origins.
Before we go anywhere, let me introduce myself. My name is Christian Santaw. I’m 19, and I’m the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Expat Editorial. A year ago I packed up my life and became an expat.
I grew up just outside Washington D.C., but my expatriate story started before I did. My parents spent nearly a decade living in Vicenza, a small military town near Venice, before moving back to the States and having me. Italians like to say everything good here is made in Italy, and I have always felt a strange connection to that.
Similar to an Italian leather bag that somehow came to life; I was made in Italy (as my parents insist on pointing out), constantly traveling and being tossed around, a little shiny on the outside, and definitely a little empty on the inside. In its own odd way, it fits.
Growing up, Italy felt like a second home, many summers spent here. Never would I have thought my life would have become so full circle, following in the footsteps of my parents.
For most of my adolescence, I thought I knew exactly who I’d be.
The academic kid.
The future engineer.
The product of the proud and persistent Filipino grandparents who believed excellence was non-negotiable.
So naturally, I went to a specialty engineering high school, only to realize one small detail: I hated math. Passionately.
So engineering was out.
Instead, I found myself drawn to my peers who were just as lost about my future as I secretly was. My high school had one college counselor for over 600 students, and I remember the shock of realizing how many of us were expected to figure out life alone.
True to my overachiever-with-a-savior-complex nature, I started the first student-led post-secondary initiative in the district. It was messy, ambitious, and powered by the fake-it-till-you-make-it cliché everyone seems to practice religiously at eighteen years old.
Then came college applications, quite literally what I spent the past year assisting thousands of students understand. I was convinced a certain university (we will not name names) was my inevitable path. Summa cum laude, hundreds of volunteer hours, specialized academic program… I checked all the “golden student” boxes. Too confidently, if we’re being honest. I applied to the top schools in the nation with the certainty of someone who believed they had the formula right.
I did not.
Rejection letters came like a domino line falling in slow motion, taking my ego with it.
Panic followed;
mine,
my parents’,
my teachers’,
my ego’s.
Somewhere in the chaos, I remembered coming across an American university in Rome while researching opportunities for my mentorship program. Italy…Rome… A life I only knew through summers with my family. At that point, it felt like the only risk worth taking. So I applied. Why not?
A few weeks later I was admitted.
Two months later, I was on a KLM flight with two suitcases and a heart full of adrenaline, choosing a life I didn’t yet understand.
No dramatic farewell.
No slow-motion airport scene.
Just pure motion.
Quick,
overwhelming,
and strangely right.
That is how this expat story started. Not with certainty, but with a leap into the unknown.
Little did I know that moving to Rome meant that I would soon be standing at Pope Francis’s final mass, attending his funeral, watching the conclave unfold in real time, and somehow ending up on international news.
Never would I have imagined finding myself invited to Milan Fashion Week by designers I had only ever admired through a screen, pretending to act normal while being dropped off in front of a pit of photographers.
All of this, while still being a university student who discovered espresso martinis for the first time at a jazz club near the Spanish Steps. Turning one martini into eight, and stumbling home at sunrise with no phone, no Italian, and zero sense of direction.
This is only the beginning.
Welcome to The Expat Editorial.
