Art Card 110
That prompted a fairly amazing post by our Emily on her tumblr site in which she said:
I admit, there is something touching for me lately in thinking of living in the place where my parents and grandparents lived… that is, at least lived for a while. I’d wager we also have always been a bit nomadic at heart, these bloodlines of mine. But place, this romantic question of place, it comes back to me. What would it feel like to live in the place where my (recent) ancestors lived and struggled and grew up and loved — to not live in diaspora, as I often feel like I do now? It’s been an interesting urge to chew on, new and unexpected. It’ll be 10 years in Brooklyn for me come this Fall. Maybe this urge for Detroit is just another manifestation of my restless heart, draped in longings for a stability I’ve already worked hard to make happen? And if I was going to move away from Brooklyn to, ostensibly, have this feeling of connection with the other generations of my family, why wouldn’t I move back to North Carolina where my living family currently is? But there, that option feels completely different — the romance of the notion is more clearly delimited by the familiar, unromantic work I know would await me there.
Funny that. Maybe that’s what romance is about — the mystery of a compelling other, and all the things you don’t know (yet). It’s a dangerous, if occasionally useful, sentiment. I’m not packing my bags for my mother’s Michigan tonight… but, yes, I still might dream about it.
With some surprise, I read Mayor Bloomberg's statement about Immigration Law and the future of Detroit. He said, and I quote directly from http://www.nbcnewyork.com:
"If I were the federal government ... assuming you could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together," Bloomberg said, "you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit
and live there for five or 10 years."
Detroit has lost 25 percent of its citizens since the last census and
Bloomberg said his immigration idea can revive the city
where they would "start businesses, take jobs, whatever."
"You would populate Detroit overnight because half the world wants to come here ...
You can use something like immigration policy
-- at no cost to the federal government --
to fix a lot of the problems that we have."
Wow!
What makes all of this interesting is that I looked at job postings the other day - no intention at all of moving, but more to see what the market for museum professionals looks like around the country - and one of the interesting positions was at the Detroit Contemporary Art Museum. I was, to say the least, smitten. A part of me wanted to apply, to get the job, to pack my bags and my little (actually not so little) family and move back to Michigan. Or rather, to move back to Detroit, which, at least in my memory, is its own country.
I started thinking - remembering - our home on Parker Street in Indian Village, walking to the A & P, playing down by the Detroit River. A frenzied flight of ideas took me round Woodward and down Jefferson and over the Belle Isle Bridge, into the greenhouse, up the steps of the Detroit Institute of Art, back down to the Ambassador Bridge...all over and around the seat of my childhood. I know that I will never come back to Detroit to live. But, I do swirl around her in my dreams. There is something about that childhood vista: the land of my opportunity and my loss that still calls to me.
This morning, I looked online at properties for sale in that old neighborhood, and it made my heart ache a bit. One crazy fantasy was a vacation home back in the middle of it all...but my life is not arranged for such things.
I think what touched me, or astounded and surprised me, about Bloomberg's comment is only this: Detroit will rise again, one way or the other, I am certain. And in my heart, I suspect it may well be what he blithely calls immigrants - speaking of these "others" from around the world and around the nation. That makes sense for Detroit and for America for that matter. That is how we started, that is how we will continue. Immigration and migration have shaped our national history from the beginning, bringing ideas and innovation, arts and industry, small businesses and backyard gardens. The ebb and flow of people is precisely what made Detroit such a fabulous city for so long. Love and hope rooted in the possibility of economic opportunity, affordable housing, outstanding public schools, and shared values, dreams of realizing the American dream of life, liberty, and that elusive pursuit of happiness.
If I were a younger woman, if I were not so tied to this place now, if I were able to move my whole family, if, if, if only...then maybe I would declare myself an immigrant and move back to my homeland. For now, I will stay here and invest in this foreign Southern landscape...be the immigrant from the North, from Michigan, from Detroit.
And as I told Emily - maybe it is time for a road trip this summer....
Always loving you (and always loving Detroit)
Amanda
