Rep Your City
T-shirts, jerseys, hats, blankets show hometown pride
Rooki Behari knew just what to send when an email popped up asking students for photos showing them wearing their hometown pride. Behari (COM’11, CAS’11) didn’t need to sport a T-shirt or hat—she just snapped a photo of her forearm, with its “Made in NY” tattoo.
Tomorrow, October 1, the entire BU community is encouraged to don jerseys, hats, or anything else representing their hometowns. The event, Rep Your City, is designed to bring the campus closer together.
“Everyone comes from somewhere,” says Raúl Fernandez (COM’00), assistant director of the Howard Thurman Center, BU’s multicultural center, which is sponsoring the project. “This is basically an excuse for people to talk to each other. It’s another way for the campus to connect.”
Behari’s tattoo, which she got on her 21st birthday, is the logo for the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting. “It has a double meaning, for me, since I was made in New York, and I’m a product of the film industry there,” the COM film major says. “When my mom saw it, she said, ‘No, you were made in my womb!’ But I’m not shy about my love for the city.”
Laura Brubaker (COM’14) was the first person to send Fernandez a photo, which shows her in her room at home, wearing a Phillies T-shirt. “I had to dig for that shirt,” she says. “It’s usually not easy to love the Phillies.”
But for Brubaker it is easy to love Philadelphia, the city where she was born and grew up. And she wants to be clear: she’s really from Philly. “I talk to people who say they’re from the city, and I ask which neighborhood and they mention a suburb, which really irks me,” she says.
“I feel like you should be proud of where you’re from—and shouldn’t be stealing my city.”
Brubaker says she’s excited to find out where other students are from. “I met a girl from Sheboygan, Wis., and a guy from somewhere outside of Detroit,” she says. “Honestly, it’s the people that grew up in the suburbs or the middle of nowhere that are fascinating to me.”
Behari says she also plans to take advantage of tomorrow’s event to learn more about people on campus. “I think having pride in where you’re from is so basic,” she says. “But there are so many people who don’t. It’s going to be interesting to see how someone reps where they’re from if they don’t like it.”
Fernandez has heard from clubs on campus that are mobilizing their members to dress up, as well as from the School of Education, which is organizing a school-wide photo. “We really want people to see the vast geographical diversity that’s represented here at BU,” he says, “and to realize that regardless of where you come from originally, everyone is now from BU as well.”
Follow @BUHTC on Twitter for details and use #BUREPCITY to connect. For more information, stop in to the Howard Thurman Center, GSU lower level, 775 Commonwealth Ave., or call 617-353-4745. They’ll be posting photos throughout the day, and prizes will be offered.
Kimberly Cornuelle grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and can be reached at kcornuel@bu.edu; follow her on Twitter at @kcornuel.
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