have a good grasp on what America is – a very good grasp for a Brit, and I think a better grasp than even some Americans have. Here’s an excerpt from an earlier email she wrote to our mutual friend back in England, when our government was shut down.
I am living in a district of Manhattan known at ‘Loisaida,’ the ‘Nuyorican’ (New York Puerto Rican) name for the Lower East Side. Once home to immigrant Jews and Poles and Ukranians, and then to Puerto Ricans, the neighbourhood is now even more mixed once again -- new generations of Russians and Poles, Latin Americans and Chinese people mix with African Americans and Jews and Ukrainians -- and the odd Brit. We are subletting from a friend, and our tiny flat has a shower in the kitchen, but I love this flat because it opens onto St. Marks Place, opposite a great old bookshop, a block from Moishe’s kosher bakery, Veselka the Ukranian cafe, and opposite, I now realize, new York’s oldest Day Nursery -- founded by missionary Sarah Curry, whose plaque was unveiled yesterday after a lively day of food stall and face painting -- and hundreds of kids.
America is in some turmoil. The government has, quite literally, closed down. That means there are no National Parks open, no clinical trials for cancer patients. It means that food banks and programs for the poor have closed. It also means that thousands and thousands of people are on ‘furlough,’ unpaid indeterminate leave. It is, as a Republican senator said, a battle ground. One wonders if he realizes that he and his political cronies are to blame for the battle. There is a rump of the right wing here that will fight health care provision until the end -- but what that end is, who knows? Affordable healthcare for all began to roll out last week. Hundreds of thousands have signed up, but Congress will not ratify it and Obama has (rightly I think) refused to give in to Republican demands to cut it. As of today, God knows where the country headed.
And yet, America soldiers on because this is also the land of what I will call ‘extreme’ volunteering. And that is something I marvel at here. In this tiny square mile we have so much localism it is shocking. We have Seeds for Supper, a programme to enable teens to cook, and cook healthfully. There are partnerships with local farms to bring good food into the city. There are talks and groups and community gardens, cook outs and yard sales, flea markets and benefits. It has always amazed me just how active Americans are as people -- yet without real welfare structure there is a tidal wave of poverty. I see it just looking out on the street, and this time I see more of it. The downturn reaches here where I am -- yet it is far, far worse elsewhere.
She's very perceptive indeed.
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