that grew up during the war continued to refer to all foreigners as ‘l-Ingliżi,’ the English. Not exactly all foreigners. English people, of course, and Americans and all northern Europeans. Not Africans or Asians. Not Italians; certainly not Sicilians or Neapolitans or Romans. Maybe Tyroleans would have made the grade. Needless to say, educated and well-travelled Maltese people would have distinguished between all these, but—just as all soft drinks were ‘Coca’ and all animated cartoons were ‘Mickey Mouse’—everyone else used the generic ‘Ingliżi’ for anyone who was not Mediterranean or African or Asian. White people, in other words.
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Many Maltese people of the generation
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that grew up during the war continued to refer to all foreigners as ‘l-Ingliżi,’ the English. Not exactly all foreigners. English people, of course, and Americans and all northern Europeans. Not Africans or Asians. Not Italians; certainly not Sicilians or Neapolitans or Romans. Maybe Tyroleans would have made the grade. Needless to say, educated and well-travelled Maltese people would have distinguished between all these, but—just as all soft drinks were ‘Coca’ and all animated cartoons were ‘Mickey Mouse’—everyone else used the generic ‘Ingliżi’ for anyone who was not Mediterranean or African or Asian. White people, in other words.