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 ☺.

New York, you're (not) bringin' me down.

Crowd rushing by Ground Zero, NYC.

You could not invent a city like New York. Wild, fast-paced, ambitious, and dirty, upon first glance. It doesn't take long to see the other part of the city, though. I'm talking about the one where a businesswoman balances her purse, briefcase, bagel, cup of coffee, and cell phone while gracefully weaving through pedestrian (and automobile) traffic at a breakneck pace. She does not drop anything, even when she reaches for the free copy of AM New York from a man outside the 42nd St. - Bryant Park subway station. Instead of keeping your eyes fixed on the tops of skyscrapers, you notice the couple eating breakfast by the fountain on Madison Ave. or the Chinese family (all eight members) walking their youngest son to school on Hester St.

On my last day in NYC, I deliberately walk and take the subway to soak up as much New York-ness as possible. "Days Like This" by Van Morrison plays on my iPod, and it seems very fitting. Moving back to my parents' house after four years of college freedom plus an extra month in the city has made me regret this moment. I know it's not forever; I have a teaching job lined up in Milwaukee in August. I guess it's just the principle of it.

Un'anno por una riflessione.

This week is the one year anniversary of a lot of things. My debut (and final) performance in the senior division at the synchronized skating national championships, the decision to stop skating, my whirlwind trip to belgium to visit my fabulous best friend, the purchase of my trusty olive green longchamp (still in my possession today), and the beginning of a relationship with a wonderful guy.

I've had scads of time to think and reminisce as I round the corner on my third hour in the Dayton airport waiting for my connecting flight to Atlanta.

A year ago I was a world-class athlete, and was seriously unhappy because I didn't love my sport anymore. I hadn't loved it for a while - after my study abroad experience, I began to fill my heart with love for other things. I was growing out of my childish belief that skating was who I was, that it defined me. I spent two months without my love, and to my surprise, I survived. And upon my arrival back to Oxford, back to the skating world, I was enlightened: "Skating shouldn't define who you are, it should enhance who you are." A slightly more specific version of the "who you are defines what you do" saying. After that summer, I was no longer the impassioned ice skater hungry for a world championship title. I wanted to be, though - and I think it is this want that kept me going through the numerous asthma attacks, the early morning practices, the weeks I spent more hours on the ice than in class - but at the end of the year I realized it wouldn't be fair to my teammates who still wanted that championship for me to continue skating. Now, I have found passion in many other things - and many other people - that I never would have found if I didn't end my skating career.

A year ago I was unsure of my place in the world, unsure of what the future held. For all I knew I would be spending my fall semester in Buenos Aires. Now, I have more direction, and am spending next year giving back to people in a city much like the one I grew up in. Children who face budget cuts with the beginning of every new school year, who don't get to play football after school because there isn't enough funding for it, who don't get to take swimming as a part of gym (and instead spend gym class sitting on the gym floor while the coaches try to figure out how to deal with 150 kids for 47 minutes). Children who have dreams bigger than their bank accounts. I can't wait to go back to the kind of place I'm familiar with after spending 4 years in privileged microcosm. It will be intense, and it will be hard. and I can't wait.

A year ago, I was without love. Sure, I had familial love and friendly love, but something wasn't there. It's true what they say about things coming along when you least except them. For all I knew, I was going out to celebrate my best friend's 21st birthday with a few friends. Little did I know the stranger who challenged my knowledge about the lyrics of American Pie would be the one to fill the void.

Egypt: The Social Network

Originally developed as a way for Harvard students to find out who was dating whom, Facebook has advanced across collegiate networks and across oceans. When we thought Facebook was the ultimate social networking site, Twitter came along, and has 175 million users (as of September 2010). The world reached, according to the U.N. International Telecommunications Union, 1.6 trillion sent text messages (that’s 200,000 texts per second). While Facebook, Twitter, and texting are widely used as procrastination methods in the United States, they are vectors of political change in other areas of the world.

In 2001, a protest in the Philippines to bring down corrupt president Joseph Estrada was coordinated partially by a mass text message sent that read, “Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk," according to Foreign Affairs journal. EDSA stood for Epifianio de los Santos Avenue, a major road in the capital of Manila. Three days later, the president was out of office. Five years later, in 2006, Filipinos received another mass text, this time protesting the inaction of Arroyo’s administration on a chain of unsolved murders and abductions, and the texts read, “WEAR RED. BRING BANNERS,” according to the Washington Post. About 1,000 students converged on an area near the presidential palace at the same time, catching police off guard; their rally made the nightly news.

These protests were made possible by the instantaneous nature of sending electronic messages, but what do you do when the government you’re protesting against cuts off all internet outlets? Getting the message of your out there becomes a challenge, as we have seen in Egypt over the past three weeks. President Hosni Mubarak’s government partially lifted the ban on Internet service, but social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are still inaccessible. The initial ban, though, showed just how afraid Egypt’s administration was of information leaking outside its borders, and it seems like a last-ditch effort to save themselves from having to step down. While the argument can be made that Mubarak’s 30-year reign was an authoritarian one, he did not police internet access the way China’s government has. In fact, China has blocked the word ‘Egypt’ from showing up on the country’s own version of Twitter, called Sina, according to Al-Jazeera. Of all the foes governments face day to day, I never imagined social media outlets would be one of them.

The government couldn’t keep a tight enough grip on the constantly-advancing technological world, though – ‘speak2tweet’, a service made available by Google and SayNow, allows people to call or text a number, and that message would be automatically converted to a ‘tweet’. As much as I am disappointed by distracting myself with social media while I should be studying, I am glad that the services can be manipulated for productive purposes. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter’s new tagline becomes, “Please consider us when organizing your next protest”.

Arizona

Louisiana is to hurricane as Arizona is to political backwardness.
Recently, Arizona has been in the news a lot, crazy immigration laws, schools restricted from teaching "ethnic studies" and now the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others.
Arizona first struck me this past summer when I visited a cousin who lives there. I went with her to her summer English class, and quite frankly, I was appalled.
My cousin, who in many respects would be considered quite intelligent and always had stellar grades, still confused "their," "there" and "they're." One student in the class was having trouble understanding the difference between a comma and a semicolon.
I knew funding for education was on a statewide basis and that education is not created equal across the 50 states. According to the Goldwater Institute, Arizona has actually upped its spending on education by 20 percent in the first decade of the 2000s.
This increase in state spending and resulting increase in taxes thrust upon the residents of Arizona came without an increase in performance, however.
For example, Arizona's performance on the nationwide fourth and eighth grade math, science and reading tests increased by a meager one percent during the same time period.
On the same thread of education, a new law was enacted with the coming of the new year, a ban on the teaching of ethnic studies or Mexican-American studies in Tucson public schools.
These classes look at history from a more specific point of view than a regular American history class would.
The superintendent of public instruction in Arizona, Tom Horne, alleges teaching these classes divides students up by race (so only Mexican-Americans are enrolled in Mexican-American studies classes) and the classes teach students they're living in occupied Mexico and that white imperialists run the U.S. government.
"Horne has never visited an ethnic studies class in eight years," said Lucky Severson, a reporter for PBS News Hour.
If schools fail to abide by the law, the state can withhold 10 percent of monthly education aid.
"Eleven educators in Tucson's Mexican-American Studies Department have filed suit against the superintendent and the state board of education," PBS News Hour anchor Ray Suarez reported. Understanding the real history of a place is important, and both negative and positive events need to be discussed.
If a state has a rich history, there is no reason students in that state should be kept from learning about it. Horne and other supporters of the law allege the classes teach students to resist the white power structure that is the U.S. government, which is ridiculous.
Those teachers would essentially be teaching treason. If that was actually the case, then the law would be necessary.
Merely teaching a richer, more specific version of Arizona and U.S. history, however, is not harmful.
The newest piece of news from the Grand Canyon State is the shooting rampage that wounded Giffords, an Arizona democrat and a critic of the new immigration laws, wounded 13 others and killed six.
Police have a suspect but do not know the motive or if it had any political motivation except that the congresswoman was the specific target. Actions taken by members of both political parties will be extremely telling.
Interestingly, this tragedy could pave a new bipartisan road.
"It's a moment for both parties in Congress together," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told The New York Times. "We absolutely have to realize that we're all in this for the same reason, to make America a better place."

Becoming Unnerved

I wrote back in August, as I started my senior year, that I needed to be unnerved. I had been inspired by the film adaptation of one of my favorite books, Eat Pray Love, and I really felt that because my senior year was going to be so different from previous ones that I had to push myself out of my comfort zone.

Well, it's been a long and winding road. Without the instant support network of my synchronized skating teammates to fall back on, I spent the first part of the semester feeling incredibly alone. Sure, I had my roommates and my boyfriend was only an hour away in Cincinnati - but I didn't have my "thing" anymore. I didn't have a creative outlet, I didn't have a place where I could go and be a completely different person than I was in the classroom. And that was the beginning of becoming unnerved.

Other ways in which I continued unnerving myself include:

-getting an on-campus job
-running a 5k; continuing to train for a 10k
-participating in class
-taking initiative with professors
-writing Op/Ed pieces for the Miami Student newspaper, without hiding my beliefs, despite being a small liberal fish in a big conservative pond
-applying for post-grad jobs
-completing the interview process for CityYear Milwaukee - and getting an offer

This last one is something that I feel very strongly about, and have had several debates with myself and with others about whether or not tutoring/mentoring kids for 10 months in a city with the 4th-lowest graduation rate in the country was worth the biweekly stipend we receive to cover room and board. Trying to explain that I wasn't doing it for the money, but for the experience, really helped me to discover WHY I wanted to do it so badly in the first place. I'm so excited about being a part of something that has both short-term and long-term benefits, both for myself and for others.

I suggest doing something to unnerve yourself. You never know where it will take you - physically, emotionally, or geographically. It's awesome.