Being An American

  

   
     The final project for my Ethnic Literature course at Kean University was to present a digital story about, "What it means to me to be an American," and it was very emotional. Besides the fact that my audio did not work during my presentation like it did an hour before class, I was saddened and discouraged by the one and only question that came from a classmate in the audience. The question was, "Are you saying we should still be blaming the white man for our problems?" I thought in my mind, I could not have done a good job of expressing my story if bitterness and blame is the only 'take-away' the class perceived about me being an American. My feelings about America stems from the Hope I have that we as a nation can work together and create a truly equal nation for all the people.
  

"The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World" 1886

     Most of my classmates digital stories spoke about how they, their parents or grandparents immigrated to America for a better life of opportunities. Others described the identity crisis that comes from being a first generation American or a tragic event that bought their family together. That is all wonderful and I sincerely loved hearing the diverse multicultural experiences of American life. However I did not immigrate to this country. My ancestors were always here. See I am an American whose ancestors helped the pilgrims survive and I am also a descendant of people who were forced to build America with free labor.

 From (1910-1930) & (1940-1970)

     To me, my American story is not about how my father migrated north to escape the Jim Crow oppression of Georgia in 1964. Nor is my American story about my mother. She was born in New Jersey but wrongly imprisoned for six years of her youth in 1958 because her case was seen by a judge, who saw no need to be lenient to a group of people predisposed to antisocial, violent behavior. I could not present these stories leading to my birth because my parents' American story is not my story, it is their story. My story of being an American is about having Hope for Americans, who look like me and cannot assimilate into the ideal image of an American, despite the "everyone is equal" motto.

Book by: Dr. Beth E. Richie (2012)

     

     As I thought about a final topic for this blog entry and my digital story was just short of a debacle, I decided to write my story about being an American. Writing my story seems only fitting since I am a descendant of two ethnic groups distinctly known for great storytelling. Perhaps I can make my ancestors proud by telling my own story of Hope? My Hope is that other Americans will eventually be willing to openly discuss the remaining barriers my people still face on our journey of social mobility, without assimilated people feeling like my people are playing "the race card."

     My story begins as a child growing up in Newark, New Jersey. Almost all of the people in my neighborhood migrated from sharecropping fields somewhere in the segregated south. The only exceptions to my complexion were the few Spanish speaking families from U.S. territories in the Caribbean. Those Caribbean descendants would move out the area and assimilate into America the moment they earned enough money to move to neighborhoods that were more pale, like Belleville or Nutley, New Jersey. These particular towns and areas were notorious for harassing descendants like me back then.

     My neighborhood in the South Ward of Newark was filled with vacant lots us kids would play in. Those bare dirt lots were the remnants of burned down homes and businesses from the riots of 1967, which happened only five years before my birth.

     I knew everybody in the neighborhood and they knew me and my family. In the summer, makeshift teams played baseball in West Side Park, which was the Great American Past-time. Folks in the South, West and Central Wards would gather in the bleachers to watch the games. This helped us beat the heat as most folks did not have air conditioning. And when it got dark, the street lights came on and kids had to be home. It was not uncommon in my youth before cell phones, to see a mother, stick her head out the window and scream for her children to come home and eat supper like we were still in the fields. Back in those days, our parents called lunch, dinner and dinner was supper, which was another remnant of our parents southern culture. Children like me learned respect for others very young. In fact, it was improper for a child to call an adult by their first name. Adults in authority like teachers were always referred by their last names and if that adult was on a first name basis, you had to place a Miss or Mister before their name as a sign of respect. If you did not follow this proper name rule, that adult could smack you, then they would tell your parents a day later, and your parents would smack you again and make you go apologize to your elder for blatant disrespect!

     I was very fortunate growing up that my parents were firmly established in the American Dream with their own two family home that had a finished basement and a big backyard we used for cookouts. I went to a private school, where all the kids looked like me. We learned about the Civil War and Juneteenth in addition to Andrew Jackson and Independence Day. My mother stayed at home to care for me my dad worked long days. My folks were firm believers in the American Dream. So dad decided to buy a bigger house across town, in a better neighborhood, and make our old home a rental property. Dad said, "One day this house will be your income producer." I had no idea what he meant at that time.

     This new neighborhood was very different from the norm I was used to. All the houses had large front lawns with driveways, they had white picket fences and some of the houses even had pools. Our new house had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen with a nook, dining room, den and stairs in the front and back of the house. This new place looked like the house on the early 1980's television show "Momma's Family." I loved that I had a big bedroom and my dad converted another bedroom into a play room just for me. I was loving this American Dream, so far.

     All our neighbors appeared to have stepped right out of an American sitcom, where folks jogged early in the morning and a boy on a bike delivered the newspaper everyday. I was excited to meet and play with these new TV kids, (a nickname I gave them back then). In my old community, a kid with a new bike, skates, and a big fig tree in the backyard just waiting to be picked for snacks, would be welcomed to play any time. Sadly, these new strange looking TV kids didn't play outside and when they did, no one would invite me to join, even with all my cool toys. That was the hardest summer ever. 

     By the time I started my new Catholic school on this side of town, I was one of five or six novelties in the whole school. In my class, the girls would giggle at me, feel my hair or touch my skin, and make crude remarks. Before moving here, everyone always complimented my hair for being so long, wavy and curly past my shoulders. Here the girls would ask me, "If we cut your hair... and roll it into a ball, will it work like Brillo?" Perhaps one of the most confusing experiences I had with the TV kids was being the only kid not asked to come into a classmate's house for a snack after-school. His mother says, "I just can't okay." All the other kids went inside and had cookies with their juice but his mom was still nice enough to give me a disposable cup with juice in it, to take with me on my way home.

     I was about ten years old when it became clear to me that I was somehow different. No matter how many toys I had, I could never assimilate into being like my neighbors. Then my dad had a minor car accident at a stop sign around the corner from our home. It was late that night in the summer, when it happened and my dad got out of his Lincoln Town Car to see if the woman driving the other car was okay. I guess she was expecting to see one of the TV

Lincoln Town Car 1979

people get out the Lincoln or perhaps she was really tipsy when she ran the stop sign. Whatever was her issue, upon seeing my dad pop out the car, she screamed out "RAPE!" My dad said she was hysterical and would not calm down. She kept screaming rape, until she woke up the sleeping neighbors. A group of TV men answered this woman's call for help. The men came running over, some even had baseball bats. They beat my father until he was bloody and unconscious in the middle of the road. Then they went on to destroy dad's car that he loved so much because he was able to pay it off before we moved to the new house.

     When dad woke up it was daybreak and he was bloody, battered and bruised. He stumbled and walked himself home, then called my uncle over to help him get his vandalized car that was left in the middle of the street. I came down the kitchen stairs early that morning to find my father beaten so badly that his left eye was swollen and closed. His other eye was bloodied, his lips were swollen and bruised and his clothes were torn in shreds with various nasty cuts and scrapes covering his body. My mother was angry. I asked what happened she said, "Mr. Charlie still screwing up our lives." I felt the tears coming down my cheeks. My mother saw me starting to cry and told me, "Go upstairs." She felt I didn't need to see this, as she was doing her best to clean dad's wounds and get the gravel out of his curly, matted hair. I sat at the bottom of the stairs, out of sight eavesdropping on my parents and heard my uncle enter the kitchen. My mom said to him, "See what they did to him? And whats going to happen if we call the police? Nothing cause they all live in the neighborhood." I heard the pieces of gravel falling from his hair onto the linoleum. It was like yesterday I heard mother say, "I guess this is the great American Dream everybody is always talking about. What's so great about it anyway?" 

      The events of that night and subsequent depression my dad endured came flashing back to me years later, when I was in high school. It was nearing the end of the school year and my best friend volunteered to be an assistant coach for a summer little league baseball team that played in parks around Newark.

St. Benedict's Prep School, Newark, NJ

My friend was a good young man, who attended St. Benedict's Prep School for boys. He wanted to be a doctor even though he was like me and couldn't assimilate. He never cut class or did anything illegal because he was college bound and his mother and grandmother did all they could to pay his tuition. As the new assistant baseball coach, he was put in charge of the equipment, meaning he had to bring the bats and balls home after each practice.

     Then one Saturday evening, while walking down the avenue with a couple of baseball bats slung over his shoulder and a duffel bag of balls and gloves, two cops stopped him. They said, "He fit the profile of someone they were searching for that had beaten a man with a bat." My friend said he was a little league coach and just came from a practice but the cops would not listen. They wanted him to get in the back seat and go to the station for a line up. He was only three blocks from home and asked the cops to take him there instead and ask his mother.  The cops laughed and said they had a better idea. They handcuffed him and threw his equipment in the trunk. My friend begged not to be arrested because he had no record and this would hinder his chance at getting into college. The cops mocked him about going to college. When he told them he had a 3.9 GPA they said let's do something extra special for him.

    So instead of the cops taking him to the precinct or to his house, they took him to a desolate industrial area of town. They made him get out the car and get on his knees with the handcuffs still on. For two hours the cops drank and used his own baseball equipment on him until he was bloody and missing teeth. Later that night, they dropped him off at home with his blood still on the baseball bats, (yes I saw the blood on it). That Sunday after church I went to see my friend, which was pretty typical since he lived across the street from my church. When he answered the door and I saw his face I was horrified. I asked what happened? He said very softly, "Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal is real." Back then I dismissed his comment but as an adult I realize the profoundness of that one statement. I asked was he going to the police department to report it and he said, "I can't do that and put my mother and grandmother's house at risk!" He told his mother that he got into a fight coming home so she wouldn't try to report the incident, yet I am the only one he confided this story to and I vowed I wouldn't tell. This is the first time I have told a soul about it.Unfortunately, this event caused him to go into a deep depression and anger and he never became a doctor.

     In America we're all equal and divided only by how hard we work, right? So in 1997 the economy in America was improving and I landed a full time job with benefits at Home Depot. I started as a cashier and became head cashier supervisor in less than a year.  I took my shot at the dream. Back then managers earned over fifty thousand a year compared to my meager thirty-five thousand. In order to become manager, one had to work and learn each department's basics then pass a written exam at the state's home office. I studied and was passing each exam except I could not get a chance to train in the Garden Department. After numerous failed attempts to schedule training with the Garden Manager, I went to the General Manager for help. The General Manager said to me, "I applaud that some of you people aren't afraid of hard work but Garden is not the place for you. Look at it like this, Building Materials and the Lumber Department is the inner city and Garden Department is the suburbs. You aren't ready for the suburbs. Stick to what you know best, the inner city." I replied to my manager, "I don't understand because I grew up in the suburbs, in a house with a backyard." He laughed and walked off. I repeated his statement to other employees and discovered that he made comments like this to other folks like me, who can't assimilate into society. Less than a month later I came to work and found out that I had been transferred to another store.

     After my transfer I got another job. I began working as a receptionist then worked my way up from receptionist, to administrative assistant and then executive assistant at a major insurance company. I learned the business and passed the state licensing exams to become a life and health insurance producer for New Jersey. In four years I quit my job and started a career as a broker.

     Being an insurance broker is just like the movie, "The Pursuit of Happyness," where you make hundreds of calls to get one appointment to sell your product line to the boss. I was so excited to land my first appointment that I studied everything about the company. I learned the names of the executive leaders, how many employees they had and the history of the company's origins. I did this all in an effort to make a great impression and close the sale. I put on a brand new suit and even had my hair done in a wonderfully straight, assimilated style for my first appointment.

     After I parked my Audi in the lot filled with luxury cars like Mercedes, BMW and Lexus, I pushed the button for the elevator to take me up to the tenth floor. Next to me was another gentleman I did not know. We exchanged pleasantries riding up the elevator. We got off the elevator headed to the same office that was the only company on the top floor. He allowed me to walk through the office's glass doors first. At the reception desk, sat a young woman with long red hair and a man in a pin striped suit, who looked just like John Boehner.  I put on my game face ready to give my pitch.

John Boehner, Speaker of the House U.S.

     I smiled deeply and said, "Good Morning how are you?" Both the receptionist and the man in pin stripe stared momentarily then the young woman stood up, shook my hand and said, "Good Morning. You must be here from the agency. I'm glad you're here early so I can show you around and get you set up before I go on vacation." Meanwhile, I see the pin striped guy welcome and shake hands with the assimilated man that rode up on the elevator with me. Now just as I began to correct the receptionist that I have an appointment with the human resource manager, I hear the assimilated guy from the elevator say to the pin stripes, "No, no I'm not with any insurance agency, my name is Carlos... I'm from the temp agency." There was nervous laughter from the pin stripe and the red head and they threw out apologies to me and Carlos. When the receptionist went to find the the human resource manager, he had mysteriously called out that morning due to a family emergency. I never could reschedule another appointment and I did not get that account. This confusing scene of mistaking me for a receptionist became a regular occurrence as I was submerged in a field dominated by traditional looking American men.

     I could be bitter about the treatment endured by people like me, who cannot assimilate into society, but I have had glimmers of Hope along the way with the bad. For instance, a TV kid with short platinum hair apologized for making fun of my hair in grade school. She said, "I only did it because the other girls were doing it." She understood my feelings once she was jumped one day by some girls (who looked like me), and realized what it was like for me being picked on in school everyday. This little girl later became one of my best friends and stuck up for me when kids tried to taunt me.


     My dad's heart experienced Hope too. When I was a teenager, dad became good friends with this trucker guy, who connected him with a second job. I never knew this guy's real name but we all just called him Bunker, which was his CB handle over the road. They called him "Bunker" because he looked just like the sitcom character except he was the total opposite. Bunker would come over for dinner if he got a delivery in New Jersey. My dad and Bunker would swap old stories until late at night. They stayed in contact for years until Bunker moved to Canada.

     All of this is my story about being an American. To me being an American means different things to many people based on their life experiences. America is the land of opportunities however we must be mindful that Americans, who cannot completely assimilate into society's pale image, have more barriers and slower mobility to opportunities and success than others. So although I may come off as bitter or still blaming the white man for my troubles, it is because my experiences in America does not come from an assimilated standpoint. I cannot blend into America with a simple name change or accumulation of wealth. Just ask Kim Kardashian, who has fully assimilated her whole life. She found out about America first hand. In an essay Kim writes, "So the first step I'm taking is to stop pretending like this [racism] isn't my issue or my problem because it is, it's everyone's."

     In conclusion to my story on being an American, I am deeply Hopeful that recognizing a problem exists is the first step to opening a healthy dialogue for a solution. Believing that people are "still blaming the white man," only proves that you are so happy with the privilege you already have in America, that everyone else's view is invalidated. As a nation of multicultural individuals, we need to stop pretending that everyone has an equal slice of the pie or that privilege no longer exists. Acknowledging the problem is the only way we can begin to close the remaining gaps to equality. Mass incarceration, poverty, lack of education and voter disenfranchisement are the remaining barriers to equality in America. This is why Hope is so important to me being an American. Only Hope can give Americans the courage to listen and understand the needs of all Americans  without feeling that the other person is simply whining about something that doesn't exist, because it doesn't happen to you. This is why my American story is about Hope, Hope that we as a nation can work together and create a truly equal America for all the people.

Thank you for reading my blog I realize it is super long. Now I am going over to my mother's house to enjoy a traditional southern meal of Hope... stewed chicken with hoppin johns, greens and cornbread, my favorite.

BridgetQueenLit