My great-grandfather was born in Russia. My grandfather and father were born in South Africa. I was born in America. The question must be asked: where will my children be born? My parents have lived in the United States for almost twenty-three years and we, as a complete family, have lived in two countries and in seven different houses. Our extended family lives on four continents, the legacy of Apartheid. We have been uprooted, dislocated, relocated, dispersed, occasionally reunited, but mostly scattered. We are not settled and the idea of home still seems to be out of our reach.
On August 31st, 2008 my parents drove me up to New York and moved me into the dorms at Fordham University. It was an exciting time and I felt ready for the whole college experience. I have always been an independent person, and I was excited about having the complete freedom that living away from home would allow. I settled in easily, caught up in the whirlwind of orientation and comforted by how happy my parents’ were with the school. However, as the weeks passed, I began to feel slightly homesick. I called my parents often and tried to get together with my brother who was studying in New Jersey at the time. It wasn’t that I didn’t love living in New York. I was quickly falling in love with the city, and I was enjoying my freedom, but it didn’t feel like home. I missed my family.
My parents were both born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1986, only a year after they had been married, my parents immigrated to America. South Africa had become an increasingly violent place, the pent up frustrations of the Apartheid era finally reaching fever pitch. Riots raged across the country, and the police station near my parents’ small apartment was blown up. My mother was six months pregnant with my older brother. This was no place to raise a young family and put down roots. My parents had always opposed the Apartheid regime. They did not want their children to grow up in a country where the majority of its people were oppressed based solely on the color of their skins. Now that they were married and independent, they could seek a better life. So, in November 1986, my parents moved to Baltimore in search of peace, opportunity, and a chance to get a small stake in the American Dream – a job and a home to raise a family.
My parents were able to come close to realizing the dream they so bravely tried to imagine. They made friends and made a life for my brother and me. They made sure we got a good education. We have wanted for little. But there has been a sense of being on the outside, of not having roots or a real connection to the history and the people whose families go back generations. At school, I was always the outsider. Holidays are often lonely. My parents created a network of immigrant friends who often spent Thanksgivings with us, but many have moved on. Without extended family nearby, there are twelve places at the table for a Thanksgiving that usually only four of us enjoy.
And now looking back, I understand that the dream can be elusive. I have come to understand my place in their story, and I see now that the road has been filled with bumps and detours. Their first home was a miserable little suburban apartment filled with rented furniture. It was all they could afford as my father began his career again and he and my mother awaited the arrival of their possessions from South Africa and the birth of my older brother. Slowly they made friends and soon I came along, but my father’s work in advertising forced them to make another move – this time to Canada. My mother has called our Toronto townhouse a dark tunnel; she hated the house and the long, cold winters, but I remember the joy of playing with my brother on the olive green carpets and had not a care in the world. After more twists and turns, we returned to America and Baltimore. My father, now with more experience, was beginning to have some success, and we finally got our piece of the American dream – a secure job and the house my parents dreamed of all those years ago. Tucked away in a bucolic neighborhood, the house looks out onto a cornfield. A stone farmhouse and a red barn are off in the distance. It’s a serene spot and it’s beautiful year round. I have spent hours sitting alone or with my family gazing out the back windows at the cornfield covered in snow, glistening in the sunlight; at the green haze of blossoms in the spring; at the orange, gold, and red leaves in fall; or at the fireflies that rise up over the corn in the height of summer. In the six years I lived in that house, I have grown deeply attached to this home. I was Bat Mitzvahed there, had my first kiss, and walked down the front steps in my prom dress. This was the place my family could finally plant a tree.
But the last few years have given us new challenges to face and the sense of dislocation has deepened. First my brother left for college, and I had to adapt. But, in the fall of my sophomore year of high school, my dad lost his job. He had worked for one company for most of my childhood and had climbed his way up from senior writer to Executive Creative Director. After September 11th, things were never the same and the company finally went under. My parents were unusually calm as they delivered the news, but it was like the calm before the storm. I could sense their anxiety. They had a mortgage and my brother’s college tuition to pay. My dad revealed his anxiety to me when he told me that he probably would not be able to get a job in the Baltimore area, that in all likelihood, we would have to relocate to another state. That would mean selling the house we had built only three years before, the house my mom and dad had hoped to grow old in. By the end of the school year, my dad had a new job, but it was in Birmingham, Alabama. My dad had no choice but to take the job and move. My mom and I stayed in Baltimore so I could finish high school. From that moment on, my sense of home has been completely distorted. The roots that had begun to grow were severed.
How ironic that he should relocate to Birmingham, Alabama - my father the passionate outspoken college student who had railed against apartheid and had actually put his life on the line by protesting in the streets. Visiting my dad in his rented, furnished apartment in Birmingham was probably one of the single most depressing experiences of my young life. Located just off main street America with its big box stores and fast food restaurants, it was not the nicest place to come home to. The fluorescent lights made the rooms seem stark and cold. It smelled musty, and the carpet looked faded and old. My father complained about the cockroaches. My mom and I would stay for a few days and then we would fly home, leaving my dad behind. At the end of almost every visit, my mom would cry as she kissed my dad goodbye.
Eventually, my dad moved into a new apartment in a beautiful neighborhood; a liberal, artsy enclave in a conservative city. The apartment is in an old building, newly renovated, within walking distance of several parks where my dad walks his only companion, our dog Jake. My dad has been happy there, and as a family, we have spent many happy weekends with him. We even have some family close by. My uncle from Atlanta once brought his children up, and we crammed in around my dad’s tiny dining room table for Sunday brunch. There was something comforting about those moments, and I began to feel a sense of hope, rather than despair.
My senior year passed. My dad came up to Baltimore often to watch me perform in school plays and for my graduation. He helped me plan my graduation party, and he drove me up to New York to help me settle in at Fordham. I kissed him goodbye at the end of orientation. We parted and I was disturbed by how normal it felt. Two or three weeks into the semester, my dad called me and told me that, due to the current economic climate, the agency where he worked was cutting back on jobs. One of those jobs was my father’s. I was floored. It was as if someone had punched me in the stomach. My parents have done nothing but work hard and try and forge a life for themselves in this country, but every time we seem to get remotely comfortable and settled, our whole world comes crashing down. For the second time in two years, my dad was jobless, and he was looking to move again. He works freelance now and will have to travel where the jobs are. Geographical home for my family is one giant question mark.
The one enduring thing, however, has been our relationships with one another. We are a tight knit group. My brother is and has always been, my best friend and closest ally. We have been attached at the hip from the day my parents brought me home from the hospital. Despite my mother’s stereotypical Jewish mother neuroses, she has always been steadfastly supportive of her family and utterly nurturing. My father balances out my mother’s slightly anxious personality with his sense of humor. I’m lucky to have learned the lesson that whatever happens, family comes first.
The members of our large extended family live all over the world – South Africa, America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel – yet we have maintained a bond, a lesson my parents might have learned from their own parents. Whenever there is a major event like a wedding, bar or bat mitzvah, graduation, funeral, or major birthday, we come together again in whatever corner of the globe the event is occurring. What is striking to me when I look back on all these occasions is how at home I have felt far away from my geographical home. Surrounded by this loud and chaotic group, with plenty of laughter and memories shared over endless meals, I feel complete.
At the end of September 2008, I had to have surgery. My mother rushed from Baltimore to my bedside, my brother came into the city from New Jersey, and my dad drove all the way to New York from Alabama. The Dean gave my parents an empty apartment in the dorm so they could be close to me. The day after I was released from the hospital, my family was together again. It was my dad’s birthday and we went out to celebrate. We strolled together through the Union Square farmer’s market, and that night, we watched “Flight of the Conchords,” my mother fussing over me, my dad cracking jokes, and my brother sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulders. It had been a traumatic week, but in that simple Fordham apartment, I felt at home.
I’m in college now, and I’ve reached the time in my life where I am taking steps towards becoming an adult. It’s scary sometimes, knowing that I’m on my own. In three and a half years, I will graduate and begin my career, and in the years after that I’ll get married and have my own family. I often wonder where my children will be born. While I’d love to settle in New York, I’m realistic and I know that might not happen. What I do know though, is that my family’s bond will always be strong. We have always been there for each other and that will never change. Hopefully my children will be able to find their sense of home through their family the way that I have.
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