Even now, 27 years later, I still hesitate when someone asks me if I’m “from here.”
My first inclination is always to tell them “no.” This is because it was drilled into me, from the time I arrived in Charlotte at age seven, that you had to be born here to be from here. You could live here 20, 30 even 40 years, the natives would tell you, you could die here and be buried here, and you still wouldn’t be from here, like them. You would merely live here.
This sentiment was drilled into my head — with the utmost politeness and not a bit of acrimony — dozens of times before I reached the age of 10. They’d welcome you sincerely and with genuine Southern charm, even if you told them you’d lived here five years. To them you were still new, and you always would be.
After a while, you learned to preempt them. When asked where you were from, you’d explain that you weren’t from here and only those who were born here were really from here. They would usually agree. They were all in on it.
Frankly, even as a kid, I could have cared less who was from where, but I’d politely nod my head and play along anyway. I sensed that the natives clearly needed to work their way through this.
It wasn’t like this anywhere I’d lived before. My parents, who were from the North, had hopped from state to state with us in tow. I couldn’t remember anyone outside Charlotte ever obsessing over where I was from like these people did.
Back then, in Charlotte, all introductions went the same way.
Within three questions, they’d ask what church you went to. This wasn’t a religious question, but a social point of reference. The city was still small enough that just about everyone knew someone at one of the big churches in town, and since just about everyone was a member of one of the big churches in town, just about everyone could instantly converse with just about anyone.
Unless you were Catholic and not from around here. This threw them. Stumped them. Occasionally left them briefly speechless and unsure of how to proceed.
The Catholic diocese back then was a shadow of what it is in Charlotte today, and Catholics were still considered to be something of an oddity, if you can believe it. No one knew the people at the Catholic churches.
That’s not to say Charlotteans were backwards. They weren’t. There were just completely homogeneous. Everyone had that same Charlotte twang. It’s pretty rare to hear it anymore. A countrified cousin of the accent is still common outside the county, but the original Charlotte version was spoken with a clearer twang and perfect grammar, the mark of a slightly higher class of people than what you’d find on the other side of the county line. The natives could distinguish between the two accents. I’m not sure that newcomers can.
Which is not to suggest that I consider myself a native. I’m merely someone who remembers when the natives outnumbered us and their culture was Charlotte’s culture.
That was back when Highway 51 was still lined with farmland and considered by most to be the edge of the suburbs, back when the neighborhoods around downtown were where you lived if you couldn’t afford the suburbs. (A friend’s mom once had us roll up our windows as we drove through Dilworth, which was pretty seedy.)
Ask the natives about the culture of Charlotte at the time, and they’d tell you about NCNB, Discovery Place and Spirit Square. But they wouldn’t be caught driving in the center city after dark. Too dangerous.
I often wonder where the natives have gone, exactly. As a kid they were everywhere. Now, it’s rare to run into one.
People still ask you where you’re from, of course. But now it’s the newcomers who are doing the asking. Twenty-seven years later, I still don’t feel completely comfortable identifying myself as a Charlottean. After all this time, that still feels on some gut level like a misrepresentation.
“We moved here when I was seven,” I say, the pat answer I’ve been giving for two decades.
Then they tell you how rare it is to meet an “original” Charlottean, or a native who grew up here.
“Yes,” I inevitably explain, “but I’m not from here.”
“But you are from here,” they’ll say.
And perhaps, on some level, I finally am.
This article appears in Dec 2-8, 2008.
