmasculine reality, but translanguaging in the Italian language can seem an impossible task. Italophones are not able to express themselves outside of a binary system due to how the Italian language is structured, made up of two genders, masculine and feminine, used to define nouns, adjectives and participles. While singular forms they/their are now used as genderless pronouns in English, in Italian this is not an option. Interestingly enough, the English words that are unspoken in the language of Cusmano’s grandparents have been used in contemporary Italy by the queer Italian movements, and this could be a turning point in the writer’s expression of self.
“We haven’t found Italian words that we can use to define identities, orientations and desires. The inability to translate in Italian is the outcome of a struggle.”
-Giulia Sbaffi
The “schwa” is a central vocalic sound and it is the most common vowel in the English language. In Italian there is no such vowel (yet), but we can consider this sound as intermediate between A (/a/) and E (/e/). Nevertheless, some Italian dialects already know and use this sonority in their pronunciation, such as Neapolitan dialect, the dialect of the Ciociaria area, that of Piedmont and some variations of Emiliano-Romagnolo. – Bianca Pirrelli
Read full article here.
I spoke to Giulia Sbaffi, postdoctoral teaching fellow at New York University, to understand more about the importance of translatability and untranslatability of queer identity. “When we think about the influence of language, we think about communities,” they told me. Sbaffi went on to explain that “for the gay and lesbian communities in the anglophone world, English was a point of reference that helped them define who they were and in what community they belonged to, which was initially, profoundly transnational, but for trans identity, English is not as important as Spanish or French words.”
In our conversation it is clear that foreign languages will always be present in queer Italian movements due to their attempts to deprovincialize Italy, rejecting nativism and conservatism, threats to the survival of many Italians who rely on the communication between communities. Sbaffi paints a transnational picture for me: “Think about the need to travel to London for an abortion, or to travel to Paris for hormones, or to Casablanca to get surgery, then go to New York to find your community.”
Ultimately, being in-between worlds gives Cusmano the plasticity of language, a unique position that can offer an abundance of terminologies and figurations, which span from the macro dynamics of foreign languages to the micro dynamics of regional dialects, where coded language happens within smaller localized communities.
Love has the last word.
Sbaffi says that the key component to love is choice, and in reading Cusmano’s thoughts expressed through pieces like “Gino and Guido,” “Always,” and “Holding Hands at Settimana Italiana,” I can see how they were written as an act of love. The writer gives back dignity to Italian names used as a slur, they do not fault their grandmother for not understanding their trans identity, and they depict the realities of forbidden intimacy before putting on an act for society. Cusmano finds space for love amidst the struggle.
In Italy there is no legislation for homophobia, lesbophobia or transphobia, and queer people cannot adopt nor marry. In the face of anti-LGBTQ+ laws, queer communities have politicized all forms of love, so as not to give up on what brought the community together in the first place. I asked Sbaffi to share some final thoughts on how love is manifested within the Italian queer communities.
“As a queer person, if you don’t choose yourself, nobody will, and this speaks to the laws in Italy. Love has been a political tool to build an infrastructure that can help the community to provide for themselves. Love is the only thing to imagine the future, because without love, there is only destruction.”
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DEFINITIONS
Transgender:
Designating a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond to that person’s sex at birth, or which does not otherwise conform to conventional notions of sex and gender.
Transmasculine:
Designating a person whose birth sex was female but whose gender identity is aligned with or characterized in some way by masculinity; of or relating to such a person.
Non-binary:
Relating to or being a person who identifies with or expresses a gender identity that is neither entirely male nor entirely female.
Code switching:
The switching from the linguistic system of one language or dialect to that of another.
Sprezzatura:
([sprettsaˈtuːra]) is an Italian word that refers to a kind of effortless grace, the art of making something difficult look easy, or maintaining a nonchalant demeanor while performing complex tasks.
Campanilismo:
Parochialism , attachment to one’s place of origin.
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