The Nationality of Giulia Tom is the interesting part of this biography. Although born in Yugoslavia, her parents were Sicilian and Italian, both of which are considered to be “real” Italians by the majority of Italians. However, as Giulia grew up in Rumania, she tended to think of herself as a national-born citizen of Slovenia. In the case of Tom, the nationality issue became more pronounced as her two closest friends from school, Nicolae Ceausescu and Ion Balan, were Romanian citizens and thus, Giulia thought of herself as a Romanian too.
So where did this identity confusion come from? Well, after Nicolae Ceausescu came to power in Romania, the government changed course and proclaimed the country officially Romania. This caused many of Romanian citizens, including Giulia, to change their names (Ceausescu and Nicolae were both nouns meaning Emperor or ruler). For some time, there seemed to be some confusion over the exact nationality of Giulia Tom. Was she a Romanian before she changed her name and nationality, or was she just an Italian due to her birth in Ljubljana, Slovenia? The problem seems to be that, even though both her parents were of Italian origin, she named herself simply “Giulia Tom” and never identified herself as a Sicilian or a Croatian.
However, by some accounts, Giulia Tom did choose to identify herself as a Croatian, as she believed this helped her towards political freedom. However, her real father’s family were of Italian descent and her mother always referred to herself as a Croatian, which made little difference to Giulia who seemed to regard it as an unimportant distinction. Her real surname is Tomcic, given to her by her mother Mariana Marzio, who was born in Cebu and had been in Spain as a child. All the same, Giulia Tom was always quick to correct people when she thought they were wrong, referring to them as “mate” and insisting on calling them “ma’am” and “dear.” She even corrected a waiter once for calling her incorrectly, claiming he was trying to say “mate” instead of “dear.”