Thank You, New York. The City that Turned My Parents and I Into Adults
At a certain point in someone’s life, events occur to them that help lead them to adulthood. My dad moving away was this for me. Before my dad moved, he was always my rock motivating me to do my best. Although my mom was there for me, I had to adjust to the changes of him not being there. As I have grown older I realize this helped me become a stronger person, guiding me to pave a path for myself in the right direction.
When I think of my childhood, memories of my dad and I come to mind. We would take walks down Manhattan Avenue, talking about anything that came to mind. He always had 101.1 WCBS-FM playing in his car — unless it was the morning, then that would be 1010 WINS — “Hotel California” by the Eagles, “Piano Man” by Billy Joel, “The Sound of Silence” by Simon Garfunkel, “Yesterday” by the Beatles, “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas… and I could go on. There was never a time that I wouldn’t complain about his “old music” but now I call the Beatles my band (so I think he ended up getting what he wanted!). He supported me at my Taekwondo promotions and motivated me to push my limits. Once he moved, though, that was all gone, and I had to be self-motivated.
The events of my life previously mentioned all created my shift from childhood to adulthood in the eighth grade. My dad leaving hit me hard but I asked was I going to be sad over a situation I couldn’t change, or was I going to use this experience as a stepping stone to mature and grow? I chose the latter because I knew it was what I had to do. Almost as if the sky suddenly cleared up from a rainstorm, I realized the strong being in front of me: my mom. As I grew older and learned about her life being raised in poverty in the Dominican Republic, I saw, and still see, my mom as nothing less than a strong and resilient woman. Not to say I was blinded by my dad, but because I was with him all the time I never truly knew my mom’s difficult past. She always looked after my sister and I, always working, and always put food on the table. My dad moving away was a bittersweet experience which became the catalyst in the path of adulthood for me. Although it was sad that he moved, I now see the silver lining and how I became mature and independent at a young age along with truly learning to appreciate my mom eternally.
For my parents the experience that help shape their adulthood was coming to the United States and what they went through. But there is one place that the three of us have been able to call home. Since 1970 for my dad, 1982 for my mom, and 1999 for me, we all see ourselves in no other place than New York. When my dad first came to New York from Ecuador as a 19 year old, his first apartment was only $80 a month. He had his fair share of employment from working at the Garden Cafeteria in the Lower East Side (which had a large amount of Jewish people, many Holocaust survivors. A few noticed my dad and offered to help him get English classes at the Educational Alliance) to working at a factory that made the uniforms for soldiers in Vietnam. As for my mom, her first job in the United States coming from the Dominican Republic was packing cosmetics at a factory in Long Island City. She learned English through interacting with her coworkers and later on moved to another factory job where she sewed the sequins on to wedding dresses and soon saved enough for her goal when coming to this country which was to attend cosmetology school (graduating in 1989).
Even though I will never have the experience as an immigrant, the events of my life at a young age reflect the strides my parents were able to make at the age of 19 and 23. The three of us were born in different countries, with essentially different backgrounds when growing up, but we all had our turning points that made us into stronger people and this is thanks to the city that homed the three of us as young adults, New York.
