New York City is proud of its sparkling reputation as one of the most diverse places on Earth, wearing its title for years like a well-deserved badge of honor. It is no surprise that New York City is an ideal travel location. Brimming with both rich history and up-to-the-minute glamour, all it takes is a thirty-minute subway ride from the Statue of Liberty to the Great White Way. But with tourists pouring in and out every day, and with new residents constantly making their homes in any of the five boroughs…well, the question has to be asked. Where do all these people come from?
It may not be a very telling answer, but New Yorkers come from all over the world. As of January 2015, more than 1 in every 5 New Yorkers were foreign-born. The result? A big city, the self-proclaimed capital of the world, overflowing with culture—in food, dress, tradition, language, societies, information, and…well, everything else. But most important are the people. The people who live in New York City are a fascinating source of history and culture, even when (or maybe especially when) their family history and culture are uncertain. A vague family history is a story line that becomes all the more common in the United States as years pass, years that distance us from our ancestors and the countries from which they came. With unidentified ancestors and an unsure heritage, the possibilities are almost limitless.
Olivia Dellston is the first person in her family to live in New York City, and she lives in the Baruch College Residence Hall on the Upper East Side. Though Olivia has not lived her whole life on Third Avenue, she certainly has adjusted quickly to her new Manhattan lifestyle.
“I like the noise,” Olivia says. “We just went to Virginia for our softball tournament, and I couldn’t sleep because there was no noise. Like, it was dead-quiet. So I actually like the noise. It puts me to sleep.”
Unsurprisingly, the Big Apple’s infamous noise (think: the blaring of car horns; the zooming whooshes of speeding cars; the incessant, floating chatter of residents of the city that never sleeps) is not the only aspect of New York City that has Olivia hooked.
“I like the convenience of everything,” Olivia adds. “Like, everything is right there. There are different options for everything. [Like] Seamless!”
Olivia moved very recently to New York City, in the early fall of 2015. Her move took place just before the start of her first semester at Baruch College, where she studies liberal arts and plays on the softball team. Our initial question applies to Olivia, too. Her destination was New York, but from where did she come?
“I lived right near Atlantic City,” Olivia says of her hometown. “Like three blocks away from Atlantic City.”
What is it like, living in Atlantic City?
“It’s pretty ethnically diverse,” Olivia describes. “There a lot of Hispanic people—and a lot of white people, but in my particular section of the town, it’s a lot of Hispanic people. Half our town is really urban, and half of it is a little more rural. Where I grew up, the houses were kinda farther apart, like ten feet between each house.”
Olivia’s family moved from that house to another house when she was fourteen years old. Referring to this second house, Olivia paints a picture for us of the urban part of her hometown: “The area I lived in as a teenager was…well, there’s a condo building right across the street from my house, and [the area] has more high-rises.”
Like Olivia herself, both of Olivia’s parents were born in the United States. Olivia’s father has lived in New Jersey all his life. Olivia’s mother grew up in Brooklyn, New York, on Bushwick Avenue. Here’s what Bushwick looks like today:
Olivia’s parents met while Olivia’s mother was living in Philadelphia. After meeting, they made their home in New Jersey. When we try to trace back to before this, to Olivia’s grandparents, Olivia’s family history starts to become ambiguous.
When I ask if her grandparents were born in the United States, Olivia replies, “I think so, but I’m not actually sure. I think that my grandparents were all born in America, but then my great grandparents immigrated.”
Without hesitation, Olivia adds, “But that’s kind of a guess, because I don’t actually know.”
Although unsure about which relatives first left for America, Olivia is privy to information about the countries from which they came. She tells me that her dad is of Russian and Austrian descent and that her mom is of Irish and Scottish descent.
The family’s country of origin is more information than many Americans have about their own family histories. A recent study by Ancestry.com indicated that a surprising twenty-seven percent of Americans do not know what countries their families lived in before coming to the United States.
“I’m curious because I know absolutely nothing…And it’s weird because everyone else knows everything about their family.”
Like most anyone else, Olivia is curious about the unknowns within her family history—who her ancestors were, where they came from, and even just their names and occupations. She says, “I’m curious because I know absolutely nothing. I don’t know who was the first to immigrate here, so…I know nothing. And it’s kinda weird because everyone else knows everything about their family.”
To gain some insight into Olivia’s family, I ask about what kinds of traditions they follow.
“We’re all atheists in my family, but we still celebrate Christmas,” Olivia says with a chuckle. “It’s like a family holiday. So we just give each other gifts, but there’s no religious aspect of it. And we also light a menorah for Hanukkah, because my dad was Jewish when he was younger.”
Olivia speaks about what it was like to grow up without a culture that has an easily recognized name and definite customs, holidays, and traditions. She says:
“In school, the one thing that I remember the most is when they would ask everyone what their religion was, and when I would say I was an atheist, they would say, ‘Oh, but what are your parents?’ Like I’m the rebellious teenager, and my family couldn’t just be atheists. So I felt left out sometimes, but…–I don’t know, they included everyone. Like if they were celebrating Christmas, they would give everyone Christmas stuff, so…it was okay.”
In America, a place known for being a country of immigrants, you might think it rare for someone to have little-to-no knowledge of their family’s background and roots. But in reality, it is not as rare as you might guess. The same Ancestry.com study found that seventy-eight percent of Americans are very interested in learning more about their family’s origins. So by no means is Olivia alone.
In Olivia’s story, we see glimmers of what many people consider to be the very beauty of America: the melding of cultures, the combining of customs, and the blending of old traditions to make new ones. In 2016, xenophobia has surged again and runs rampant in the United States, closing the minds of people who forget that America is not exclusively theirs. In Olivia’s story, we see what really makes the United States of America a special, treasured place. An atheist’s home complete with a lit menorah and Christmas gifts, Olivia’s family’s home is the epitome of a modern America.
And having bravely moved to New York City on her own at eighteen years of age, Olivia herself embodies America and its ideals. Just like for her family’s history, within America, the possibilities for Olivia are almost limitless. Olivia says that her friends are impressed by her move to the big city. And when she tells me that some friends mistook her saying she would move to New York in the fall for upstate New York, Olivia laughs and says, “No! Please god, no.”
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