French has two verbs for “to know,” each with a different connotation. One verb means “to know” in the sense of knowing a fact. The other means the sense of “being familiar with.” In English, we have one verb and are left to find ways to distinguish between its shades of meaning. In most cases, we use either italics or the archaic-sounding “know of” to indicate familiarity. As a life-long English speaker, I have, by and large, been able to survive without such a differentiation, but every so often I struggle to express what I really mean. That’s the case with my understanding of where I’m from. I have a bit of an identity crisis because I know where I’m from, but I don’t know where I’m from, and people don’t seem to like that.
I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and lived there just three years before my family moved to Jacksonville, Fla. Despite spending 15 years in Florida, I still consider myself a New Yorker and say I’m from there. In my mind, the intervening years have merely been a displacement waiting to be corrected when I return to the Motherland. It took me a while to figure out where this mentality came from. Looking back I realize nearly everybody I knew in Jacksonville was from Jacksonville. Saying I was from New York City made me different. I had experienced things Jacksonville-ites could barely conceive of. I could make an instant connection with outsiders because I had been exposed to a new and exciting world beyond the gates of the South, with hustle and bustle and tall buildings and public transportation. Or so I thought.
In actuality, I know lots of facts about New York, but I know very little about the city. I know where New York is, but after Sept. 11, who doesn’t? I know my father used to work across the street from the World Trade Center, but if you ask me to point out his building in a picture, I’d have to guess. This disparity has begun to come up more and more often when people more worldly than I press me on the issue, especially in college, where there are people actually from New York. They really know New York. They have their favorite coffee shops in SoHo. They’ve really been to Macy’s during the holidays. They’ve even ridden the subway. I can tell you that New York City police officers wear hats and only have red lights on their cars, but I’ve never actually seen them in person. I know the five boroughs, but I wouldn’t be able to get around them if you took me there.
My parents and other relatives kept me in a cultural bubble of New York by talking about life there, so much so that I feel justified in saying I am from there. And in reality, it’s true that I am. But somehow I thought that their acquaintance with New York was enough for me to say I really knew New York, that I could pass off the memories created in my head from the stories I’ve heard so many times. I believed that one way or another these faux recollections granted me access to the elite club of true New Yorkers and I could bask in the glory of being better than others. Instead, I just look kind of stupid. And I feel confused, because I’m not really from Jacksonville, either. I’ve lived there, but I have no connection with the city. I wasn’t born there, I don’t like it there, and I don’t ever see myself returning there, so why should I have to claim it as where I’m from?
To say you’re from somewhere implies that you know it, but that’s not a fair standard for me. So I plan to continue answering that I’m from New York when people ask, and if they want to know more, I’ll tell them the whole story. That way I can avoid at least some of the stigma of being from Jacksonville, a place where I don’t exactly fit in, and still honor my real birthplace and possibly my future home. If people have a problem with that, I’ll just act like I don’t know what they’re talking about.
Christopher Trott is a senior in the School of Foreign Service and associate editor of The Georgetown Voice. You’ll never hear him saying “ya’ll” or “fixin’ to”—his parents would kill him.
