From the suburbs to Detroit: A journey of identity

[Ed. note: Forman, a recent graduate of Oakland University, is our newest Michigan Messenger Fellow.]

[COMMENTARY] Cultural identity is vital to how people communicate and, in many ways, how they view the world. So if you’re from a multicultural background, the sooner you can define which culture you step to, the sooner you can start building yourself as a person. For me, being raised in a secluded tropical rain forest by a black Rastafarian and a white Catholic, and then transplanted into a Jewish suburban household at age 14, has been a confusing journey.

Recently the journey has taken me down from the Detroit suburbs, all the way to the heart of Detroit. But before I discuss “the D” any further, I think it’s important to understand a bit of my cultural background, or, better yet, the lack thereof.

Maybe I’m slow, but it wasn’t until I was 15 and I started attending school for the first time that I truly internalized that I was, well, black. I was devastated to discover that no matter how much I bragged about my European ancestry, straightened my hair or fought my way into skinny jeans, I would be the black girl. My race made me self-aware, and I started monitoring my own actions, making sure I didn’t play into any negative black stereotypes. I felt as if I had an entire race to defend. My quick fix to the race issue was to act as white and suburban as possible in hopes of blending right in. It didn’t work.

Today I am very aware of my racial status, but still a little iffy on the cultural front. I know that Birmingham, Michigan, is not the place to do any kind of cultural soul-searching. For a while I considered traveling back to the Belizean rain forest where I’d spent my childhood. But with few funds to do so, I had to look closer.

Continued -When I actually decided to pick up and move from Birmingham to Detroit — to a working-class, weathered neighborhood in the center of the city where busy Interstates 75 and 94 come together — after graduating from college, I might as well have said I was moving to Vietnam.

Nearly every person I told had a horror story to tell. One acquaintance told me how he’d have to lie on the floor at night to avoid gunshots. A week before I moved, one of my co-workers took me aside with a grim look on her face, advising me to watch out for stray bullets.

And worst of all, my mother, who lived in Detroit in the 1960s, expressed her fears every time I’d bring up the D-word. “You’re moving into a war zone,” she’d say.

At first I shook off the warnings of danger. I’d been to Detroit many times, and I never saw any guns or bullets. I also noticed none of these fearful people had ever been south of Eight Mile since the 1960s, unless they clung tight to Woodward Avenue, the umbilical cord that connects Detroit to the suburbs. But the closer moving day crept up, the more the stories bugged me. I started questioning my own motives. What made me seek a place in this struggling city?

I wanted to explore and discover urban culture from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. If I learned enough, I might one day be able to traverse the cultural borderlands that span the suburban/urban divide. But none of this happens quickly.

In Detroit I bear the marks of the suburbs: The language, the clothing, the hair, the mannerisms, etc. I’m actually more of an outsider down here than I was in Birmingham. Once again I’m representing something foreign; this time, ironically, it’s the suburbs. But there’s something different about being in the city. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve left the States and am reminded of the grind of daily life that is so prominent in the Third World.

Every time I go to the grocery store, the beauty supply, the gas station or convenience store, even good old CVS, I’m reminded that this is a different culture. The way people acknowledge each other, engaging in personal stories at the grocery checkout, the heightened security, the loudness of transactions, and hustlers on the corner — it’s all a window into a foreign world, but at least now I’m looking in.

A few months back I was sitting in my parents’ house in Birmingham on moving day, surrounded by boxes and hangers, wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake. No one offered to help me move. That’s when the fear hit me. Doubt chimed in my brain: What if the stories are true?

Now, the longer I stay down here,the more I realize that it’s not the stories people need to overcome. Let’s face it, the stories are true. It’s the fear generated that is the problem. If you watch your back, keep a mellow profile, befriend your neighbors, then life in the city can be quite liberating. I notice, embedded in the sights of a decaying city, the culture of hope remains. It takes a while to see it, but it’s there, every day, under all the torn awnings and broken windows, in schoolchildren playing on the corner.

It may not be as manicured as Birmingham, but now it’s my neighborhood. And I plan to learn all about it.

Be sure to watch for more from Minehaha Forman here at Michigan Messenger about her cultural transition and Detroit-Metro coverage.