Too Many "I's"
I’ve been emotionally revisiting my childhood in Brooklyn a lot these days. Maybe it is the sign of aging. Maybe it’s the nostalgia triggered by Facebook and finding old friends. Maybe it’s the trip to Brooklyn over Christmas and the joy of seeing stoops that I stood on, steps to school that I walked on, and the visions of a young Joyce walking down the street. Whatever it is, it’s wonderful. There was a question often asked of each other on those Brooklyn streets: What are you? Now to the untrained and non-Brooklynite, you might wonder and say something like “I’m a human being.” You’d probably ask, what do you mean by that? In Brooklyn, you would answer, “I’m Norwegian or Irish or Polish or Puerto Rican or German or Lithuania.” Neighborhoods while mixed, often had a dominant ethnic flavor or culture. Everyone had an identity. Everyone belonged to one group or another. I guess we all knew we were Americans but so many of us were immigrants or children of immigrants