Torpignattara/Banglatown - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 69

torpignattara 2010—provocative graffiti: The spaces' new names and a football fan's irony.
Photo by Alessandra Broccolini.
The commercial activities engaged in by bangladeshis include groceries,
greengroceries, minimarkets, phone centers, service agencies, restaurants, and
bars. They show that the diaspora has become well-established in the district,12
strengthened by the presence of their nuclear families, with children who go to
the Carlo pisacane primary school.13
Throughout the streets, the leopard's spots clearly mark out the urban land-
scape from the cultural perspective. Next to the “historic” “wines and oil” shop
and the bar that boasts of having been there since 1946, one finds a swarm of peo-
ple around the money transfer office, phone centers, indian clothing shops, and
bangladeshi supermarkets that often decorate the streets with posters written in
bengali. These, incomprehensible to the other residents, conjure up a picture of
a social life full of concerts of bengali music, meetings with community leaders,
purchase and sale of goods, and trade advertisements.
During the day, the number of people in the streets may fluctuate and activi-
ties range from trading, going to school, and using community services; but in
the evening, especially in summer, banglatown is transformed into a place for so-
cializing. many young bangladeshi men, when they come back from work, spend
the evening on the pavements outside the phone center, drinking beer, chatting