I hope you don’t take offense to this, but I still consider myself a Jersey girl. I’ve thought a good bit about this over the past few weeks. I’ve thought about what it really means to love home, what it means to cherish and appreciate the fertile ground on which you come into your own. For most reading this, your “ground” dips a dozen feet below sea level, reverberates with music and smells of sweet olive and smoked meats.
For me, home remains New Jersey: land of a million diners.
During my short time in New Orleans, I’ve been reminded that cultural pride is a redeeming quality, an element of one’s identity. My upbringing in New Jersey plays a crucial role in my identity. Jersey gets a lot of flak for its Tony Soprano characters and supposed air pollution. But it’s actually a remarkable place if you look beyond the stereotypes.
I need to set the record straight about Jersey because the other day I had a lively debate with a friend who grew up in New Orleans and hates the rude North. She and I traded blows and countered each other’s opinions about our home states. But she crossed the line when she said Jersey lacks culture and implied that I would have experienced more cultural exchanges if I’d grown up in the Big Easy.
Sure, a handful of Desperate Housewives disgrace Jersey’s integrity, and most think the mafia is a legitimate branch of the state Legislature. But other than that, it’s a great place to grow up and raise a family. No matter which exit you hail from on the turnpike or parkway, you’re only a short drive away from major metropolises: the bustle of New York; the cheese steak capital, Philly; the New England flair in Boston, and even Washington, D.C. New Jersey ranks as the most densely populated state in the country, with nearly 9 million people. And this fact, coupled with its proximity to classic American cities, means that there’s an enduring cultural explosion within the Garden State. It has boiled over as a melting pot for decades, ever since droves of immigrants began arriving through Ellis Island.
My brothers and I grew up in a tree-lined suburban town in what’s known as the Gateway Region, or Northeast Jersey. We lived in suburbia, but we weren’t sheltered. Our town was racially diverse and rich with culture; we came of age with friends of all ethnicities. As a youngster I had more Jewish friends than most Jewish kids, and by having frequent dinners at friends’ homes, I could by the age of 13 identify all kinds of exotic dishes: gefilte fish, sashimi, kebab, roti, Jamaican jerk chicken, Filipino empanadas, Polish pirogies and Haitian griot, to name a few.
My pervasive multicultural exchanges didn’t stop at the dinner table. My parents often carted us off to festivals, museums and shows, and we made frequent trips to areas where kids were less fortunate. They didn’t want us to miss a beat or become disillusioned. They wanted us to learn about our own cultural roots while consciously embracing those of others. For years my mom dropped me off in predominately white towns for gymnastics and then African dance class in the inner city. She forced me to take Tibetan art classes at the Newark museum, which I came to love (I still have one of the ritual masks I made at age 12) and assured me that frequent school trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Broadway shows would serve as unforgettable experiences.
She didn’t stop there. Every summer she’d pile me and my brothers into her blue Volkswagen Vanagon and drive us down to see my aunt in D.C. — a region as vast as the NYC-metro area but only a short drive away. Once there we’d do the same tour as the summer before: We’d visit every Smithsonian, the national children’s museum, all of the monuments and Arlington Cemetery. These were always dynamic, incredibly enriching experiences. My brothers and I began to realize how much our parents wanted us to develop an indelible sense of cultural literacy.
Looking back, we realize how much our parents wanted us to appreciate the value of living in Jersey; it’s like the nucleus of the northeast, and it teems with people of many talents and many tongues. As a teenager I bounced from one Dominican hair stylist to the next. I recall how each one had her own sassy Spanish accent and flair for styling my hair in traditional “doobie” style. I also recall a slew of other Jerseyites who helped make Jersey a colorful and fun place to grow up: Ms. Joy from my favorite Jamaican restaurant; Vinny from the local pizzeria; Habib from the corner store candy haven; Joey from down the shore; Brother Baba from African dance class. I know these names fit the script all too perfectly, but trust me, these were their real names!
Growing up in New Jersey, I saw my fair share of wacky things and people, and I suspect this upbringing has something to do with the fact that I didn’t really experience much of a culture shock during my first few months in New Orleans. While I was intrigued by many of New Orleans’ idiosyncrasies, the city wasn’t anything to write home about with bad news. To some extent — and this might be construed as blasphemous — poor boys are much like Jersey subs, beignets are a bit like powered Dunkin Donuts, and Hurricanes are like — well, honestly, I don’t have any ominous comparison for this one. Perhaps a bit like a Long Island iced tea?
All this brings me back to why I’m glad I grew up in New Jersey. I don’t want to denigrate the experience of growing up in New Orleans, which I can only imagine amounts to an incredibly rich cultural education in its own right.
Certainly it would have been great to party at Mardi Gras every year and grow up with an innate ability to pronounce street names such as Tchoupitoulas and Terpsichore. But believe it or not, I saw some pretty cool parades up north — the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade; African-American festivals and Sweet Honey in the Rock concerts, much like the ones in Congo Square; NYC’s Puerto Rican Day parade (which draws more than 800,000 annually); the St. Patty’ s Day parade; and the Radio City Music Hall Spectacular. With this in mind, I’ll say my formative years in Jersey prepared me for life in the Big Easy –– and, perhaps more important, for life just about anywhere.
So New Jersey prepared me for New Orleans; I’m proud of this fact. I’m slowly earning my stripes as a “budding New Orleanian,” but hopefully, in the meantime, I can use my Jersey girl grit for good and appreciate the cultural lessons to be learned in my new home away from home. I may not yet know the conclusive definition of what it means to be a New Orleanian, but I certainly got a fine lil’ history that I learned up north that should help me as I try to figure it out.