On Being a W.A.S.A. (White Anglo-Saxon Atheist) in Yonkers, NY

I am a chameleon. Not in the sense that I can change my skin color or make my eyes move independently of one another, but in the sense that I feel I can blend in anywhere. Of course, this is aided by the fact that it is becoming less and less weird to run into people who are living in Milwaukee now, but went to school in Texas and were born in Brazil have Swedish girlfriends (for example). I am nowhere near this diverse; born in the Bronx, raised in Yonkers, went to school in Ohio, and now live in Milwaukee. I guess I technically lived in Italy for two months somewhere in there, but I don’t really count that. This background would technically make me a transplanted but native New Yorker, which I felt described me perfectly until I came home to New York after four years of university in southwestern Ohio. I lived on the Lower East Side in Manhattan for a month after graduation, subletting a friend’s apartment for a measly $1100, and seemed to immediately fall back into step with the artfully chaotic lifestyle of the city. I moved back to Yonkers after that, and it was not until I went to visit my university that I realized how quickly I could change. I could be a huffy, hurried, seemingly anti-social young professional on the subway in New York, saying things like “cawfee” (coffee) and “hahrable” (horrible) one minute, and the minute I started talking to my friends in Ohio, I was laid back, open to making small talk with strangers (that would’ve gotten you killed in NY), and speaking like a true Midwesterner. How did I master this?
I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because my parents moved around so much when they were growing up, and I sort of did the same (although I don’t remember it, and we never really moved as much as my parents carted me around to their various biological conferences). My mother, born in College Station, Texas, moved to San Francisco when she was 4. My father was born in Perry, Iowa, and moved to Riverside, California just before his seventh birthday. They both moved to Amherst, Massachusetts when they were in their mid twenties for graduate school, and remained there for awhile – my mom moving to the Bronx first and my dad following a few years later. I think it’s the nature of not living and settling down in the same place where you grew up that makes you look at the new place’s culture from a third-person-omniscient-esque perspective. My mom and I have often had conversations about the differences between New Yorkers and San Franciscans, or New Yorkers and anyone else, basically. New Yorkers, or more specifically, people from Yonkers, are either Catholic, Jewish, or Black (meaning they’re either Baptist or Methodist). We were constantly the only atheists on the block, which was hard to explain as an 8 or 9 year old to people who only knew the “Yonkers trichotomy”. A perfect example of this is a situation that occurred at my mom’s gym. I was probably in 3rd grade, and I would go to the gym and sit and do my homework while she did an exercise class. In her class was a mom of one of my classmates, and one day after the class, we all happen to be walking toward our cars together. My classmate’s mom asked, “So, Barbara! You must be excited about Mary making her First Communion!” My mom, never missing a beat, just smiled and said, “Oh, we would be, but we’re not Catholic.” It just so happened that we both reached our cars, so we were saved from an awkward moment and just said our goodbyes. After we got in the car, my mom laughed a little and said, “Wow. She probably thinks we’re Jewish.” As an 8 year old I couldn’t understand why the obvious alternative to being white and not Catholic in Yonkers was being white and Jewish, but sure enough, my classmate’s mom started asking my mom questions that hinted at our supposed Judaism. Moses probably rolled over in his grave.
In addition to the recognition of said trichotomy, there was another incident that led my parents to refer to all Yonkers Italians as the “Nostaglias”. This came from a typographical error on a flyer from my youth sports club for a pasta dinner one weekend. The flyer urged, “Come join the Nostaglia!” (in addition to having spelled “nostalgia” incorrectly, it also seems to be a common Yonkers error to capitalize words not because they are proper nouns, but for emphasis.) For those of you who may not know, -aglia is a common Italian last name suffix, pronounced in Italian like –alya, pronounced in Yonkers like –aglia. My parents just thought this typo was absolutely hilarious, and came to refer to any Yonkers Italian-American resident who spoke with a loud, New York accent, greeted everyone with two kisses on the cheek, and most likely had dyed hair and fake nails as a “Nostaglia”. Stereotypical? Certainly. But you’d be surprised how many fell into this category.
Furthermore, I was actually convinced up until 10th grade that everyone in Yonkers who was white was Italian, Irish, Polish or Jewish (of Eastern European descent). My sophomore year of high school I met my best friend, Micole Baclija. Of Lebanese and Croatian heritage, I felt a kinship with her on the sole basis that she was NOT Italian and neither was I. Our two other best friends, Liz Van Buren and Amanda Sayegh, were half-Jewish and Arabic respectively, which I found extremely humorous. It seemed as though we represented the B-side of Yonkers.

Milwaukee Blog #1

My third day in Milwaukee has barely started yet, and already I feel like I have done so much. I’m still waiting on my mom to bring up the rest of my luggage, my dresser, and my mini file cabinet, and then I have five boxes that should be here tomorrow as well. But I love my apartment – SO much more room than I had last year, and windows to boot! My roommates, Nancy and Meiyan, and I are getting along really well thus far; it’s helped that we’ve been chatting back and forth all summer. We all have similar interests and outlooks on life, which I love.
Our apartment is on the outskirts of Marquette University, and owned by realty group that seems to employ only Russians. Which, don’t get me wrong, is totally awesome – our landlord, Gary, is a Russian silver fox with an awesome accent. We’re right off a main street, too, so there are a handful of bars, restaurants and shopping within walking distance. We stopped by an Irish pub called Murphy’s last night, got a pitcher of draft Strongbow, and chatted about life, and ended up getting serenaded by a group of drunk college boys. They sang, “All I Have To Give” by the Backstreet Boys – all around a good first night in Milwaukee ☺.