A VOICE FOR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION EMILIANO ZUCCHI’S DEDICATION TO COMMUNITY by Isabella Ventura
From Rome to Melbourne, Emiliano Zucchi’s journey as a migrant has provided him with an appreciation of diversity and equity that has helped shape his role as a community leader.
E
miliano Zucchi migrated to Australia with his family at the age of 12, not an easy age to be transplanted across the globe. Knowing no one and without any real familiarity with English, he found himself having to somehow make sense of a reality in a new country. This life-pivoting moment stemmed from a Zucchi family Australian holiday, and his parents making the decision to leave Rome and all they were familiar with to move to the Australian continent in the mid-1980s.
has provided him with insights to draw on as part of his successful career in various community leadership roles.
So began Emiliano’s experience of migration, which, as it has turned out,
Emiliano is quick to point out that diversity has always been a feature of Australia’s makeup:
Emiliano recalls that it wasn’t until he was at university that things started to make sense about Australian life. Above all, he delighted in the diversity that made Australian life: “so unique and so liberating, from being able to try the cuisine of various cultures to coming to understand more about the role of cultural identity and how important it is to social cohesion.”
There were over 500 different Aboriginal nations or clans at the time of colonization, and that is just the start of Australia’s cultural richness. I have never accepted that we have one culture. We each have our own culture and we share this. I was never comfortable with the notion of a melting pot; that creates the impression of a bland mess. I am certainly proud of my Italian heritage, but my identity is incomplete without all the other multicultural identities that make up Australia. Emiliano started his career as an academic sharing Italian language and culture with his students. He has also enjoyed learning Emiliano Zucchi
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GLOBAL & SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
Segmento Issue XXVII • Jun-Aug 2022
