“I guess I’d move back, but only if I had to,” is what my brother’s ex-girlfriend and ex-resident of Baychester, Bellanise Davila, says as we sit down over some sodas and pizza to talk. Baychester is a working-class neighborhood located in the northeast Bronx. Its boundaries are East 222^nd St. to the north, the New England Thruway to the east, Pelham Parkway to the south, and Boston Road to the west.

The Bronx, as a borough, is notoriously neglected. Perhaps the reason for this is the constant shuffle of people that marks Baychester specifically. The neighborhood went from a mainly Italian, German, and Irish area after the second world war to an area inhabited by Hispanics and African Americans. And the reasons for moving in and moving out are the same: cheaper rent and more space and opportunity. However, what really defines Baychester, to me, is its undeniable sense of community despite its constant demographic change.

Last spring, Bella and my nephew Adrian moved from an apartment in the Edenwald projects in Baychester to an apartment upstate in Poughkeepsie: “I needed to get out, you know, for Adrian.” Bella moved to the Bronx from Bushwick, Brooklyn, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, when she left high school in search of a place for herself and her newborn son. Crime and violence were rampant in Bushwick during her childhood. Bella talks of the time one of her classmates (at Grover Cleveland High, where many Brooklyn kids went to school) stuffed her in a locker. She chomps on some ice: “Yeah, I’m serious. You know I’m skinny, but I don’t take shit. And Alexis, she was huge! Like 5’10, 200 pounds. So you know what I did? I took a desk and hit her over the head with it.” Bella was expelled.

She continues, “There was a lot of shit going on in Bushwick. Like, mad violence. No opportunities. It wasn’t like that in the Bronx. I didn’t have to worry about me or my son.” The rent was also much lower in the Bronx than in Brooklyn. Bella found an apartment on 225^th St. and Schieffelin Avenue and stayed there for five years. She laughs: “The government helped me out too though. I’m not gonna front.”

Baychester, to Bella, never became her home. She felt like an outsider as a Puerto Rican and Dominican woman living in a neighborhood in which more than half of its residents are black. “To be real with you, it didn’t bother me, but I did feel like out of place. I was used to Bushwick where all the girls dressed like me and we’d call each other cholas on the street. It wasn’t like a racial comment; it was a joke, but I would never say that in Baychester.”

Bella asks for a refill: “Pepsi with mad ice, please.” When I ask her if she regrets moving to the Bronx, she immediately shakes her head, gulps some Pepsi, and almost chokes: “Hell no, Alexis! I was finally free and on my own in Baychester. I could never regret it.” Baychester was also the place where Bella found a job. She worked as a nurse’s assistant for a home health care agency. Compared to job opportunities in Baychester, the opportunities in Bushwick were seldom.

My family and I spent a lot of time in Baychester when my nephew Adrian was first born. We went to our favorite pizza joint on Boston Road every Friday night. Carlos, the owner, knew our order: one regular pie, one pepperoni, and Pepsi with mad ice. To get to Baychester from my dorm room on 130^th St. and St. Nicholas Terrace, I take the express D train from 125^th St. to Kingsbridge Road and then the Bx26 bus to Bartow Avenue. Before I meet Bella, I stop into the local corner store for some gum. I’m immediately greeted by Gordo, the clerk, who adores me and my family: “Lexi! Ay, caramba! Where have you been, mi corazón?” I tell him about the move to Poughkeepsie, the breakup, and so on. He tells me of all his customers that have moved, the changes in the neighborhood, and how more and more Latinos, especially Puerto Ricans, are moving out to Connecticut. I suddenly turn into the most ridiculous chismosa when I’m talking with Gordo. And this: the laughs, familiarity, los chismes, is what I, and Bella, miss most about the neighborhood.

In a New York Times article, A Place for Renters to Buy In, Alison Gregor writes of Baychester’s demographics: “The population then [post-World War II] consisted primarily of Irish, German and Italian immigrants. Today Baychester is predominantly home to families from Jamaica, Trinidad, Antigua, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Grenada, as well as African- and Italian-Americans.” When I show Bella this article, she sneers: “What does this Alison Gregor know about Baychester? I bet she never lived here.” Like all of us, Bella’s perception isn’t factual. I understand, though, because we spent all our time around the high-rise public housing project called Edenwald, where she lived. There, most of her neighbors were black or West Indian. However, in reality, Bella is not a minority even though she feels like one.

The people of Baychester range in age. Adrian always had kids to play with at the local park. My brother Sean never failed to find a pick up basketball game at the court with other twenty-somethings. Middle-aged and working men and women live there too. The person I remember most, though, is Mr. Owens, the old man who reads on a bench in the Edenwald projects every afternoon. He reads the classics. Bella and I pass by him on our way to get some pizza. “My dear, Alexis,” he says. “Long time no see.” We talk of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Crime and Punishment. (He knows I love to read.) I then ask him about Baychester: “I’m going to say something a bit out there, a bit outlandish, Alexis. I think Baychester is the new up and coming. Just wait and see.” He hears a lot of talk of big developers’ plans to “fix up” the Bronx and make it the “new Manhattan.” Perhaps the Bronx, or specifically Baychester, will soon be the new Harlem, a place where people move to from downtown. Bella and I walk away, smiling, because although we know he’s crazy, we know he’s probably right.

Baychester, in general, is typical of the Bronx. Housing includes apartments, individual homes, and public housing. The neighborhood is mostly residential, except for Boston Road and Baychester Avenue where all the businesses are located. According to Bella, the neighborhood is home to the best auto body shops in New York City. (She wouldn’t know because she only recently learned how to drive.) As we walk around, I compare it to Manhattan. The streets are less crowded. There’s less traffic. Baychester is perfect for someone looking for space, just like Bella was in September 2007 when she was young and scared, looking for an apartment with her son.

“So, B, when you left the Bronx, did you miss your friends?” Bella almost falls off her seat with laughter. “Lexi, are you kidding? Me? Friends? No, I didn’t really make friends in Baychester. I’m not so friendly!” Bella isn’t the most affable woman, but she did make a few friends. Jackie, her neighbor in Edenwald, is one. Like Bella, Jackie recently moved out of Baychester. She moved to Yonkers, a part of New York that New Yorkers call “upstate,” but really isn’t upstate. Like Bella, Jackie moved out of the Bronx for new opportunities and to live less expensively: “I kid you not, Alexis, we was paying double for rent in the Bronx then what we paying now.” After some research, I learned that the rents in the Bronx are not double the rents in Yonkers, but they are more expensive. Mr. Owens agrees too: “Everyday, someone else leaves. It’s weird too, you know, because the Bronx used to be the place people moved to when they were looking for cheaper housing. Now people are going upstate or out of state to pay less rent.”

Bella and I sit in our favorite booth by the window. Carlos comes over with our slices: two plain, two pepperoni: “Chicas, the regular, of course.” Bella is happy in Poughkeepsie. She lives in a massive apartment building right by the Hudson River and Poughkeepsie train station. She’s still working as a nurse’s assistant, but she’s making way more money than she was making in the Bronx. And, most impressively, Bella, a city girl born and bred, drives her own car. I ask if she misses anything about Baychester: “Damn, this pizza is good. Sorry, yeah I do. I miss you…and Gordo!” We laugh, our mouths wide open with pizza until Carlos comes over with a soda cup in each of his hands: “How could I forget your sodas? Pepsi. Mad ice.”

Every weekday morning, I walk along St. Nicholas Terrace to the City College campus on 135^th Street and Convent Avenue. I often listen to music, call my mother, or finish up a reading assignment, but sometimes I let myself think. I smile, too, because I think of my maternal great-grandfather, Bruce Mackinnon Iles, who lived here in Harlem for most of his adult life.

Bruce was born in 1902 to a wealthy family in Port of Spain, Trinidad. His father, Henry Mackinnon Iles, was a prominent attorney and owned quite a bit of land around The Savannah, a beautiful centerpiece of Port of Spain. The Savannah is like Central Park in New York City. It’s where world class cricket is played and where Carnival is hosted annually before Lent. Henry also owned the land in which the famous Hilton Hotel, also called “The Upside Down Hotel,” stands today. The lobby of the hotel is on the top floor and guests travel down the elevator to reach their rooms. (My mother and I stayed at this hotel on our recent trip to Trinidad.)

My great-grandfather Bruce spent his early childhood in Trinidad. For a wealthy family, the eldest son goes into his father’s occupation and the second son is destined for the military. Bruce was the second male child. His older brother Julian, though, left Trinidad for law school in London. He left at the right time for their father, Henry, had many mistresses and illegitimate children. Bruce’s mother, Julia Grace, had enough and packed her whole family’s bags to accompany Julian to London. Henry Mackinnon Iles was left in Trinidad with all his mistresses and children. He eventually died there.

Once in London, Julia and her children were living lavishly through Henry’s money. Unfortunately, after myriad bad decisions, Henry succumbed to debt, lost his license to practice law, and also lost all his assets. The family in London no longer had adequate funds to stay in luxury. My great-grandfather Bruce decided to move to New York before his family were to accompany him. New York, to them, was a land of opportunity.

I walk through Central Park every Friday afternoon. Sometimes I close my eyes and dream of The Savannah in Trinidad. I see old men playing chess, university students bickering over politics, cricket players, children, young women swinging to calypso during Carnival. I see Bruce, a child, crying over melted ice cream and my great-great grandmother, Julia Grace, saying, “Baby, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

Bruce came to New York City on a ship from London, England. He had long ago abandoned the idea of a military career and was too distracted by the potential opportunity to be found in New York. Immediately, he met my striking great-grandmother Olga Carew and after a quick courtship, he married her. They started a family of three children: my grandmother (or my Lala) Gloria, Grace, and Horatio (H.O.). They all were born within a six-year period from 1924 to 1930. Bruce’s family, including his mother and sisters, eventually made their way to New York. They all lived together in an apartment in Harlem.

For them, and for most of the families at that time, money was an issue. Bruce could never hold a steady job. He worked as a floor finisher, a photographer during the WPA (New Deal) period, a laborer in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and even as an actor. He had a booming voice and British accent. But of all de special talents dat we Trinis possess is de way we talk dat ranks us among de best. Although he could never hold onto a job for long, his most impressive positions were brief stints as a staff photographer for Life and Look magazines. My Lala always talks of her father’s photography talents.

In all the photographs I’ve seen of my great-grandfather Bruce, he always looks angry. He was at odds with everyone; Bruce was abusive to his wife Olga and his children. My Lala says he was “a spoiled brat, but could never afford to be one” and she talks of his terrible temper. Although Bruce was bad-tempered, perhaps I understand why. I think of all he had to deal with: constant moving, family drama, problems with money, missed opportunities. Bruce was undoubtedly a violent and angry man, but he was also a frustrated intellectual and photographer who could never rise to his potential. He was unhappy. Of course, his unhappiness can never be an excuse for his behavior and the damage to his family that ensued.

Bruce led a solitary life; he read alone in his room despite the large size of his family. In 1956, the year my mother Diane was born, my great-grandmother Olga left Bruce to live with my Lala and help with her first (and only) granddaughter. Bruce finally knew what it felt like to be truly alone. Now, we laugh when we talk of Olga leaving Bruce. We say that she embodies the old Trinidadian saying: Better fish in di sea dan wha get ketch. The saying means that there’s always a better lover than your current one.

My great-great grandfather’s life was sad for he had promise, but could never overcome his own disappointment. He let frustration run his life. In 1983, Bruce died from a combination of arthritis and complications caused by consuming too much aspirin over the years. He was eighty-one years old.

I asked my grandmother Lala if he was ever content. She answered, “You know, he was sometimes. I only remember him smiling when he was taking pictures or organizing his materials. He was a brilliant photographer, Alexis.” I finally saw some of Bruce’s photographs. My favorites are those taken of my grandmother in Harlem in 1942. I look through them on my way to class at City College. My Lala, beautiful and eighteen years old, smiles and stands next to Shepherd Hall in one of the pictures. In another, the light catches the left side of her face as she sits on the quad near the Compton and Goethals building. And for a moment, I think it’s me.

         My maternal great-grandmother, Olga Carew, was born in Tobago in 1902. At the tender age of one, her father, Conrad Carew, a successful pharmacist, was poisoned and died. Soon after, her mother died as well and Olga was left with her eight brothers and sisters. She was passed from relative to relative during her childhood and attended school in Wales and then in Trinidad. At eighteen, Olga boarded a ship to the United States and set sail for Boston to live with her sister Irma and to finally feel at home.

            After a short stay in Boston, Olga moved to New York City with her sister where she got a job dancing the Charleston on Broadway. She immediately met my great-grandfather, Bruce Iles, who was a handsome man from a good family in Trinidad, and after a brief courtship, they married.

            Olga and Bruce had three children: Gloria (my grandmother) in 1924, Grace in 1926, and Horatio in 1928. They raised their children in Washington Heights. When my grandmother, or my Lala, talks of her childhood she says, “Alexis, those people had the nerve to ask me where I came from.” Lala replied and asserted that she was born in America. In her mind, the city rejected her and her identity as a West Indian woman. Today, Lala wonders if I struggle with the challenges she faced growing up. It is true that all my life, people have asked me about my heritage, but unlike my grandmother, I encourage the questions she detested.

            In 1954, Lala married my grandfather, Edward Allen. Eddie was a childhood friend who grew up in the same building as her. His family is of purely Irish decent. Eddie was an intelligent, loving man who dedicated his life to teaching 8^th grade English in Harlem. He was beloved by all. I am proud to say that my grandparents married outside their ethnicity. They married for love and not for what society said was right. Lala and Poppa had my mother, Diane, in 1956. Two years later they had my uncle Frank and another two years later, they had my uncle Tony.

            In 1961, Eddie and Gloria left Washington Heights with their three children and moved to Hicksville, Long Island. Their primary reason for leaving the city was to find a better school system for their children. My mother and uncles spent most of their childhood in suburbia, a town mostly inhabited by Italians, Irish, and Jews. Again, people would ask my grandmother what country she came from: “The neighbors would stare at me and your mother, Alexis.” It was true, my family looked different than the rest of the people in Hicksville, but the discrimination didn’t prevent my mother from marrying the person she loved. Just like my grandparents, my mother disregarded the opinions of her neighbors and married my father, Thomas Romano, a man from Maspeth, Queens who had an Italian father and an Irish and German mother.

          My parents eventually moved to one of the only two cities on Long Island, a place called Long Beach, on the south shore. Long Beach is an incredibly diverse community in which me and my older brother Sean spent our whole lives.

“All crab fine dey hole,” is what my  Lala’s cousin, Gordon, told me on my recent trip to Trinidad. The saying means that everyone finds their place in life. My mother and I went back to Port of Spain, Trinidad this passed January. We felt at home.

Bethany Herrmann’s story begins with strife and ends with love. Her maternal grandmother, Esther Elstein, was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1930. Her whole life changed at the age of nine when the Nazis invaded Poland and her family was forced into a concentration camp. Esther was blonde and blue-eyed and with the sacrifice of her mother, she was able to escape. Unfortunately, she never saw her family again. After her escape, Esther stayed in Poland, worked as a nanny, and pretended not to be a Jew; her Aryan looks benefited her for no one suspected her true identity.

When World War II ended and Nazi Germany was defeated, it was still unsafe to live as a Jew in Poland. Esther then moved with her husband, Abba, to Haifa, Israel in search of safety and happiness. Once there, they had Bethany’s mother and uncle. Although Abba was a doctor, it was difficult for the couple to live and support a family comfortably in Israel. Esther did receive some schooling, but she couldn’t find a steady job. Abba and Esther decided to move to the United States when Bethany’s mother was nine and her uncle was seven. Their decision to move to New York, specifically, was not only due to the need for better opportunities and work, but also for religious freedom. America, in their minds, was a place of acceptance.

The family moved to Mount Vernon, New York, an especially Catholic and African American area at the time. There weren’t many synagogues in their new home, but Bethany’s mother and uncle went to Jewish schools and unlike their mother, they did not live their lives in fear of being Jewish. According to Bethany, her mother’s lack of dedication to her Jewish religion may be because of the fear produced by the war back in Europe. Although she isn’t particularly Jewish, Bethany says, she is still proud of her culture.

Esther Elstein thrived in America; always a gifted seamstress, she opened her own store in New Rochelle (a town close to Mount Vernon) where she sold lady’s undergarments, including underwear, bras, corsets, stockings, nightgowns, and lots of customized pieces. She also sold prosthetic breasts to women who had undergone mastectomies. Esther owned that store for forty-two years. Bethany’s grandfather, Abba, was a doctor and never had trouble finding a job. Her grandparents pressured her mother to do well in school and in turn, Bethany’s mother went to SUNY Binghamton and received a degree in social work and anthropology.

Bethany considers this side of her family to be immigrants because they came from Europe to the U.S., longing for liberty and happiness. She doesn’t consider herself an immigrant, though, because she was born in the States and was raised American.

Ironically, Bethany’s other side of the family is from Germany. At first, when Bethany’s mother and father started to date, Esther did not approve. As a woman who escaped the Holocaust, it was natural for her to disapprove. However, as she got to know her daughter’s boyfriend, Esther realized that they wanted to be together and she disregarded her own prejudices and accepted Bethany’s father into the family. Bethany is especially proud of her grandmother’s decision to accept her father and she has every right to be. A traumatizing experience with a certain group of people inevitably taints someone’s view of the group, but in Esther’s case, she ignored her deep-rooted resentments and embraced love over hate.

Bethany’s paternal grandfather came from Germany to the United States as a young boy. His family left Europe due to extreme poverty and settled in The Bronx. They had a large family of five children and were practicing Christians. Their hope was to move to a place in which they could live comfortably, but in reality, it was difficult even in New York. The family struggled. Bethany’s grandfather, however, rebelled against his Christian upbringing and eventually considered himself an agnostic; he strived to fit in with his American peers. He eventually married and had Bethany’s father who also grew up in The Bronx, close to Yonkers. According to Bethany, her father wasn’t urged by his parents to excel in school and as a result, he never became academically strong. Her father never went to college; he was more into craftsmanship for he worked on cars, air conditioners, and framing for a long time before he started his own business. Perhaps Bethany gets her craft from her father, for she strives to be an architect and she gets her intellect from her mother, for she is a Macaulay scholar. Bethany doesn’t consider her father an immigrant because he was born in the United States.

When I interviewed Bethany, she said that she owes her existence to World War II. In her opinion, if the war never happened, neither side of her family would have fled Europe in search of freedom. And if her family hadn’t left their native countries, her parents never would’ve met and she would never have been born. She smiles when she says this: “I can’t believe I exist because of a war.” I ask her if her grandmother Esther ever thought about this. “What do you mean?” she asks. I clarify, “I mean, I wonder if while she was a nanny living in disguise in Poland she ever thought of the positive consequences of the war. When there is war, those affected by it focus on the negatives. Who would’ve known that if the war didn’t occur, she wouldn’t have been blessed with a granddaughter like you?”

Bethany’s family history is an inspirational one for many reasons. Her family was relentless in their demand for liberty and happiness. They sacrificed their lives as they knew them, left behind their homes and family, boldly took control of their lives and came to the New World. They overcame countless struggles, including their own prejudices, and welcomed love in lieu of hate.