Immigrant Stew
As a new year rolls into place, it never seems to fail that just when I’m getting used to one thing, another comes along to take its place.
I must admit with the holidays now behind me I’m relieved for the simple reason I don’t do parties anymore. Not the big ones anyway. I’m not much of a drinker. I usually stuff my face with all sorts of nonsense I regret in the morning. That and I don’t feel the need to surround myself with people I rarely see, if ever. To me small talk is just that — small talk. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the fact that as I’ve gotten older, my tolerance level has diminished considerably. But I will acknowledge the whole celebrating thing was great when I was younger. When Jack Daniels and I were on a first-name basis, when it was all about the gathering of family where gifts, love and food overflowed in some magical abundance beneath wintry skies, snowmen and stories of Hanukkah; a requisite not just for me but for the children I would one day have.
But now, my children are grown. It’s just me in my little nest savoring the sense of daily quietude I feel I so richly deserve as I say goodbye to one year and hello to another in my own fashion.
Cleaning. (Yes, I did say cleaning).
Closets, drawers, cupboards, hidden nooks and crannies in my mind are what Decembers are for. All those projects that require my utmost attention that I’ve somehow managed to put off for some phantom rainy day. A rainy day where once I finally find myself getting started, glaring at that pile of paperwork sitting in the middle of the living room that I know needs at least an hour or two of shredding, I simply lose interest. I’m already onto something else. And after a few days, or as long as it takes to acknowledge this monstrous heap on the floor is still there and not going to get done anytime soon, I shove the papers back into the bottom of the closet with the hope that I’ll at least get to it sometime before the next year is out.
Then somewhere in between all that, when the urge tugs at me the hardest, I find myself rummaging through all the family photos smooshed haphazardly into three, huge, sweater bins that I’ve managed to fit snugly underneath my bed. At one time I lived in a much larger house where space was never an issue. But now I don’t and through no request of my own I’ve become the designated guardian of these photos, these faces lost in the shuffle of time, more precious to me than gold.
My sister as a teenager, lying on the beach looking up at me, her smile full of promise. My parents, both vibrantly young and glamorous. My cousins, my grandparents, my children, old boyfriends, and an ex-husband whose photos I should have put a match to. They’re all there. Even the pictures of me as a curious toddler, as a young girl showing off her white Go-Go boots, granny glasses and frizzy hair out to the wall. God, I was so crazy then. Struggling like everyone else in the business of navigating through the hurtful and muddy waters of just trying to fit in.
As I linger nostalgically over these snapshots now yellowed and worn, I can’t help but wonder where would they all be now if my grandparents didn’t come to America? Or worse, if the doors at Ellis Island were locked? They were denied access and turned away?
As well as all the other Jews, Muslims, Poles, Lithuanians, Chinese, Italians, Irish and fractions of the rainbow that fought tooth and nail to get here in search of a dream. Albert Einstein, Irving Berlin, Levi Strauss, Aldous Huxley, Helena Rubinstein, I.M. Pei, W.H. Auden, Arianna Huffington, Eddie Van Halen, Elizabeth Allende. The list too staggering to contemplate that I can’t even imagine what America’s postcard would look like now without these giants or the generation that followed and their contributions that have become so much a part of who we are. Steve Jobs. Walt Disney. Sergey Brin. Jeff Bezos. That’s right! No Mickey, Minnie, Apple, Amazon or Google.
As children we are meant to see the world through innocent wonder. We leave the chaos of it in the hands of those we trust to be older and wiser. But that sense of purity only lasts so long. Because the real way of the world intrudes its ugly head and forces us to endure small skirmishes of hatred and bigotry dished out by neighborhood bullies labeled as nothing more than rites of youthful passage. When in fact they’re anything but, leaving us stained forever.
I remember the first time that I heard the world “kike.” My sister was eight and I six and we were in the school playground. I needed to go the bathroom and my sister being the eldest, led me there by the hand. Little did we both know that a group of older girls would storm in after us, would grab my sister by the hair, turn her upside down and beat the shit out of her; while I watched on, sobbing. As that word, that detestable word continued to pummel into her along with the girls’ fists, I knew it was just a word. But it sliced through me like a knife, nevertheless.
I suppose the seed of bitterness starts at moments just like this. And while that day remained seared to my brain with the permanence of forever, throughout my life, that and many others that somehow could have, should have broken me, I refused them entry. I refused to allow that type of thinking to color my world and hate back.
Coming from a family whose culture was terrorized and annihilated by the swift arm of anti-Semitic fever, the idea of doing likewise seemed abominable to me. I only had to look at my Russian grandmother. A woman I adored tremendously. A woman of substance, good stock who spoke not a lick of English and stood no taller than a breadbox with breasts that swallowed you whole as they sucked you into her embrace.
I knew from an early age that everything I am, I owed to her. And despite the grave risks ahead, she trekked willingly across dangerous waters in search of something more from life, something better.
Who doesn’t want these things? Aren’t we all getting tired, getting angry that a day doesn’t go by without news of yet another school shooting? Another bombing in the name of religious ideology that has no place here? What does it matter that we don’t all look the same, dress the same, pray the same? Isn’t a donut still a donut even if it doesn’t have a hole? Isn’t it much more important for us to see past those differences and focus instead on all those commonalities of emotion we do share? I’m talking about the basic stuff. The critical and inherent things. Humanity. The right to exist. Wanting a long life, a healthy life, not to be poor or alone, and a safe place for our children to thrive and aspire.
Sometimes we easily forget that while the face of America has changed, and continues to change, its beating heart remains very much the same.
Yes, things have gotten more complex. Even scary. Yes, we need to take different measures to protect and preserve. But in doing so, we can’t ever lose sight of our most basic premise: We are a nation of immigrants. Those blending cultures, seasoned ideas and colorful talents which in every surging wave built bridges, dams and railroads, towns, villages and cities that in time transformed and spanned across a wondrous and sprawling continent as far as the eye could see.
In Hebrew, the word “reshit” means beginning. Now, I’m not so sure one always needs to hit rock bottom before acknowledging it’s time for a change and to start over, but I do believe that’s exactly where we are. At the bottom. And the best I can do is hope, no pray that we collectively, as people branching out from this magnificently rich pot of immigrant strew, embrace the new year as the beginning to our something better. Okay, maybe it’s a stretch. Maybe I’m just California dreaming here. But miracles dohappen every day.
Or so I’ve been told.
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