History of the Bronx, For Kids
I have very mixed emotions about the Bronx, where I grew up for the first 12 years of my life (1969-1980), and which remains the closest thing I have to a place I consider home, in a cultural sense. Being able to live there again while my kids were still young was very important to me, even though I knew we’d have to move at some point soon after they started school, and the five years we did were a great experience, positive and negative, allowing me simultaneously reconnect and disconnect before taking the inevitable next step of homeownership.
When my son, Isaac, came home with the assignment to put together a family cultural project — Where Are You From? — I wasn’t sure how to approach it from my side of the family, especially in contrast to my wife’s much more specific and rich Cuban heritage. I’m a mutt without a home, the epitome of a melting pot kid (or is that salad bowl?), with connections to many cultures but no firm roots in any.
Focusing on the Bronx was an interesting and enlightening challenge, especially when trying to boil it all down to a 3rd grade level, and by the end, I was left with the same mixed emotions, a combination of pride and disappointment, hope and disdain. I emphasized the positive, of course, but I’d be lying if I denied the bitter taste of the negative wasn’t still on my tongue, things like the new Yankee Stadium, the miserable public school system and the general feeling of it being a second-class citizen in New York City, on par with or sometimes behind Staten Island.
