Interview two people in Rome about the Victorio Emanuele II Monumento (Altare Delle Patria). Ask them if they like it. Would they change it? Why was it made? What would they replace it with? Write 500 words describing the results of your interview. Organize this material according to a clear thesis.
When we went to the Victorio Emanuele II Monument there was a relative amount of people. After talking to some people and asking questions, we realized that mostly everyone was tourists. The first two people that we approached said that they would not be able to answer our questions, because they did not know anything about the monument and they felt that they could not really say anything about it. The next two people we approached decided to answer our questions.
They both said that they liked the monument, they said they could not think of anything that they would change about the monument. Both people said they had read somewhere why it was made, but in that moment they couldn’t remember why it was made. And lastly they said they could not think of anything they would want to replace it with. So as a whole tourists were doing the usual thing and they did not seem to care too much what they were seeing, they were just out seeing the sights and enjoying the nice day.
Opposite to this when I asked the second group what they thought of the Colosseum they had a much better reaction. Maybe if I would have asked what they thought of the Flavian Amphitheatre they would have had to think about it a little more. Now this is not a hate on tourists, I might be the most tourist person out there. I love seeing sights just to see them and I don’t really enjoy sitting there reading plaques that explain what a monument is. This just goes to show that tourism is a major industy in Italy, they have these monuments and keep things preserved to try and keep this industry alive, and from what I saw it probably isn’t going to die anytime soon.
A few days later I met up with my aunt and uncle ho live in Italy. My uncle is super Italian and loves his Italian heritage and sharing it with his kids, although him and his kids were born in Venezuela. One of the first things he asked me is if I had seen the Victorio Emanuele II Monument. When I went with him to go visit it, he told me how great he thinks the monument is. He thinks the view from the top is amazing. I even asked him if he thought that the monument was too big or kind off misplaced, and he said no he thought it fit great there.
To my uncle the monument actually means something, he knows who its dedicated to and he feels his nationality tied closely to it. When I asked him about the Colosseum he had the same kind of reaction. He felt his nationality tied closely to it.
I am in no way saying that tourism is a bad thing, but here is a great example of what monuments can mean to two different groups of people. Now my uncle wasn’t exactly educated on what Victorio Emanuele II did, but he knew who it was and he was able to appreciate seeing the monument more than a regular tourist might be able to.
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