Capitalism: Who are you without New York City?
I remember taking the #6 train from the Bronx to Manhattan with my Lehman Highschool friends one evening after school. Most of us POC. We were all part of the Performing Arts Club and headed to auditions for an organization that would potentially hire us to Perform for various events, All aspiring to be the next Jennifer Lopez or Raul Julia. In my case , more of a Bob Dylanesque songwriter of my time.
I say Bob Dylan because I didn’t know who else looked or sounded like me in the music industry. There wasn’t much to compare and I felt like my style could only be compared to this poetic form of melody that he had.
I sat quietly as I awkwardly looked at the signs above the steel handle bars and listened as my peers talked about “making it” and what that would look like for us in the future.
One friend described it as “Getting a job in the city where white people work. That’s where the money is at.”
Another said “Marrying a white guy and living in Manhattan.”
I didn’t realize at the time- but we were conditioned to think of our neighborhoods and culture as less than the Hetero Cis norm.
We were kids from the Bronx. The little forgotten borough that people wouldn’t go past Harlem to see unless it was some great aunts death or obligatory Christmas visit with family.
At the time the comments on the train didn’t effect me. Consciously I guess. But as time passed and I got older- and moved away from New York City I learned just how huge capitalism played a part in aggravating our self esteems.
It seemed like our value was easily only determined by our closeness to the great Metropolis. Not the outskirts where my mother now lived, nestled near the Throgsneck Bridge in a neighborhood that to her was finally getting a “piece of the pie.” To my Mother,she had made it. Elevated from the ghettos of Hunts Point to the quiet suburbs of the North Bronx where people didn’t hang out on the corner selling dope,at least so openly.
While I wanted to enjoy the comforts of this home, the trees along the path near the river & the efforts of her hard work - The farther I was from Manhattan , the less value I deemed my life to be at 17. I hated our new house.
I rebelled at any commodity that could have given me a greater value of life or less stress- just to be part of the big city.
I didn’t realize the perfect air. The less stress it imposed on my already anxious mother.
I didn’t realize the beautiful maple trees.
I just wanted to be in the rat race.
It meant longer train rides and buses that didn’t operate after 12am. Nights bunking On friend’s couches to avoid the long trek home at night. Opting to go to school at BMCC instead of Bronx Community College even though it was closer and more affordable. Ultimately- making my exhaustion so real that I dropped out of College all together because I couldn’t keep up with having my Starbucks Barista gig on 34th st.
It’d wake up at 4am,trek to the City, trek to Borough of Manhattan Community College and back home 2/12 hours to the Bronx.
All to say -“I’m living the city life-even if my head doesn’t rest there every night.”
Even if I get no rest at all- at least I’ll be deemed as somebody.
I served coffee to white people. I’ve made lattes for Kate Winslet. I’ve served Pumpkin Spiced Lattes to Quentin Tarantino and stared at his filthy white sneakers while swallowing my tuna fish sandwich on a 15 minute break-
and of course, I HAD to work on 34th st. I had to be smack dab in the middle of steps from Times Square. I had to whip out an espresso in 30 seconds for frustrated Long Islanders acting like Manhattanites chasing a train back to their obscure unknown addresses.
It seemed that our wildest dreams could only be seen or exist if we transported ourselves to Manhattan-“where the white people live” In order to be seen and nurtured.
Even if it meant less time at breakfast with our newborn nieces, absence on Holidays because the demands of Manhattan is larger and we must hustle. Even if it means we gain 30 pounds stuffing bagels in our bellies on the train because there’s never time or space to sit and digest. Even if there is stress or mental breakdowns that make you cry -
just to tell your distant cousin that you are working in the big city.
As years passed, and awareness began to see the damage in this idea.
Just how honestly and quite practically our need to live this so called standard was killing us.
The stress of city loving led to depression at a young age. Eating disorders. Trying to fit the standard of what the EuroCentric 5th Avenue standard of perfection would be in a capitalistic city and how I had worked more than I had received recognition for.
How I would pass by neighborhoods I could never afford and businesses that wouldn’t hire me because I was Latina living in the Bronx.
I watched as I contributed my accent, my heritage, my personality, my hard work, to a city that didn’t really care if I didn’t show up to work. Millions would replace my job in one phonecall.
Later when I got a tech job on 5th Avenue right near the acclaimed Flatiron building for a startup - I thought surely I was making it. I could post on Instagram the views from our 3rd story loft office and have lunch on a park lawn.
I thought about my friends from Lehman High and wondered who’s dream I had fulfilled.
I could do all the administrative; marketing and manual labor of a start up CEO and make just $40,000 a year. I wouldn’t complain because it was a privilege to even be on 5th ave and work with brilliant white folks.
And when my fellow POC Bronxites asked for a raise. We got paid in LACroix water, extra snacks & pizza Friday’s.
trekking back to our Bronx apartments tired from MTA delays and slowly less encouraged week by week to be paid the same for more demands by the minute.
Leaving 5th Avenue -leaving New York City might have been my most rebellious act in a capitalistic reality.
this is when I really am learning who I am
it’s when I’m situated in a place that doesn’t care where I live or where I came from.
These days I live in a Zipcode that most capitalists won’t be proud about.
Friends don’t certainly gawk at the idea of renting my home for vacation even if I’m living the Brooklyn life for rent that’s $925 a month.
Even if my neighborhood can allot me organic cuisines and williamsburg vibes for 1988 mortgage.
My friends don’t stop at my place- just like it in the Bronx- unless they needed gas.
Unless it’s Yajaira from Queens who is tired of the city and has a deep appreciation for anything out of the norm and gorgeous trees and ease. Just like she did back “home.”
I’m Tucked somewhere between West Elm and graffiti murals near the local Asian Boba spot.
Tucked on a block that is not 53rd st in Hell’s Kitchen or nowhere close to Times Square.
I wake up with a guilt that is:
who are you now Skye?
are you a nobody without New York on your ballot?
A place where people will ask me “what’s over there?” To which I will
shudder to say ME.
Me and all the people that call this place Home.
I think of my value or the decreasing of it.
and that’s what Capitalism does.
it eats at the core of you and the value you place on your head. The value of the dreams you have that might be less about being on MTV and knowing that Babylon is falling so having a place to put your garden is more important.
Covid19 May have sent so many people back to this place of knowing what is truly important without what we see as essential in the eyes of capitalism.
we can work from
the basement of our mother’s house in west bubbafuck and people will give less fucks now.
we can return to ask ourselves how different we have become and how important we truly are in this big scheme of life.
If watching the trees has more benefits then watching how many likes you got for posting a photo in front of the Statue of Liberty.
At times I think- How my value goes down on resumes or in conversations with new friends who think the closer you are to a certain zipcode- the more your worth is.
How I’ve gone from
being an intern at Electric Lady Studios in New York to having the pleasure of driving my Jeep across the pacific coast and watching the ocean.
which is more cool? Which is more relevant?
Am I still relevant?
capitalism does this to you. It questions your ability to make choices that are in turn more mentally healthy.
It’s certainly decreased my friends list to about half. I’ve found that capitalism has eaten them
whole and they will never return to their normal happy state in the womb- when breathing was enough.
They will
question if they sounded white enough for their interview or if they even have a chance to get the job because their last gig was in some town in Missouri.
As I am farther away from what was said to be the Vortex of all importance.
Who am I without manhattan?
Without New York.
without that birthplace I was born into that makes the rest of the people I meet today excited for some odd reason- as if they need to fix their hair a little more when I’m in the room.
Who are we really? Who made up these standards?
Why have we limited our view?
But it’s not just New York.
It’s San Francisco roo. It’s Anywhere closest to the white people in tall buildings with money.
It’s anywhere where Chase bank has replaced the local dive bar we used to love in 2008.
I remember the conversations on the trains with my peers and think how far away I am from their dreams.
When I look at the sun and walk through uncrowned streets where people see me- their is an itch that discomforts my peace.
It’s a disturbance of the system that has been conditioned to strive for a sort of capitalistic acceptance that can only come from
Growing up in an egoic city.
We must ask ourself if our dreams allow happiness or if our dreams are tethered to struggle and hard work. To hustle and the thriving of wanting to be seen.
We must ask ourselves what is important.
What is nature.
What is the river.
What is true belonging?
Who are we when all that we were fed or conditioned to believe is stripped away.
I encourage you- to go as far away from capitalism as possible. If you can- at least once.
To truly know oneself. To be happy. That is the new dream.
