All come to look for America

“Michigan seems like a dream to me now”
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I’ve gone to look for America

The famous Simon and Garfunkel "America" lyrics which put Saginaw on the map.

Usually we show people on our hand where we’re from—it’s a trick only people from Michigan, the mitten state can do. When I tell people I’m from Saginaw, I say, “Stevie Wonder is from Saginaw. Have you ever seen his house? Neither has he.”

When I was first teaching is South Central, a student said they lived in the ghetto. The bridge coordinator gave him a lecture about how the word ghetto originated during World War II when the Jewish people were quartered off in the Warsaw Ghetto.

As I was telling my best friend from high school this, he said, “Well you don’t get any more ghetto than Saginaw.” I was stunned. I had never thought of myself being from the ghetto. I had been in denial for years. My friend continued to tell me how Habitat for Humanity was actually tearing down homes, instead of building them in Saginaw. Then I learned it is one of the nation’s top ten most violent cities.

So when I read the article, Finding Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘America’ In Saginaw, MI on NPR, which quoted a guy I went to high school with, I thought deeper about those lyrics.

Madonna is from Bay City, twenty minutes away from Saginaw. She said in an interview that she just wanted to get the hell out of Michigan. She received a lot of flack for saying that. But I understood. I wanted to get the hell out of Michigan.

I hated growing up with the Saginaw, ghetto mentality. My father used to say, “When you grow up, you can go live other places. You’ll see what a great town Saginaw is to raise kids.”

I moved to New York City right after I received my college degree. I turned down help from my father and my boyfriend at the time. I didn’t want to deal with their shit. I wanted to do it on my own. I’ve never moved back.

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all come to look for America

I have my students write an essay about “What is an American?” based on the essay by Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur. It makes them define for themselves what an American is. Many of my students have come from other countries to live in South Los Angeles.

All come to look for America