Like most millennials, my childhood was overrun by American pop culture. The Disney Channel, Legally Blonde, Sex and the City, Friends, My Wife and Kids, Fresh Prince, Nickelodeon – you name it and if we were watching it, chances are it took place in America.
Ever since I was eight, I have had a long distance love affair with New York City. The lights, the street signs, the food, the college campuses, the fashion, the cultural melting pot that is beloved worldwide has called to me for years and at the ripe age of 31, I finally went. The only problem being… Trump is president.
There have been numerous occasions where my plans to take my idea of the trip of a lifetime had been postponed for more important things; my friend getting married in Malaysia, the pandemic, and Trump winning his first election. After he won his second presidency, and the world got extremely more bleak, I had firmly put plans on the back burner.
But then, Zohran Mamdani became Mayor of New York City and hope had been restored pretty quickly. After his efficient execution of gestures New Yorkers actually cared about, my burning desire to visit – which had only been put on snooze but never went away – came soaring back to the surface. It felt like now was as good as it was going to get, so there was only one thing left to do… pack.
When I arrived in New York City, there was an immediate calmness I hadn’t been expecting – after the two hour immigration line where one belligerent citizen got escorted out by police. More so than any other city, NYC has a reputation – which I’ve come to realise not all New Yorkers are aware of – of being filled with rude people, excessive hustle and bustle, giant jumping rats and an overall instability that makes it hard to relax.
Of course, even with the rumours it had never put me off from wanting to visit, but the absence of all these negatives caught me off guard slightly. New Yorkers were polite. They held the door open for you, they said sorry if they bumped into you (something social media would have us believe was a quintessentially British custom), they said good morning as you walked past them in the street, they complimented you, they didn’t get annoyed if you were leisurely walking slowly in front of them – they simply went around you WITHOUT the huff and puff you get from the oh-so-busy Londoner.
When it came to Trump, well, remnants of him were everywhere but nowhere. There were stickers reading “fuck Trump” on lampposts, vendors selling MAGA hats on the Brooklyn Bridge in amongst their endless supply of keychains and magnets, conversations being had on the buses and subway about healthcare and disowning family who voted for him. However, at the same time, people were living and existing in harmony, businesses were thriving, tourism was in full swing, people were actively engaging with you and t-shirts with Mayor Mamdani’s face on it lined the stalls.
For anyone simply trying to exist in today’s world, Trump and his unbelievably long reign of poisonous politics and terror has cast an enormous shadow over us for almost an entire decade. His reputation and all out repugnant leadership have tarnished our ideas of America and the American people. It has overinflated this perception of them and how they must be living in constant fear as he has their lives hanging in the balance. Maybe because I’m angry all the time, I expected that anger to be out in full force but having to live it and have it directly affect you means people just trying to get by, push through and lead with resilience.
Waking up to the news that the Blues won both houses this morning in the midterms, I shed a tear of hope that this means tides are finally changing – I can only imagine how it felt for actual – not hopeful – US citizens.
Trump may be a never-ending news story but underneath it all, the lives of the people he has directly affected are still in full swing. As the saying goes, “your joy is resistance”, and that’s exactly how I would surmise the spirit of New York.
There are few places in this world that have felt like home to me, with London – my actual home – not even being in the top three. But NYC, if you’re ever looking for a resident for any one of your brownstones who’s a writer, type-A, loves going out to eat, blares music throughout the day and rewatches the same three or four shows over and over again, I’m your gal.
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