Monday, April 26, 2010

Dear Chicago,

"Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side."
-Bob Dylan "With God On Our Side" 


If you are from the Chicagoland area, and of at least a certain age, then there is something you must have come across in your chats with other people from the region.  I first noticed it when I got to University of Illinois, a traditionally agricultural university previously teeming with farm kids, which has now become a place where suburban/rural/urban blends to form the student body.  I speak of the eternal urban vs. suburban struggle AKA Chicago vs. the suburbs.  The urban vs. suburban struggle is not unique to the Chicagoland area, but to be fair, it is the only one I can speak about from a place of knowledge.  I have seen similar debates on Joburg vs. their suburbs (ok, Joburg vs. their townships).  But I’m no player in those debates, just a mere listener.      

Where I’m “from” gets a bit complicated, minus a detailed chronology, but in this debate I guess I am from the suburban side.  On March 18th 1981 I was born in Waukegan, Illinois USA.  It’s a city of about 100,000 people that is located on Lake Michigan, 33 miles (53km) north of Chicago.  I did not grow up initially in Waukegan, but it was the closest place with a hospital when I was born.  I grew up on a farm.   A few farms actually.  My first years were spent in Wadsworth, Illinois.  Then Bristol, Wisconsin.  Then back to Wadsworth.  Then back to Waukegan to finish out high school.  After leaving my mom’s house I have lived in Urbana IL, Champaign IL, Chicago IL, Pretoria South Africa, and even back to Waukegan. 

So, I am an eventual suburbanite with rural roots.  I have to say that to me “suburban” usually implies some sort of environment that is not like the one I grew up in at all, so sometimes it is hard for me to accept this designation at times.  When I think “suburban” I think of lattes from Starbucks, giant houses, soccer moms, SUVs, and a general whitewashing of all things people.  Minus a few token Asians or Indians.  I think of places like the towns south of me: Lake Forest, Wilmette, Skokie, Libertyville, Northbrook.  I think of kids pushed so hard that Ivy is the only option they have.  I think of towns like Hanover Park, where my dad used to live, that existed merely as a sleeping pod for the workforce of the area.  That place didn’t even have a downtown.  It was one big strip mall that extended into the next mall of the next suburban sleep pod.  I’m sorry, but force “suburban” on me all you want…those images do not jive in Waukegan.  Not even for a second.  When I was growing up, and I have also experienced it more recently, people from the towns surrounding Waukegan were actually scared of coming to our town.  ‘All made out of ticky tacky’ is not Waukegan.    

The Chicago vs. the suburbs struggle plays out like a little brother scenario, with the suburban folk as the younger sibling doomed to always tag along and suffer the onslaught of verbal noogies.  It goes something like this:  The people from Chicago proper (the urban kids) denigrate everything suburban because nothing that doesn’t come from Chicago could possibly have any merit or worth.  “Suburban” is anything outside the city limits of Chicago that isn’t blatantly rural or as far as say…DeKalb.  No suburban kid can ever understand how badass it was to grow up in the city.  No suburban kid could ever be as hard…even if the city kid in question grew up in the most wealthy, disconnected neighborhood in Chicago.  The suburban kids desperately try to show either A) Their home really wasn’t “that” bad or B) that they have plenty of urban street cred cos they have spent plenty of time in Chicago proper.  So they can’t really be considered suburban anymore.  They know the grid of the city (go ahead…test me…what’s at 3200N/1800W???) and will be the first to offer help when people are trying to figure out directions to the club.  Sometimes…I hate to admit…it’s even kind of amusing to see the grappling suburbanite try to prove themselves by bubbling and spewing Chicago knowledge.  If this suburbanite is a hipster then the hilarity of this spectacle may actually know no end.  Many of the suburban kids, in conversations that include “where are you from?,” will proclaim that they are from Chicago when they patently evolved in a space not in the hallowed city limits of Chicago, but rather Palos Park Hills Heights or some other ridiculously named suburb.  A suburbanite must never EVER do this as it is the one thing that is sure to get you a verbal beat down from an urban kid.

In a way I can see this issue from both sides.  I can see how people that grew up inside the city limits of Chicago can get a superiority complex.  Chicago is the shit.  We all know it.  And if I came from something that amazing then it would be hard for me to sit by and let others claim it.  One thing that often gets missed by the urban kids is that ALL have access to their city.  We have been to your city.  We have walked its streets.  Although our experience may differ from that of living 24/7 in the friendly confines…we have still lived for a second in your city and we have our own memories there.  It is not just yours.  It is ours too.  We read the same newspaper and watch the same 6 o’clock news.  We puff up a bit when the skyline hits our pupils too.  Chicagoland is a large, diverse area all anchored to that place called Chicago.      

I have spent time in lots of different places around Chicagoland and it is true that the human experience differs from place to place.  So in a way, it is fair to claim that a suburbanite will not truly understand the urban experience by mere casual osmosis.  A person that grows up in Pilsen (a Southside Chicago neighborhood) will have a way different experience to someone that grows up in Kenilworth (far north suburb) and on and on and on.  But it is also true that people that come from different suburbs have different experiences.  My friend growing up in Downers Grove did not live the same suburban experience that I did growing up in Waukegan.  It is not fair to lump us all together as if we all lived an identical white bread existence outside of your revered city limits.  This is one of the main ignorances of the urban kids, but because of their already superior position it is pretty beneath them to recognize differences between suburbs.

I also understand the frustration of the suburbanite in the face of a haughty urban warrior.  It is not nice to be told that your home is worthless or lesser.  Or to even have it implied.  Most people have no choice over where they grew up.  Your parents just plopped you down somewhere and there you stood until you could leave and do your own thing.  In this way it is very difficult to sit around and allow someone else to bring you down because of something you had no control over.  It is even more difficult if, like me, you actually liked the place that you grew up.  Often the person implying your hometown is inferior has never even been to that town and is speaking from some general understanding they think they have about all things “not Chicago.”  Come to think of it, a suburbanite that can navigate the city is almost at an advantage to an urban dweller that only knows Chicago.  This suburbanite has knowledge of two places (or more) and it has been my experience that an urban kid out in the ‘burbs feels a bit lost.  A suburbanite is often not trying to imply that Chicago and Orland Park are the same.  I think we all know that a city of millions of people will never compare to a city of 60,000 people (or even 100,000 people…like Waukegan).  We know this.  We are not stupid.  We are not trying to compare apples and oranges.  We are just trying to defend our home.  All these parts add to the kid brother phenomenon of always being made to feel lesser (and frustrated by this) when really we are just different.       

I can understand why Chicagoans get pissed when someone that is not from their city, but rather one of the lesser (God forbid) suburbs, claims “Chicago.”  But this part of the struggle has its caveats.  If you are 50 years old and you have lived for 30 years in the City of Chicago, but were originally conceived and raised in Homewood/Flossmoor (a southern suburb), then are you now a Chicagoan?  Or will you always have to identify your Ho/Flo roots in conversation?  How many years does it take to give you “Chicago” status?  I think also that a person coming from another state that sets up shop in Chicago is somehow exempt from this debate.  Which is weird.  I think a person that comes from, say, a suburb of Portland, Oregon will probably be more easily adopted into the Chicago fold than a person that grew up in an identical area just outside Chicago.  And how far away from Chicagoland do you have to be before you can just say “Chicago” instead of parading out the obscure name of a town the person you are now talking to has never heard of?  I sympathize with Chicagoans that meet suburbanites claiming “Chicago,” when they are in the Chicagoland area or even in Illinois or the Midwest.  If you are from Algonquin and someone in Illinois asks you where you are from…don’t say Chicago.  It’s stupid.  The person you are talking to probably knows Algonquin.  So be proud and say “Algonquin” loud.  But how far away from Chicagoland do you have to be to be able to just claim “Chicago?”       

Right now I am typing this in my bed.  This bed is roughly 8,691 miles (13,987 km) away from my “home.”  If someone on the street in South Africa asks me where I’m from then I am going to first start by saying I am from the United States (because I never assume that people just know my accent).  And second I say that I am from Chicago.  I may follow this up with more particulars about the location of Waukegan, if the conversation goes that way.  Some people in South Africa don’t even know where Chicago is on a map, so to say that I am from Waukegan, cos I am, is even harder for a South African to visualize.  For ease of conversation in South Africa, I am from Chicago.  I used to say, that I was from “near Chicago” when people here asked me where I was from.  But that just got confusing because people always thought I was talking of a new town, “Near Chicago,” instead of referring to proximity to Chicago.  And honestly the only reason I used to say “near Chicago” is because if the words “I am from Chicago” came out of my mouth then I could always hear my friend Clara (a diehard Southsider) saying in my head “but Lynsee, you aren’t from Chicago.”  This damn Chicago vs. Suburbs thing goes deep…    

This past weekend I was in a club in Johannesburg with my friends.  I was playing pool with one of them and because he scratched on the 8 ball, I won.  Where I am from, the winner gets to break the next game and the loser has to set it up.  Apparently that is not true in South Africa and my friend, the loser, said he was going to break.  We debated a bit and then went to the folks sitting nearby at the bar for a consensus.  Most people (SAns) said that the loser breaks and then one guy said “I don’t know.  I’m not from here.  I’m from Chicago.”  My face lit up and I drew closer.    

Mostly I hate meeting Americans here.  Especially in Pretoria.  There are not many of us in Pretoria and those that are here are either working for the embassy, the Peace Corps, doing missions work, or studying at the university.  Sorry, but they are usually not interesting people to talk to.  I don’t know what it is, but meeting an American here is often uncomfortable for me.  We are millions of miles away from home and we have nothing to talk about.  There is often no warmth in our dialogue.  I don’t know if other nationalities away from home have this experience, but for me, if I hear an American voice in the sea of South African lilts…I will keep quiet until my American-ness is discovered outright.    But this guy was from Chicago…and I was a little drunk.  I forgot myself. 

So I went up to him, amazed to be facing not just any old American, not just any old Midwesterner, but a real real Chicagoan.  I said to him “Wow!  I’m from Chicago too.”  And that was my first mistake.  I am not used to the American games here in SA cos I don’t have to be.  I don’t need to carry my ID when I buy beer and I certainly don’t have to get mired in a Chicago vs. the Suburbs debate on any sort of daily basis.  So my guard was down.  He identified himself, in a deep Southside Irish “Da bears” brogue, as a Southsider (Beverly) and then asked me where I was from.  At this point I realized my mistake.  I had forgotten my kid sister status.  I had to back pedal.  I said “well, I’m actually not from Chicago proper, but from Waukegan.”  He instinctively took on the role of the older sib and responded “Where the hell is that?  That’s not in Chicago,” as if I had identified a colony on Mars as my home. 

I responded that, indeed, I realized that it is not in Chicago.  I confirmed that, yes, I am from a place close to Chicago that does not fly the 4 red stars.  I told him that around here people didn’t know the USA that well and it was easier to just identify Chicago in conversations with South Africans.  But, oh no.  This was not enough for the Southsider.  He basically went into an extended rant about how I’m not actually from Chicago but some “nameless suburb” and that he would
“pray for my soul.”  Excuse me?  We are thousands of miles away from home and instead of sharing our similarities you are going to crucify me and then pray for my soul.  Seriously, wtf?  Ugh, Americans…

I twisted my lips into a painful smile that you would put on in a car where someone just farted, but you were trying to make the best of it, and tried to figure out exactly how long it would take me to get away from this douche bag.  Luckily we had the pool game to go back to…so my friend and I did. 

However it was not enough for this guy to just bring me down to my face.  I am guessing his friends around him were asking him about the girl with the same voice that was just talking to him.  And he had to proclaim loudly, across the whole bar, that “Oh she’s not really from Chicago.  She’s from some suburb I’ve never heard of.”  Seriously, how rude.  I watched my game and stewed as I heard him repeat this over and over again at top volume.  And hoped that this guy would never talk to me again.  Cos one more beer and I was about to tear him a new A.  Luckily, I could easily ignore him as I passed by his way again.  He didn’t catch me as I walked by cos he certainly was not interested into talking to an infidel from the suburbs.  And because we were there to see some seriously loud growling bands, this old man must have gone home pretty soon after the lights went down.  Praise Jebus…

But this whole scene dredged up something in me.  I was so annoyed.  I am still annoyed.  Mostly I was annoyed that this guy chose to be so obviously rude and negative to me about something that SO does not matter here.  We could have commiserated over so much since we are so far away from the thing that makes us similar, but this guy picked out one lame difference we have and pretty much built our whole interaction on that.  What a waste of time.  I was also annoyed at how deep that Chicago vs. suburbs debate touches me.  I am annoyed to be forced into the kid sister role because I am not ashamed of where I am from.  I do not accept that you are better than me because of geography.  I am frustrated to be pigeon-holed by something insignificant that I cannot change in the face of all the amazing, daring, interesting things that have since been added to my life.  I did not grow up in Chicago, duh.  But I have walked its streets.  And the streets of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Harare, Maputo, Paris, London, Munich, Managua, San Pedro Sula.  Don’t bring me down cos you think I’m some dumb suburbanite from Waukegan.  Don’t do it in Chicago and for damn sure, don’t do it to me when I’m almost 9,000 miles away from home. 

I also thought it was interesting that no matter how far away you are from home…home will always find you.  You will be in a bar in Johannesburg watching an underground Afrikaans industrial band and you will meet a Chicagoan there.  You will be out on a farm (the veterinary campus in Pretoria) smoking a nargile at a St Patrick’s Day party and you will meet a Chicagoan there.  You will be hitchhiking from Santa Rosa de Copan to La Esperanza (in Honduras) and in the back of a truck in the pouring rain you will meet a Chicagoan there too.   It always blows my mind. 

Anyways, I thought this was an interesting topic that would draw together home and South Africa.  Hope it wasn’t too much of an annoyed rant. 

Yes, I am still in South Africa.  Will be until July, hopefully.  Still waiting for my visa clearance.  The short story is that I got my head and wits back a bit and realized what a large mistake it would be for me to go home before the FIFA World Cup happens in South Africa.  Monumentally stupid. 

Hope you are all well.  I should be writing something else here again pretty soon cos I have to admit that although I am spending most of my days at the height of leisure…there are some pretty interesting grumblings arising in South Africa.  Things I would like to talk about more in depth. 

As always, keep the faith and spread it gently
Much Love
Lynsee