After leaving Morocco, my family lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Bay Ridge is home to many Arab-Americans. Every time I walked around the Bay Ridge Avenue subway station, I felt less nostalgic to Morocco. The presence of Arabic words on store signs and the friendly Arab voices made the new atmosphere a lot more welcoming. The large Arab population in the nearby zones schools helped my three siblings and I make new friends. Outside of Bay Ridge, my family struggled to understand non-Arab cultures.
Just three stops away from Bay Ridge Avenue on the R train is 95th Street. I worked there every weekend at a small pharmacy to help my father pay the bills. The surroundings of this station are totally different from what I am used to seeing twenty-five streets away. The people spoke unfamiliar languages, dressed differently, and ate differently. Right across the street from the train station stood a Roman Catholic Church. That was the first time I saw a church up close. Being predominantly Muslim, Morocco has very small numbers of Christians and churches. On Sunday mornings, a dozen people entered the church as I watched them from the other side of the street. I questioned why other Americans from the neighborhood did not join them inside the church. If many Americans are Christians, why do more people attend the small mosque on Bay Ridge Avenue than people attend this church? The small mosque on Bay Ridge Avenue was very crowded that I always struggled to enter it. The church was approximately three times the size of the mosque. This means that more people can easily fit inside the church. This question baffled me for a long time. It was later in school when I learned that urban areas have less religious people than rural and suburban areas. This did not answer my question. Before coming to America, I lived in Casablanca, Morocco. Casablanca is a very large and technologically developed city. Despite its urban setting, Moroccans prayed five times a day at the call of the Azan.
During my first school year in the U.S., I visited Times Square and Rockefeller Center with the rest of my history class. That trip marked my first visit to Manhattan without my parents and siblings. On the train, I was amazed at how different ethnic groups coexisted in the same space. In North Africa, it is unlikely for Moroccans to coexist with Algerians and indigenous Sub-Saharan people. My observation agreed to the relationship between setting and liberalism. However, it did not explain why urban Americans are tolerant towards those who are different.
The teacher told the class to exit the D train at Rockefeller Center. While the other students just followed the teacher, I was walking around myself in circles. I started to think that my definition of “an urban city” might be different from the American definition. In Morocco, I never saw that many people use mass transportation. The only time half of these people were gathered was either at a street festival or a parliamentary election queue. In Morocco, people seemed to know each other very well. In New York, everyone seemed anti-social and unwilling to start conversations. Is this because New Yorkers have a lot on their mind? Or is this because not all New Yorkers speak English?
When I left Rockefeller Center station, a whole new world opened to my eyes. I was surprised to find so many cars and people on the same block. People did not have a chance to talk to one another. There was no space for two or three people to gather in a corner and start a conversation. Everyone walked down the street at different speeds without paying attention to others around them. Taxi drivers were either waiting for a green light or were racing each other down the avenue. Everything was very dynamic. As I walked to Times Square, I got dizzy from the bright lights on tall buildings and the noises from the cars rushing past me. It is unfair to consider Casablanca an urban city after coming to NYC. Even Brooklyn was very distinct from its neighboring borough. Brooklyn was a lot quieter and had less people on its streets. Brooklyn did not have as many people, cars, and tall buildings near its subway stations. Brooklyn was just a dead borough if I had to compare it to Manhattan. When I returned back to Brooklyn, I was very fatigued. I did not ask my family members about their day. I was sure their day did not involve as much action as mine. After silently eating, I went to play basketball with my friends in Leif Ericson Park until dusk.
Brooklyn was home to about two million people. Since Brooklyn was mostly residential, many people from Brooklyn went to Manhattan for work. The commute from Manhattan to Brooklyn was very tiring, slow, and long. Many people from Bay Ridge took the R train and transferred to an express train to reach Manhattan. Most of them worked five or six days a week from morning till evening. By the end of the day, many people sleepwalked on their way home. Friday was the only day when people had a dull smile on their tired faces. The weekend was a time for people to restore their energy and be ready to return to work on Monday. This dry and monotonous lifestyle gave a more logical explanation for the lack of miscellaneous activities. At the end of the day, everyone was more concerned about having food on the table. People had no time or energy to show their dislike towards other ethnicities. Everyone lived in New York just to make money. Money was the only thing people lived for.
