As I was driving on the Belt Parkway heading home from school one Thursday afternoon, all of a sudden my ears perked up when I heard “Staten Island” mentioned on the radio. I quickly turned up the volume because, c’mon, how often do you hear public news about Staten Island?! Well it won’t come as a surprise to you that all they were saying was that a man got into a car accident on the Staten Island Expressway. What was he doing on the Expressway? Not going to Staten Island, that’s for sure! He was just passing through to go to New Jersey. I mean, how many people who go to Staten Island actually GO to Staten Island?! For most people, Staten Island serves as a passageway, just nice scenery (or not so nice, in some people’s opinions) you drive by on your way to another, more exciting, place. I can’t really blame them. There isn’t much to do; there aren’t many restaurants or places to hang out. Some people don’t even know it exists! When you ask someone to name all five boroughs in New York the conversation usually sounds like this: “There are five boroughs? Well, let’s see, I know there’s Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, but what would the other one be, Long Island I guess?...Ooohhhh, Staten Island, right! That place is really a borough? Doesn’t it smell 
because of the huge garbage dump?!” Once in a while you hear people say “Yeah, I went to a wedding there once” or “I have a distant cousins who lives there”, but you almost never hear “Wow, I went to a great restaurant in Staten Island. I think I’m going to go there more often!” People often say it’s such a bother to get to Staten Island because it’s so far. Many think the only way to get there is by riding the ferry, which “upper-class” people from other parts of New York would NEVER do! I think the problem is that people think of Staten Island as a “cult”. They think that Staten Islanders stay to themselves and don’t leave the Island very often. Well, I can see where they get that idea from. It is pretty far away from most places and it’s kinda small. In my community, everyone knows everything about everyone else. I was once walking on the street and my grandmother’s friend came up to me and said “So your aunt had the baby! A girl, such nice news!” I hadn’t even found out yet! So, the community is like one big family. It’s typical when your mom, aunt and sister all work in your elementary school. Whenever I invite friends for the weekend, they all make jokes like, “I’ll make sure to bring my passport” or “You sure you can invite an ‘outsider’?” But by the end of the weekend, they feel as if they are part of the community and can’t wait to come back again. They see how having only one pizza store unifies the community and they realize that Staten Island has all the things they would do on a Saturday night in their hometown. I went away to study in Israel last year and it’s not very common for someone to say they are planning a weekend with friends from their community back at home. Us Staten Islanders on the other hand, got together from all over Israel every few weeks. So you can go on teasing us about being like a “cult”, but it’s that close-knit aspect that gives us a feeling of belonging; a feeling that most communities lack and most teenagers seek. And for all those people who say Staten Island smells from “all the garbage”, stop by Staten Island on your way to Jersey, take a whiff, then take a whiff of Jersey and I have a feeling your remarks about the smell will change!
because of the huge garbage dump?!” Once in a while you hear people say “Yeah, I went to a wedding there once” or “I have a distant cousins who lives there”, but you almost never hear “Wow, I went to a great restaurant in Staten Island. I think I’m going to go there more often!” People often say it’s such a bother to get to Staten Island because it’s so far. Many think the only way to get there is by riding the ferry, which “upper-class” people from other parts of New York would NEVER do! I think the problem is that people think of Staten Island as a “cult”. They think that Staten Islanders stay to themselves and don’t leave the Island very often. Well, I can see where they get that idea from. It is pretty far away from most places and it’s kinda small. In my community, everyone knows everything about everyone else. I was once walking on the street and my grandmother’s friend came up to me and said “So your aunt had the baby! A girl, such nice news!” I hadn’t even found out yet! So, the community is like one big family. It’s typical when your mom, aunt and sister all work in your elementary school. Whenever I invite friends for the weekend, they all make jokes like, “I’ll make sure to bring my passport” or “You sure you can invite an ‘outsider’?” But by the end of the weekend, they feel as if they are part of the community and can’t wait to come back again. They see how having only one pizza store unifies the community and they realize that Staten Island has all the things they would do on a Saturday night in their hometown. I went away to study in Israel last year and it’s not very common for someone to say they are planning a weekend with friends from their community back at home. Us Staten Islanders on the other hand, got together from all over Israel every few weeks. So you can go on teasing us about being like a “cult”, but it’s that close-knit aspect that gives us a feeling of belonging; a feeling that most communities lack and most teenagers seek. And for all those people who say Staten Island smells from “all the garbage”, stop by Staten Island on your way to Jersey, take a whiff, then take a whiff of Jersey and I have a feeling your remarks about the smell will change!
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