What role does identity play in this book?

One of the first themes to appear in Looking for Alibrandi is feeling like an outsider. Central to Josie’s school experience is the sensation of feeling disadvantaged and excluded from the society of her classmates. The principal roots of Josie’s insecurities are her poorer background and Italian-Australian heritage. As a scholarship student, she feels overwhelmed in “a school dominated by rich people” (Marchetta 14). And as an “ethnic” or “new” Australian, as her classmate Poison Ivy calls her, she feels as if she’ll never truly be able to claim Australia as “her country” like her classmates do (Marchetta 236, 239).

Josie also feels like an outsider in her Italian community. As a second-generation Italian-Australian, a person of Italian descent who was born in Australia but whose grandparents were born in Italy, she thinks her community doesn’t completely accept her. Furthermore, Josie being the product of a teenage pregnancy and her mother having her out of wedlock further distance her from the traditional and conservative Italian community. It doesn’t help that Josie is an independent, free-spirited, and free-thinking young woman who shirks the expectations of her community.

All of these factors coalesce into Josie feeling like she doesn’t belong to either the Italian or the Australian communities. She grapples with these feelings for most of the novel, but by the end she realizes her place is somewhere in between. She no longer feels like she’s an outsider, and understands that the multiculturalism that defines her life is central to Australian culture.