Home Is Where the Heart Is

New York City is home. It is home to fashion, to cuisine, to theater, to the arts. It is home to Carrie Bradshaw and her three best friends, to the Ghostbusters, to Jerry Seinfeld and the likes. It is also home to over 8 million people, who walk its streets, who see its sights, and who play the most important role of in making New York City what it is. There is one aspect of New York, though, that is often either forgotten or ignored: it becomes a home to those who have lost theirs. In essence, New York City is really a home for the “others”—for the people either escaping their countries or being forced out of them, for the people escaping their states or being forced out of them, for the people who are looking for a place to accept them, for a place where they belong. New York is a refuge, a haven—though with its intimidating skyscrapers and jagged skylines it may not seem like it at first glance.

My family came to America with a specific goal: to build a better future for the next generation. The Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse and the government allowed Jews to immigrate to Israel as part of the Zionist movement. After the plane landed in Israel, they either stayed or continued their journey, which is how my family found their way to America. It wasn’t the American dream as we as a society like to define it, but it was theirs. They packed up and left their lives behind for a vision of streets lined with gold and women weighed down by their diamonds—or, more realistically, a job and a home. They soon found that the former was hard to find and the latter was hard to make. How could somewhere so foreign truly feel like home?

More than twenty years later, it is hard for my family to remember a time when New York was not “home” in every sense of the word. My family represents one facet of the immigrant story—surely a more realistic one than “West Side Story” presents us with, but only one example. Immigration has been a constant in America ever since its inception, and even the country’s beginnings were based on immigration (though tenth-generation Americans do not always like to view it as such). In the ever-changing New York landscape lamented by writers such as E.B. White and Cynthia Ozick, the immigrant story is one that does not fade.

Perhaps that is why it is simple to feel at home here. When being amongst such a rich variety of faces and personalities, it can be much easier to feel welcome. In the case of those immigrating to the city, there are always communities ready to help during the adjustment period. It is often said that neighborhoods are “segregated” by ethnicity, but it must be understood that there is a comfort that comes along with being among your own culture when you are thrown into a new one. That being said, it is also not true for all neighborhoods, as many are a true mixture of cultures and ethnicities, acting representative of the diversity of New York City. Ozick wrote of the game of War in which young girls simulated said war by picking a country they were representing and then fighting for a pink rubber ball to win. The girls all came from different backgrounds haling from all over the globe, and here they were interacting and playing together in one city (Ozick 952). Though the ethnic makeup of many neighborhoods has since changed, New York remains a home to hundreds of cultures, both in demography and in spirit.

The “others” that find solace and refuge in New York are not only immigrants. People move to the city from across the country or just from one state north or west, always in search of opportunities and trying to find them in what E.B. White deems as “the city of opportunity” (White 704). How many books and movies have depicted artists or writers or dancers or singers fighting their way to make it to the streets of New York City despite obstacles and adversity? It can be hard to follow your passions when the economy is on shaky feet and your family and friends are begging you to get that business degree. Or what if that business degree is what you are geared toward—what better place to attain one than New York? Just like for immigrants, though, the transition period for newcomers to the city may be long and tedious, or it may be an instant connection. Regardless, a business mogul or celebrity’s autobiography will always have one chapter, at the least, devoted to his or her relationship with the city of New York.

Yet how can a city that has been deemed the loneliest in the world possibly truly feel like a home rather than simply a collection of houses? E.B. White said it best: “New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation” (White 697). There is a balance that needs to be found between these two aspects of the city, and for some it can be hard to achieve (Senior 1). Not all artists stay in the city, nor do all immigrant families. It is natural for people to have differing opinions on the tone and ambience of the city and it is not written in some New Yorker contract that you have to love it. On the other hand, there are those that brave New York City’s isolation for the thrill of being on a crowded sidewalk or a packed museum just to be amongst other New Yorkers. Rushing down the street past yellow taxicabs and towering buildings and those darn tourists that need to stop every few feet to take a picture is a unique experience. For some it is not a pleasant one, but for others it is the epitome of what makes New York feel like the city people dream of.

At the end of the day, “home” can mean whatever you want it to. An apartment in New York City does not have to signify a home there if its occupants are yearning for the streets of Paris. The fact still remains, however, that New York City is a home to millions. Manhattan is only one borough, with four more right alongside it sharing a long history and a large population. They are also all evolving, as White and Ozick suggested at the close of their individual essays. New York City was once a more mysterious place back when “home life” was almost synonymous with “suburbia” (Senior 2), but nowadays strollers are in abundance on the its crowded streets. Yet there must be a reason people come here to build a future, whether for themselves or for their children, and it may be because New York City has a future. We want “future” and “home” to be synonymous as well, as we live in a world where both are truly commodities. What gets people to stay in New York, however, is truly the city itself.

 

Works Cited

Ozick, Cynthia. “The Synthetic Sublime.” Quarrel & Quandary: Essays. New York: Knopf, 2000. 946-61. Print.

Senior, Jennifer. “Alone Together.” NYMag.com. N.p., 23 Nov. 2008. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.

White, E. B. Here Is New York. New York: Harper, 1949. Print.