I used to joke that I was allergic to America. Now, it’s my home | Rose Hackman
I still profoundly dislike the unequal American system. Yet, despite this, I have learned to love the countrys unrealized project
There never really was a dream to come to America.
I had visited twice before and both trips had confirmed an immense culture gap. The first time, which involved staying with a Harvard-educated, blonde east coaster when I was 19, I was so unhappy, I actually developed a rash at the end of my stay. I joked I was clearly allergic to the country, and dyed my hair black upon my return.
But by the time I was 24, I was back on a plane, crossing the Atlantic. This time it was love, not friendship, and I was determined to give it my best shot.
My American diplomat husband-to-be, whom I had met in front of the Brazilian embassy on Piazza Navona when I was living in Rome as a journalist, was waiting for me in Philadelphia.
It was August 2010, and we were due to move to Washington DC in September.
After a couple of nights staying with his parents in Philadelphias suburbs, husband-to-be and I headed to South Carolina to an island named Fripp, where his family had a large vacation home. Here, we spent the last few weeks of summer.
Fripp was exquisite. Walks through sand dunes and creaky gates revealed near-empty wind-swept beaches. Quiet streets dotted with perfectly matching large wood-paneled houses with white decks and rocking chairs circled around alligator-filled lagoons. Towards the end of the day, water sprinklers sprayed the islands bright green grass in perfect synchrony with the sound of thousands of crickets.
The air was hot and humid, but made entirely bearable by the easily accessible ocean, multiple swimming pools, and perfectly air conditioned interiors of, well, everything.
In the evenings, husband-to-be and I would drive to a fresh shrimp shack just off the island to buy dinner. As we crossed the bridge to drive back onto Fripp laden with seafood, we would slow the car down, and wait in line for our turn at the booth. Getting onto the island involved showing a man at the entrance of the island your membership badge. Fripp Island, you see, is a private, gated community run by a property owners association.
The island is private? How can you privatize an entire island?! I exclaimed when I first realized this a few days into our stay.
As a European, the idea seemed absurd. What if people from the mainland want to come to the island for the day?
Residents, and their guests only, husband-to-be confirmed.
We drove on.
My senses heightened.
There was no denying the islands beauty. It was difficult not to enjoy end of afternoon trips back from the beach in the electric golf carts that everyone used to get around. The few people you did pass along the way always waved jolly salutations. Mostly, it was glorious deep blue and green landscapes with sieges of herons and families of deer.
There was also no denying how much fun it was to open the immense fridge door inside this summer house I had suddenly become a rightful occupant of, decide which of the many sodas I wished to drink, crack it open and drink it sitting at the kitchen counter. Actual longterm Americans may not get how quintessentially and magically American this feels to the outsider.
But in between the excitement during those first weeks of grappling with America as my new home, a distinct sense of unease, and discomfort started to settle. Like if you listened carefully to the background noise, you might hear the sound of constant nails screeching up and down a blackboard.
Trips to the mainland revealed a diverse South Carolina population. Everyone I saw on the island though, where the population fluctuates between a few hundred and 5,000 depending on the time of year, was white. Everyone.
Where are all the black people? I asked a day or so later. I recall a mumbled response.
At the islands gym, which was accessed like all other island amenities with my family membership card, I learned to politely ask to change the channel when I arrived and the television was playing Fox News.
People were so terribly nice to me. My eyes squinted, and I took a thousand mental notes. A sea of questions inundated my brain.
Beyond the immense membership fees and the cost of buying a house, at what cost did this life come? What system propped up this kind of artificial reality? And who bore the brunt of it?
It has now been six years since that first trip to Fripp, and that time feels like a very distant dream. My marriage was short-lived a very happy outcome as it turns out.
As my ex-husband took diplomatic postings in west Africa, I headed to graduate school in New York where Occupy Wall Street was getting under way. There, I studied human rights, and wondered why for a country that seemed so keen on promoting human rights abroad, people seemed so reluctant to think about them at home.
I started answering some of those questions that had begun to form on Fripp in a graduate thesis on housing and the legacy of segregation. I found new questions to ask (and not enough answers) when I later moved to Detroit as a journalist in 2013 and covered heartbreaking mass water shut-offs and mass tax foreclosures over the course of a year-and-a-half stay.
For now, I am back in New York, living in a tiny apartment in a Dominican neighborhood, where I avoid turning the air con on as much as possible, to save on bills.
Next year, I apply for citizenship.
Somewhere along the way, in my hatred for the hypocrisy of a profoundly unequal American system, I learned to love the countrys unrealized project. In as much as it can ever really be the case, this strange place has become my own.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/18/american-dream-immigration-home