Calling America

19 September 2007

A Land Not Soon Forgotten

Posted under places beginning with: T; Tampa; Florida .

This latest entry comes to us from Norbert Cartagena (a.k.a Gnorb) of Tampa, Florida. It marks our longest story so far. Long, short, round or square, we welcome all forms of story! Gnorb runs his own website which you can visit at www.gnorb.net.

I was born in Puerto Rico. If you don’t know, that’s a little island off the east coast of Hispanola. My God parents are Dominican. My mom was raised near New York City, my dad in Oklahoma, and my grandfather spent the better part of his adult life fighting Nazis in north Africa, communism in Korea, and as of late, trying to win the weekly lotto in Bayamon.

I came to this country when I was nine. Lucky for me, I understood some English already, since that’s what my parents spoke around the house. This, by the way, was how my cousins justified forcing me to watch HBO movies with them and translate what the people on the screen said. Because of them, by the time I was nine I could already say words like “shit” and “bitch”, except that for a Spanish speaker with a heavy Spanish accent, these often sounded more like “sheet” and “beach”.

You know, I suppose then that this is my chance to send a big thank you to HBO. So here it is, Thank you, HBO. You confused the heck out of me in fifth grade English, when I had to learn to spell the words “sheet” and “beach”. You also convinced me America was nothing but Hollywood, Disney World, and Nueva York, which was really nothing more than a Hollywood studio, anyway. But I digress…

About the English: I thought it was lucky for me that I knew the language, and while it was certainly a big help, being a Spanish-speaker turned out not to be as detrimental as I feared it might. As soon as I got here, I found other people that spoke Spanish. Of course, I, being only nine and completely innocent about these things, remember telling one of those people “Hey, if we need to tell anyone a secret, we can talk in Spanish because no one will understand.” That secrecy didn’t last long.

Like everyone else that comes to the States, I thought that people here spoke only English, lived in either Disney World and New York, wore jeans and denim jackets and sunglasses, break danced, and ate nothing but hamburgers and pizza. Well, heck, except for the English, the Disney World/New York thing, I was pretty much an American-by-proxy: I watched all the movies, wore all the clothes, and ate all the deliciously fattening McFood. I even tried my hand at break dancing, though that failed rather miserably. And I, like the rest of the world, got my chance to make fun of Americans for being… well, Americans.

Moving to the U.S. gave me an entire other perspective on Americans, however. Turns out most of them were just like everyone else I’d ever met. Sure, their taste in foods was a bit different; I could never understand how they could stand those horrid things called “grits”, why they put gravy on their biscuits, and why they ate something called the “chicken fried steaks”. (What sick chicken would sit in a kitchen and fry a steak?!) But otherwise, they were just regular, run of the mill people. They weren’t any smarter or dumber, they weren’t all white, and some of them even spoke other languages. OK, so they were for the most part more reserved than Puerto Ricans, and they didn’t party as much. But honestly, does anyone party as much and as frequently as they do in Latin America or the Caribbean? (And yes, Miami could very well as Latin America, so my point remains valid.)

But, let’s talk about Tampa for a few minutes. It’s not a big, fancy town. It’s just not. Tampa’s an average, blue-collar, American town. Sure, the Tampa Bay area has about 3.5 million people, but Tampa itself doesn’t have anywhere near that many.

What’s interesting about the city is its history, and if you spend some time walking in the different neighborhoods you’ll find out a fair amount about that by simply observing. Did you know that Tampa was once a pirate hideout? It’s true. In fact, there’s a part of Tampa called Safety Harbor that was named by the Pirates who used it as… well, as a safe harbor. Safety Harbor — not St. Augustine — is the oldest permanent settlement in North America, but because it was full of pirates, it wasn’t recognized as a township until much later. (Apparently, Spain wasn’t too fond of Pirates.)

Tampa’s particularly proud of its pirate history. So proud, in fact, that their professional (American) football team is called the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. (There used to be an professional football (soccer) team called the Tampa Bay Mutiny, but it folded after about three years. Their biggest attraction had apparently been Carlos Valderrama’s hair, though they also won a championship.) There’s also an annual festival, Gasparilla, which lasts from mid January to mid-February, and commemorates the invasion of Tampa by the infamous pirate, Jose Gaspar. Gaspar and his gang took over the city, looted the shops, despoiled the maidens, then set off into the sunset after a huge ransom was paid him. Actually this is just a legend, but it makes for one hell of an excuse for a huge party. Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum!

Not to be outdone by spring, autumn also has its own party, Guavaween, which celebrates the many kinds of guava, a fruit native to the area. The Guavaween party takes place in an area of town called Ybor City. (Actually, Ybor City is its own municipality, but it’s so small — only a few square blocks — that it’s easier to just pretend it’s part of Tampa.) As the name implies, it takes place around Halloween, so bring your costume to the ruckus party. It’s sort of like New Orleans’s Mardi Gras celebration, and like with Mardi Gras, you’ll want to bring beads. Lots and lots of beads.

Although I lived in Tampa for 13 years, I only went to Guavaween once. (Funny what you take for granted when you live in a place long enough.) It was with a few friends, during my last year of high school. Being the complete nerd I was, this was the first time I’d ever made it to a big party, since every other evening I was either practicing my violin or playing Dungeons and Dragons. Needless to say, I came dressed up as a wizard. The streets were crowded, and the air electrified with the vibrancy of thousands of party goers packed into a few square blocks. In one part of the town was the big carnival, with rides, games, and drunks. The other parts of town were awash in people, most of them drunk. The thickest crowds were found in 7th Street, along the route of the parade.

As you can guess, I had a blast: I danced all night, feeding off the crowd’s energy, and had the good fortune of being able to remember it all the next morning, even the part where ladies would flash crowds from atop balconies if given enough beads (remember what I said about these?)

Of course, to narrow Tampa down to these two parties, or to uphold Ybor City as the only great place to go is to do you, dear reader, a great disservice, since the town has so much more to offer. But, I’m running short on space so I’ll not get into the town’s cigar heritage (it was once known as “Cigar Capitol of the World”), nor its Russian-inspired architecture, nor its appearance in Jules Verne’s sci-fi classic, From the Earth to the Moon.

As areas go, Tampa has its own atmosphere, distinctly different than just about any other in the United States. The people there are generally friendly, calm, and for the most part enjoy relaxing. This is in contrast to the people of Miami, who I would describe as abrasive: they either like you or they don’t, and you’ll know it right away. In fact, it was because of this of this difference in personality, as well as what I’ve see in areas like Atlanta, Texas, Philadelphia, and Wisconsin, that I’ve been able to reach a few conclusions about Americans:

If you go by what the mass media says, Americans are loud, boisterous, gun-toting, religious nuts who refuse to learn anything about anyone (including other languages), fighting every day of their lives the armies of criminals in inner cities and going out to the country to wrangle up some cattle, all the while talking on their cell phones, eating our hamburgers, and working 25 hours a day, 410 days a year. Oh, and they’re not well educated, have no culture past Britney Spears and Fifty Cent (with Yo-Yo Ma being a complete anomaly, probably from another dimension), and they all either talk like they’re from Brooklyn or have a drawl and say words things like “y’all come back now, ya heah? Yeehaw!”

Needless to say this is completely false. Sure, you’ll meet loud, boisterous folks, but then you meet those anywhere, right? (Any Scots reading this? I’m sure you know damn well about stereotypes.) Sure, you’ll meet people who love their guns, though you’re less likely to meet these in suburbia than you are in the middle of the Florida Everglades. And you’ll meet religious nuts, though you’re more likely to meet your average non-church-going agnostic. And… well, you get my point. Heck, you’ll meet all these types without having to set a foot out of Florida! But the fact is that America is full of all kinds of people. All kinds, and to lump them into one bunch, into one preconceived set of prejudices is to make a very, very grave error. In truth, what you’ll find is that most Americans are regular folks, leading regular lives, who are welcoming of others (especially if you have a British accent, since by all accounts that adds ten points to your IQ).

What you may find most interesting is that, because of the truly nebulous culture and its inherent melting pot mentality, America is great at assimilating is populations. In fact, it’s hard to find groups and families who have been here for more than two generations who don’t consider themselves Americans, through and through. In the first generation they’ll know their language and culture, and some English. In the second generation, they’ll know both English and their home language(s) fluently. By the third generation family members consider themselves fully American, with their background being from whatever place their grandparents came.

Growing up in Tampa, I met people from all over the world: friends were white, black, French, Chinese, Brazilian, Cuban, Vietnamese, and yes, even Puerto Rican; my teachers were Russian, and Senegalese, and Hungarian; And my wife’s a white, blond American (with German/Czech background).

Now here’s where I like the United States. While some complain that America doesn’t do enough for its poor — and, don’t get me wrong, I agree that some things could be handled better, like the health care system — the fact of the matter is that America’s called “The Land of Opportunity” for good reason. There is indeed such thing as opportunity here, and anyone willing to roll up their sleeves and work honestly and earnestly, willing to strike out and take responsibility for themselves, then there’s something here for them: “The American Dream,” the ability for you to lead your life in the way you best see fit, with no one telling you otherwise, so long as you don’t impede anyone else’s right to do the same. Of course, that last thought is the source for much controversy, which is why we’re so often seen as so conservative. (By and large, Americans are.)

America is also full of individualists, and that can be either a blessing or a curse. It’s why we’re so often associated with having been gifted with business savvy. It’s also why we’re often seen as employing “cowboy diplomacy.”

If there’s one problem with Americans it’s this: all too often, people forget that that they, too, have a right at the American dream, even if they’re not an immigrant, and that this dream is not found in a hand me out, but rather in a hand me up. America is full of people willing to help you help yourself, but the fact remains that you must help yourself. Like with people, you’ll get out of America exactly what you put into it.

When I moved to the Fort Lauderdale/Miami area (one of the world’s largest metropolises) I became truly amazed. What I had seen in Tampa was but a sampling of the melting pot. In addition to what I had seen there, I found much more, including people from every South and Central American nation,very large and politically active free Cuban, Haitian, Polish, and Somalian communities, and much more. What surprised me, however, wasn’t the breadth of cultures, but also the diversity of environments available to me.

Put yourself in my shoes: thirty minutes west and you’re watching alligators, talking with alligator hunters, watching Native American rituals, and walking around in a giant river of grass. Thirty minutes south and you’re hanging out with stars like Madonna, Shaq, and all manner of Hollywood stars on one of the world’s most famous beaches (and yes, that is like what you see in the movies, but in truth, it’s a very small, limited part). Ten minutes southwest and you’re in downtown Davie, watching cowboys in a rodeo, and bull riders hang on for dear life as the prove the sheer depth of human idiocy by getting on a giant horned creature, pissing it off to no end, and seeing how long they can ride it before they’re launched ten feet in the air by the angered beast. Thirty minutes northwest, and you’re privy to sunrise on the Atlantic. Hop on the Florida Turnpike, and in three hours you’re in Walt Disney world, with points in between including small towns barely out of the 1800’s, miles of farmlands, and every type of folk and individual. Keep going a bit north and you’re at the University of Florida, one of the few with its own super collider, and Kennedy Space Center, launching point for most of NASA’s missions, including Apollo 11.

And this is all in just one state. There are 49 others.

America’s one hell of a country, and if you ever get a chance to take a year and travel the whole thing, do it. I can guarantee you won’t see the same thing twice, won’t meet the same culture twice, and will be wondering whether there’s enough time in a life to see it all twice. Of course, the biggest problem here is distance: outside of the North East — New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia — America’s so big that it takes forever and a half to get anywhere. But then, that’s part of its charm.

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