Even if you’d grown up far away from it both geographically and culturally like I have, New York rings a familiar bell, owing its iconism to the slew of popular cultural material on the cinema and television screens: the tall blocks from every Spiderman movie, the urbanite life from the Friends sitcom, the chic streets from Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada and 13 Going on 30. New York is one of those cities you see in the backdrop of beautiful life lessons and dramatic fictional moments.
Yet, planning for that trip, which was to take place on the Christmas week of 2016, had been nothing short of a fear-ridden worry-fest as I watched a man with an artificial tan and a blonde toupee, deliver anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim diatribes to garner votes for his presidential campaign. The man himself appeared more a caricature than a fearsome leader. However, especially chilling was the uproarious support from a buzzing angry mass determined to see an “unadulterated” American way of life returned, and everything that “threatens” it eliminated. I had hoped that he would not make President (because I already bought the tickets and paid for the accommodations). Yet win he did, much to the dismay of those watching with bated breath all around the world.
It did not look good for anyone who looked like they came from somewhere decidedly “not-America” even though they are as likely to be born-and-bred in New Jersey. It didn’t look good for me and my travel companion with our Muslim passport names and huge luggage. However, travel is nothing but a life lesson in taking chances and going down the road less travelled. So when my travel companion asked, “So how?”, my reply had been, “Why not?”. We could take heart in the fact that Trump had not started his term then even if the rising incidences of Islamophobic attacks and abuses were a valid cause for concern.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
You hear whispers and stories of Muslims being taken aside for hours of questioning. I feared what was awaiting me as I arrived at the JFK International Airport. Anti-Muslim sentiments, growing conservatism within the community and news upon news of violence carried out by Muslim extremists would do that to you. But I made it through immigration without incident. The only incident was being asked if I was related to my travel companion because the officer thought the “Binte” in our names was a family name. We were soon in the bitter, 4 a.m. cold, hefting our belongings up and down the shadowy subway stairs, searching an empty Brooklyn street for our apartment building.
New York did not feel quite as foreign as I had expected. Perhaps every cosmopolitan city with its underground transit networks, the bustling streets and shop windows displaying merchandise from familiar brands ran the same sister bloods, only through veins in different bodies. Perhaps it could even be that there was nothing distinctly Asian or Singaporean about the capitalism that exists in my hometown. Perhaps the places in which people of various origins come together carried in them the same sense of hope and competition. Connectivity not only make for a smaller world, but also created similarities within it. We all know the Singaporean girl who wanted “Korean eyebrows”, and much as we want to roll our eyes at her, we need to look at how many in the community turn to foreign imams and ustazs for religious guidance. As if “Singaporean-Chinese eyebrows” are not good enough and local leaders lack in authenticity and accuracy.
The subway trains in New York can sometimes feel a bit like an MRT train heading towards the CBD on a Monday morning. Except, any freestyle dancers doing routines with the handhold bars will be “Stomped” and they will likely be fined.
Food was surprisingly easy to find in New York. Almost every food cart or hotdog stand is halal. There are Middle Eastern and Indian-Muslim restaurants, and if you are hurting for a place to eat in Manhattan, there are eateries that serve buffets where you pay by the pound. Here, we went for vegan meals at reasonable prices. The must-try in New York would be their pizzas, for which the city is known and which New Yorkers declare no other place can do better. I would recommend the margherita pizzas.
We did the tourist-y things: waited 2 hours in line to go up the Empire State Building, waited 2 hours in line to go into the Museum of Natural History and trudged in a wall of bodies to see the Rockefeller Tree from Home Alone and the Trump Tower, which had a police barricade blocking the entire street front and officers bellowing, “What are you here for?” to anyone who wanted to cross it. It was funny seeing tourists from South America, China, Japan and Korea taking grinning selfies across the street in front of the tower. It was as if the recent elections had been nothing but an amusement.
I looked up at the tower, took a lazy photo and watched a street artist make surreal sci-fi posters using spray paint and Tupperware covers.
The New York experience would not be complete without a visit to Times Square and a Broadway show. We watched The Color Purple, which was about a young black woman who lived through abuse from her father and husband, and who found the strength in herself to passionately belt out the famous line, “I may be ugly. I may be poor. But I am here”, attesting to the dignity and presence of the poor, which are so easily forgotten by privileged groups.
REMEMBERING 9/11
Where the Twin Towers once stood is now the Ground Zero memorial. I was a teenager when the attacks happened. I didn’t know what it meant then.
I remember going into English class and my teacher had spoken to us in a sombre tone about the tragedy. Afterwards, my Malay teacher spoke to us about the importance of tolerance during Mother Tongue class. We all went for recess after and then went right back to struggling to improve our dismal Social Studies grades.
A prominent white arching building was the first thing that caught my attention—a high-end mall. Every tragedy a capitalist venture, eh? In another building, a museum has, as part of its showcase, a steel beam that had once been part of the Twin Towers infrastructure. Skipping the queue, I peered through the glass at the beam, still a brilliant grey and with the construction markings still on it, thinking that this was how the Sisyphean task of figuring out the nature of inter- and intra-religious fractures started. Where the Twin Towers once stood are now two massive wells into which water flowed. Carved into the black marble are the names of all who had been lost during that attack.
I had expected more poignancy because that September day seemed like the tipping point in the world’s already tenuous relationship with Islam. Yet, I felt as eerily quiet as the monument’s surroundings.
THE PARTING
On departure day, the long lines at the airport confirmed all expectations: the frantic removal of shoes and coats, the random selection for additional security checks and the unnerving impassivity of the officers.
New York was not without its takeaways, however. The outgroups were clearly identified in the city: the unkempt poor with their heads bowed, the children trying to make a coin or two from banging rhythms on the bottoms of upturned buckets. I had complained about the miserable cold but I grew to be mindful of the many others sleeping out in the cold.
The endearing thing about New York, I found, were the uncanny. There were street-side chess matches. We met a poet writing prompt-based verse on his typewriter for commuters in the subway. A Buddhist meditation group chanted sutras at the intersection in Grand Central Station. Samaritans came out in the cold, seeking aid and donations for the homeless. The street culture in New York was vibrant and there was something beautiful about these unlicensed acts of kindness in one form or another.
Conservatism, divisive attitudes and religious vigilantism are empty acts compared to these. To embark upon them, even in the delusions of righteousness, is to wound our society with gaping holes in the ground—a reminder of a past grandeur in the stretch of an empty, silent sky. ⬛
Dr Nuraliah Norasid is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research in Islamic and Malay Affairs (RIMA). She holds a Doctor of Philosophy, with a specialisation in Creative Writing and Contemporary Mythopoesis from Nanyang Technological University. She is the author of The Gatekeeper and her other writings have been published in Perempuan: Muslim Women Speak Out and the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore.
