Dear Reader
Here we are, a few days into 2024, and there is so much I hope we see this year. Not least of all, peace for every single person on our dear, beloved planet. It seems such a pie-in-the-sky ideal to hold, and most days it just feels so mockingly far away; like the thing beauty pageant contestants call for and we all just laugh and go on with our lives.
But I feel just a tiny bit closer to it becoming within our grasp when I see things like this: Over the past couple of days, on the Facebook page of my local Buy Nothing group, a woman has been posting frequently about her efforts to help people that have come to the area, migrants, who are in need of food and clothing. The response to her earnest words and haphazardly-made videos featuring her stroller-bound dog has been a domino-effect of people adding their own ways of taking action. Of course, there are the usual one or two souls who don’t seem to get it, but for the most part, people care, and they want to help.
It’s this I go into 2024 holding onto tightly – ever assured of the power that exists in small bits of collective action.
New York is a city of immigrants. That much is, and has been, true since the 1600s. It’s what truly makes the city. Beyond the magnificence of buildings like the Empire State and the Chrysler and Grand Central, and all those beautiful churches in Harlem, it's the people that arrive here, from near, from far, some with multiple bags in tow, others with the clothes on their back; people that come to make their mark, shoot their shot, better their lives – they’re everything that makes New York, New York.
And it’s in their trying, their efforts to soar beyond where they came from, that the crazy, chaotic magic of the city exists.
For many, like me, someone who dreamed of living here before I moved from South Africa, New York can be a pinnacle of achievement – the big pond little fish come to swim (or flounder!) in.
But for so many others, it’s a place of desperate hope; the chance of something, anything, that will be better than where they’ve come from. It’s been this kind of hope ever since the 19th century when millions passed through Ellis Island, escaping political conflict, economic strife, religious persecution, or all of the above. It’s a chance for survival.
Over the past year, more than a hundred thousand people have come to New York, seeking this chance. For a place that has always held its arms Emma-Lazarus-wide-open to those who wish to venture here, there has been much disappointment and anger at how the city has responded, and its inability to provide accommodation or direction for incoming migrants.
Two shelters that have been set up near where I live can’t contain the number of people that have arrived here. Heartbreaking is a word that no longer covers it — to see mothers trying to look after their small children in these conditions; a feat that’s hard enough even when you have all the given essentials. At times, I admit it’s become almost too much to take in and feel what they must be going through. This incredible piece of reporting from NPR journalist, Jasmine Garsd, is a testimony to their strength and fortitude. A strength and fortitude they shouldn’t need to have to display, and we shouldn’t need to marvel at.
As a new mom, seeing the news play out in front of me feels even harder to bear. To be sure, you don’t need to have a child of your own to feel the pain of other parents. It’s just that it seems to feel all the more overwhelming, far more than ever. The sadness feels paralyzing; when so many people need help it feels insurmountable.
I don’t have the answers. But I do know that turning away is not it. In the times where I start to perhaps lose sight of that, I am reminded of it, over and over. As I was while sitting in the theatre this past year, watching Jocelyn Bioh’s debut Broadway play, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.
In it, we, as the audience, chuckle at the daily comings-and-goings over the course of a day of a group of West African women who braid hair inside a Harlem salon. Bioh has the skill to pile on the laughs, but, at the right moment, can turn a joke on its head, making us empathize with the unsettled state of being for many immigrants in the city. We share their day, listening in on their hopes and fears – and then, witness what happens as one of the latter becomes real.
As Jocelyn told me when I interviewed her, “We pass by things, read news articles, all the time about something really tragic and kind of keep going. In the theater, you are in a dark room with hundreds of other people sharing the story of these characters, their stories. You have nowhere to go except your own feelings.” Taking that time, to feel and to connect with the humanity of others, she reminded me, remains necessary for creating, and sustaining, the kind of movement that’s going to help find solutions and inch us forward together.
Jocelyn’s words made me think of another interview I once did, with the founder of indie Brooklyn bookstore, Mil Mundos, María Herron, who posed the question, “How do we create community and neighborhood, for me, for you? If the quality of life and how members of your so-called community are living is not of concern to you then you are not in community with them.” The word community is used so often, but what does it really mean?
I think the answer lies somewhere within each small act of care for those around us. It’s buying churros on the subway, even if it’s too early in the morning to eat one; it’s continuing to take bags of clothing to where they’re most needed, it’s making an extra sandwich for the guy who has been sitting outside the Keyfood for years. Or it’s lending your writing services to an organization that is on the ground already doing the day-to-day grind and is need of a newsletter. Whatever it is, it’s looking at what others are doing and letting it buoy you forward each day. When I am overcome by the simple fact that I can’t help everyone, I try to remind myself to return to where I can be of service with what I have.
And so, I go into 2024 heartened by the work of places like Mil Mundos, and playwrights like Jocelyn Bioh; by DIY groups like Artists.Activists.Athletes; by film critic David Ehrlich, who is using his annual, always-highly-anticipated best films video to fundraise for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. And by Nancy from the Buy Nothing group, with her unfeigned efforts not to let the anguishing sights we see everyday become an acceptable norm.
Wishing you a wonderful 2024.
Thank you, as ever, for reading. And thanks to Neil Young, for inspiring this week’s title.
Your neighbour,
Nadia