Hello cross culture community! This is my first time coming across this group, so I'm very excited to be here!
I think I probably have a very North American answer to this question of the week: where I live now is not where I was born; where I was born is not where my parents were born, and where my parents were born is not where my grandparents were born (except one of the four grandparents, lol).
free use photo of Denver's skyline
Where I live now is Denver. I've lived in Colorado (the state) since I was 12, so this is more "my city" than anyplace else in the world, but there are still things I find odd about it, and some of the things that are changing now, I think, "about time," and people who were born here are losing their minds complaining about. ;)
For instance, we are finally building more densely. Now, there are sure problems - lots of gentrification and lack of planning going on; they keep building "luxury" apartments that no one can afford while thousands and thousands of people are homeless and the "luxury" units sit empty. The city does nothing to require them to build "affordable" units. It's a clusterfuck of epic proportions, that's for sure. But the city is growing more up than out for once, which I've always said needed to happen, because Denver is just, western sprawl city from hell. I've never owned a car, and that really sucks in this state, because everything is miles apart (and public transport is terrible).
People like to talk about how Colorado has changed politically, because in national politics we used to be a "red" (republican) state and now we're a "blue" (democrat) state. But really, Colorado hasn't changed all that much - the Overton window in American politics has swung right, and nowadays the democrats represent what republicans USED to represent. Colorado has always been very independent, libertarian-minded, and it still is. All that's changed is the names, for the most part.
free use photo
Where I was BORN, is New Jersey. The above is close to where I lived. I had woods in my backyard (whereas Denver is on the prairie and you have to drive for miles into the mountains before you find even a sparse wood). We were very close to the ocean, and Denver is landlocked high desert. All this time of living here, and I still want trees, and rain, and the beach. LOL
My parents, on the other hand:
free use photo
Are from New York. Just in my lifetime, of course a big change has been 9/11. When I was a little kid, one of the few touristy things we did (because you often don't do the touristy things where you live, right? I never went to the Statue of Liberty, for instance), was go to the top of the twin towers. Somewhere, my mom has a photo of my sister and cousins all leaning on the glass looking down and me clinging to the little rail like CAN YOU PLEASE TAKE THE PHOTO SO I CAN GET AWAY FROM THE EDGE THANK YOU, because I was scared of heights, lol. Those buildings were built in my parents' lifetimes, and are gone now.
My grandparents?
free use photo of New Brunswick
While one grandmother was born in New York, my mom's parents are from the Canadian maritimes. My Grandma grew up on a farm in New Brunswick and my Grandpa is from a mining town in Nova Scotia. Grandma is where I get my Mi'kmaq heritage from and apparently some relation of my Grandpa's was involved in big union strikes in Nova Scotia (yeaaaaaaaah working class unions!) at the mines.
My other grandfather is from Frankfurt, Germany.
free use photo
He moved to the US at some point during the nazis' rise to power, and when the rest of the family save for one great-uncle tried to follow him, they all got on a plane that was shot down by nazis and were killed. So that branch of the family tree is a stump. I always tell people this when modern-day fascists seem to think that somehow this sh*t is going to work out for them, because, y'all, my family wasn't Jewish, they weren't gay (even if maybe one of them was, not all of them would have been ;) ), they weren't disabled (again, even if one of them was), they weren't, I assume, socialists or anarchists, since my grandfather moved to NY and became a cop (not exactly an anarchist job, is it) - that is, they weren't any of the "targeted" groups you think of the nazis going after. But it was still bad enough that my grandfather left and the rest of the family was killed. It's not going to be fun times for your poor, white ass, either, people, no matter how much you think you are in the "in" group. Maybe stop hurting people as though this was some zero sum game where you think you're going to "win," and start helping people. This ain't Monopoly and you are not Mr. Moneybags. Humans survive by cooperation. We are a eusocial species. Okay, mini rant over.
Sooooo, my "hometown" isn't my hometown, so to speak, and it isn't my parents' hometown, and it isn't my grandparents' hometown. I'm always jealous of people in other countries who are like "oh, my family has lived here for 1000 years" or "I live in this 500 year old house that my family has been in for generations" or something. I envy having that kind of connection to place. I have none. The only ancestors who have been on this side of the ocean longer than a few generations are the Mi'kmaq ones, and of the European ancestors the furthest back we go is the 1880s, again, in east coast Canada in both cases, where I've never even visited. I imagine what it must be like to be able to visit a graveyard where your ancestors are buried, or know that your grandma grew up on the same house where you are raising your own children. I understand why my ancestors moved here in their various circumstances, but I really do not like it now. I have zero roots. I have always wanted roots.
'Murica (sad trombone).
And on THAT note, I am off! I am looking forward to reading about places where people actually have roots! :)
Have a good day, Bees!
Amazing art made for me that I got from a trade on Simbi! Simbi is a bartering website that I love. If you'd like to try it out, please use my referral link: https://simbi.com/wren-paasch/welcome
