Usually, I would say I am American. I would say this, thinking of where I was born, in New York. Thinking of where my father was born, Philadelphia, and raised, Connecticut. I have lived here my whole life, only going out of the country a small handful of times for vacation. I have gone to school here my entire life, and the only language I can speak in at all fluently is English. I took my first steps here, spoke my first word here, went to my first day of school here. I have always lived here, in New York. Yet, truly, I am not from here. No relatives of mine were here before the Mayflower and none came on it. They had not come by the Revolutionary War, nor the Civil War. My first relatives to come to the United States came from what is now called Belarus, around 1900. These were my mother’s mother’s ancestors. The rest of my family wouldn’t come until during and after World War Two. My father’s father, born in Berlin to two Russian Jewish parents. One getting killed by Nazis, a Socialist and a Jew. One finding her children whom she had sent to the US alone. My father’s mother, born in Paris to two German Jewish parents. Both making it to the US safely, one having to walk across the Alps, getting temporarily deported to Cuba, all with my grandmother who was only seven at the time. While they made it to the US, much of my grandmother’s family did not. Many of her relatives ended up in concentration camps, suffering and eventually dying or being killed. The awful thing is, my family was lucky. In Europe, around two-thirds of the Jewish population was killed, not to mention the millions of other minorities targeted. Most of my family made it to the US safely, reunited with children, going to school, learning the language. I get told these stories over dinner, at holidays, and in conversations, bits and pieces, mixed emotions. My grandparents came here as refugees, fleeing from the horrors we still talk about fearfully almost a century later. I don’t know where I’m from. I was born in America, I have both an American and a British passport. My grandparents on both sides are from Russia, some from France, England, Germany. I come from many places. Usually, I would say I am American, much easier than to repeat this all, but the question is far harder to answer at first glance, bringing up so many stories, so many memories, so much pain, so much joy. Anonymous '22 (BHSEC Queens)
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