The Patersons of Paterson
My mother’s mother’s mother’s family came from Paterson. I’ve never been there, but it has that status, you know, of a place for me to visit one day. My great great great grandparents left to join the tide of Loyalists moving north to New Brunswick. Its a genealogical place, somewhere that I have inherited a connection to, like an affection for a constellation or a particular star in the sky. Unlike more recent diasporas, I have no sense of claim on Paterson. When I listen to it and other faint, resonating notes in the harmonics that constitute ‘identity’ I realize it claims me…