New York Native

“We need to talk.” My boyfriend told me on my cell. How I've always hated hearing those words coming out of someone’s mouth. It always meant something bad, something I might not like. I was sitting at the park with our daughter and the sky was turning a mean gray. Thunderstorm weather. The crackle heard on my cell phone told me that the storm was moving in fast. I hung up and hurried the few blocks back to our house in Bemidji.

I love my boyfriend, Damien. We’ve been together for over two years. We are so alike in many ways. We share the same dry sense of humor, our love of watching movies, we even have the same taste in music such as Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige.

We are alike, yet very different. Damien is a “Chi-móókomáán.” My parents are both Native American and they weren’t too happy when they first met him. They had wanted me to be with one of my own. I can understand that, but what some people didn’t understand is that when I look at him, I don’t see a color. I see someone caring, supportive, loving and protective. Love doesn’t see in color–humans are the only ones who see in color.

When I got home that day, Damien sat me down and told me that he had a job offer. In New York. I sat and listened to him tell me that nothing was set in stone, but he wanted to talk it over with me before he accepted. It only took me a minute to tell him what he knew I’d say: My place is with him. Home is where ever we make it.

Home to me was Minnesota. I was born in Minneapolis. My parents were concerned about their children growing up in the inner city, so my mother moved to the Red Lake Indian Reservation. My first memories were of Red Lake, the Head Start, St. Mary’s Mission and our little yellow house in Back-of-Town.

My parents soon bought a trailer and moved it to a small piece of land in the Little Rock District. When we moved out of the yellow house, someone burnt it down to the ground. I didn’t understand it then, and even now I still don’t. The Reservation is in desperate need of housing and businesses. It costs the Reservation money to build these places, so why do some people chose to burn or desecrate? We should be grateful and thank the Great Spirit for everything we are given. Show Him our thanks by taking care of such places. If He sees us destroying it, he will not be so eager to help us when we need it.

A week later Damien received good news. He was given a managerial position, but we had to be in New York by September 15, 2003, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hold the position for him. That left us three months to make arrangements.

As the end of August rolled around, we had downsized everything in our large house to fit into a smaller two bedroom apartment. It hurt to have to find homes for Damien's two dogs, but we couldn’t take them with us. By September 3^rd we had everything in boxes, the carpet cleaned and we were ready to go, and on the following day we loaded all of our belongings into the Budget truck.

My mother had helped us for the past 3 days and without her we couldn’t have done it by ourselves. It was hard to hug her and say good-bye. My whole family was here in Minnesota and I didn’t know a single person in New York. I felt like the path I was set to walk down had a reason, but no one can foretell their future and what it may hold.

We rolled through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. By the time we arrived at the New York state line, my legs were nothing but macaroni. T he roads were narrower, the greenery lush and overgrown on both sides of the road. The Catskills were round mountain tops surrounding the Hudson Valley, my new home. We settled in the hamlet of Wallkill, about 85 miles north of New York City.

Damien’s father, Joe, had agreed to take us in until we found an apartment of our own. I was worried before meeting him. What if his dad didn’t like me? Don’t worry, Damien assured me, my dad doesn’t like anybody.

Great, that took the pressure off of me to impress him.

Nobody was home when we arrived there, so we unhitched the trailer carrying our Jeep Cherokee and drove the Budget truck to a nearby storage facility. We unloaded and when we returned, Damien’s father walked out to greet us.

Joe was an older man, with salt and pepper hair and blue eyes. He hugged me, and seemed real happy to see us, including his grandchild he’d seen only in pictures.

Our daughter, Kyleigh Summer had just started walking the month before and was overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar sights and the strange people.

I’m quickly finding out New Yorkers are actually quite friendly. They open doors for each other, and ask “Hey, howya doin’?”. It took me awhile to understand what they were saying at first. It’s a lot like landing in Joe Pesci’s backyard. But after a while the New York accent began to sound almost normal. Most of the men work two to three jobs to support their families. It is expensive to live here, the closer you get to NYC the more costly everything becomes.

They are also an ‘up front’ sort of people who will tell you straight-forward answers to your questions. They talk, live and laugh loudly, and they are a boisterous sort who take the time to make a stranger feel welcome…Unless you are from New Jersey, I haven’t quite figured out why they don’t like anybody from there.

Interesting also, is they are totally accepting of me, my Native American heritage, and don’t shy away from asking me questions or telling me a joke. They had a harder time understanding my accent than I did theirs, but in time we’ll have a better understanding of each other. We are all just people. It doesn’t matter what color our skin is, or the manner in which we speak. All that matters is a feeling of togetherness, of belonging. To accept without reason, and to give without a conscious thought.

I am proud to be considered a New Yorker. Maybe it is something that more of us could learn, without moving the 1700 miles. I am now, and will forever be, a New York Native…

(Elizabeth Thunder-Howard is an Ojibwe Indian with roots in Red Lake and White Earth, living in New York, raising a family and pursuing a career in writing.)