New York has many distinctive neighborhoods. There is Little Italy, Chinatown, German-town and Spanish Harlem to name a few. In the old days pre- the 1970's when everyone moved out because of an escalation in crime, New Yorkers generally conducted their business within a very short distance from their homes and spoke whatever language they had used back in the old country. Life was a lot simpler then and definitely more community based . New York has changed and with the exception of Chinatown , there is a lack of distinct neighborhoods with their own language and culture. All other sections of Manhattan seem to blend into one.
My Great Aunt Katche was a holocaust survivor from Nazi Germany. She fled her homeland in December 1938 a few days after Krystalnacht and managed to secure a visa to what was then then British Mandate Palestine , now better known as Israel. She settled in Jerusalem in a neighborhood called Rehavia. It was 99 per cent German. Just like the Old Italian, Jewish and Asian nationals of lower Manhattan she kept to her own. Her lawyer was German. Her accountant was German. Her banker was German and the candy store her and Uncle Alfred owned and ran catered to German immigrants . She lived in Rehavia from 1938 until 1993 when she passed on. For fifty five years she never spoke a word of Hebrew, which is the National language of Israel. Every thing she did was in German including the reading of newspapers, the listening to the wireless and the once a week German news program on the television that she watched religiously.
All Aunt Katsche's friends were German and they all seemed to live in the same cocooned life, refusing to assimilate with the general population. It reminds me very much of what i see in Chinatown here in New York. Thousands of elderly folk go about their business shopping at Chinese grocery stores, buying the same foods they used to purchase back in the old country. They all appear to know one another and live their lives as if they have never left the Mainland. It is a wonderful thing to witness. Adopting this type of lifestyle, traditions are maintained and thank goodness we live in a free society where immigrants can exist within worlds they are accustomed to supplanted far away from their birth place without the added pressure of assimilation. That is left to offspring to fulfill.
This trait of being stuck in their ways and refusing to comply with unfamiliar surroundings has a direct affect on the way certain immigrants deal with situations that challenge this whole way of living. An example of this occurred in the late
1980s with my Aunt and her Great Niece Michelle who was studying in Israel for a whole school year. She was in her late teens and was extremely considerate to my Aunt and Uncle. Michelle visited them every Thursday at 4pm for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. She couldn't show up at 3.45pm because they were both napping. She also could not turn up at 4.15pm because they were German and being late for a scheduled appointment was punishable by the death penalty just after a phone call to the missing persons bureau. So Michelle every Thursday would take the number 28 bus to their neighborhood and wait until her watch showed 4pm and visit for a couple of hours. Michelle was from New York City. With Anutie Katsche and Uncle Alfred she spoke perfect broken German. She barely understood the conversations and tended to smile a lot and agree with whatever they were saying. Friends of the old couple visited regularly and Michelle found herself nodding profusely to the assortment of questions that came her way.
When the visit was over Auntie Katsche and Uncle Alfred escorted Michelle to the bus stop and insisted that she got on the number 9 bus back to her dorm. The problem was only the number 28 bus went to her dorm and not the number 9 but Auntie Katsche and Uncle Alfred could not have possibly known that since they never left their German neighborhood. Michelle often tried arguing with them about which bus she should be taking but they were incapable of listening and changing their incorrect viewpoint. So every Thursday late afternoon at 6.05pm Michelle stood at the bus stop and watched the bus she needed stop and leave without her. Five minutes later like clockwork the number 9 bus arrived. She begrudgingly boarded the wrong bus and waved goodbye to her relatives. She then turned around and pressed the stop button and got off at the next bus stop . She then walked back to the previous stop and waited for the next number 28 bus to take her home.
Michelle claimed that this was a small price to pay for keeping the old couple sane and content. She always told them that they need not accompany her to the bus stop at all but as she was a female they felt obliged to make sure she got home safely. Michelle inconvenienced herself for the sake of allowing two very nervous people to feel good about their actions in looking after what they believed to be a lost visitor to their city who they assumed knew nothing about how to navigate correctly aroundit. This scenario continued for several months. Auntie Katsche and Uncle Alfred always went straight home after making sure Michelle was on the bus. Only once did they spontaneously, out of character, decide to do some shopping in the hood. When they returned from their grocery run they were dismayed and somewhat startled to find Michelle sitting at the same bus stop. They had literally just put her on the number 9 bus, not ten minutes ago. She had gotten off at the next stop and as per normal walked back to the bus stop awaiting the next number 28. It duly came. She tried to get on it. Aunt Katsche wouldn't hear of it. Another number 9 arrived and so for the second time in twenty minutes, Michelle boarded the wrong bus . The old couple quizzed Michelle why she had reapperaed at the bus stop and when she told them the truth they disassociated themselves from her answer claiming that she was being irrational and quite stubborn. This time Michelle got off two bus stops away and jumped into a taxi. I guess she couldn't risk going back again.
The funny twist about this story is that some Immigrant New Yorkers behave in a somewhat similar fashion. They love their newly adopted home and claim to know every nook and cranny in this hustling and bustling city. The truth is they never learn the native language, cant read the street signs and rarely if ever leave their own neighborhoods. Two months after Michelle boarded two wrong number 9s within a very short period of time , it was time for her to return to New York City. She invited Aunt Katsche and Uncle Alfred over to her dorm for them to meet her friends and some of her teachers at a farewell bash. They duly accepted her invitation. They didn't drive and wouldn't get in a taxi because of language constraints. So they took the bus from their place to Michelle. They were 40 minutes late. They were German. Germans are never late. Michelle wasn't worried. When they finally showed up the two of them weren't talking to each other and looked very flustered. Michelle kissed them both on the cheek and they sat down on a sofa resting their walking sticks on their laps and she asked them if they had found the dorm without any problems. Auntie Katsche looked at Uncle Alfred and gave him a nasty glare and he kindly returned it. Michelle sheepishly asked them if they had taken the number 9 bus the 6 miles to her dorm knowing full well it didn't go any where near her temporary home. Aunt Katsche smiled at Michelle and responded, clearly lying,
" No .We walked . We needed the exercise." They certainly don't make them like that any more!
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