By Bridge or Tunnel: The Transplant Experience in New York City

My friend's fiance recently moved into the vacant bedroom in the Harlem apartment I share with my sister. I've lived in Manhattan a year. My sister is rounding three years. Currently, we share the responsibility of expediting our Pennsylvania-bred roommate through her acclimation to the city.

For the most part, I enjoy imparting what modicum of knowledge I can on my wet-behind-the-ears roommate--as a recent transplant, hashing out advice makes me feel a little more like a native. But the other day, following a city outing, my frustrated roommate lamented, "I feel like it's going to take me months to become a New Yorker."

I consider myself a patient person, but it's difficult for me to absorb this particular brand of comment without visibly cringing. I blame Leonor.

Leonor is a college friend who served as my own city mentor during undergraduate visits to New York. More importantly, Leonor is a fiercely loyal Manhattanite who has lived in the same apartment on West 105^th Street her entire life and whose primary adolescent influence was an uncle who, as she likes to tell people, believes you need a passport to visit boroughs outside Manhattan. She was a harsh taskmaster, un-permissive of pretension and quick to stamp out the slightest affectation.

Whenever a fellow transplant prematurely refers to him or herself as a New Yorker, I envision Leonor's disapproving glare even before I can muster my own revulsion. I realize that the desire to belong is only human and readily concede that inclusion always necessitates a degree of exclusion, but something about New York naturalization engenders a distinct form of anxiety.

Transplants hope to be considered New Yorkers like mediocre grade school basketball players hope to become Michael Jordan. We are delicate, asthmatic--unsure of our jump shot and terrified of free throws. We imagine all attention on our slightest foible and feel our greatest triumphs pass without congratulation.

I first witnessed a version of the native envy so evident in New York when I studied at the American University of Rome. Compared to the Romans, we Americans were a motley crew--our t-shirts unbecomingly loose, our inseams hopelessly ample. Luckily, our arrival coincided with the winter sales. Wardrobes transformed overnight: the guys in too-tight jeans, the girls in those pleated mini-skirts that were all the rage the following season in the States. Oh, how we study abroaders pranced about Campo di Fiori with our euro coifs and giant sunglasses, resplendent and brazenly drunk. We looked ridiculous.

But that sort of tomfoolery is forgivable when cross-cultural exchanges are conditioned by youthful wanderlust and participation in contemporary culture is articulated through a language barrier. Though we could barely order an espresso, we wanted terribly to belong, and so, managed a one-dimensional reading of Roman life.

Such latitude isn't afforded to the droves of college graduates who flood New York every year. We know how we are viewed: carpetbaggers who shoplift from the job market and muddy the real estate pool. Add to the equation New York's steep learning curve in terms of the social cues that you are just supposed to know and you've got a group of people tenser than a tightrope beneath an elephant troupe.

I often wonder how we appear through the eyes of New Yorkers. Some of our maladjustments must be more conspicuous than I care to imagine. See us on the street corner outside the subway station, straining to read the next street sign (uptown or downtown?). Marvel as we attempt to order our bagels with the precision attendant to a military deployment (Wholewheatwithlowcalvegetablecreamcheese! Go! Go! Go!). Roll your eyes in commiseration when our friend from Upstate refers to things he finds unpleasing as "gay" (Goodness, you know I'm not like that, right?).

Or maybe this is all in my head. Maybe New Yorkers don't notice us, couldn't care less about our subway savvy or crosswalk bravado. Maybe, like my distraught roommate, I still fear that I don't belong.

With one year under my belt, my bouts of excruciating self-consciousness are most acute when I realize i have overstepped my bounds.

Just the other day, I was on the phone with Leonor. She recently moved out of her lifelong apartment and now resides in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. I've lately spent a lot of time in Brooklyn because my college roommate Steve lives there, so I asked where her apartment was. She told me her subway stop, and in my zeal to display my cross-borough acumen, I recalled that Steve and I had recently taken a train from that station to the Belmont Stakes. I announced that Steve was her neighbor, but when she asked his street, I panicked. Steve lives on Prospect Park Southwest, in Windsor Terrace. Steve had driven us to that station. Rather than explain my folly, I concocted a clumsy series of geographic vagaries and steered the conversation elsewhere.

Clearly, the jury is still out on my status.

So who qualifies as a New Yorker? Born-and-breds are a given, but you'd be hard pressed to find much consensus on any other group's status. I suggest taking a page from the book of relationship etiquette. Just like it's safest to allow a significant other to first introduce you as a boyfriend or girlfriend instead of conferring the title upon yourself, it's most prudent to avoid labeling yourself a New Yorker, at least until that magic day when a friend and unmistakable New Yorker beams, "Hey, you've really become a New Yorker, huh?"

At which point you may begin to sigh dramatically behind the transplant stumbling over his or her bagel order.