It’s no secret that people like to pick on New Jersey. The next time someone brings up a tired cliché or misconception, you can change their minds with a new anthology of human experiences, vast knowledge, and genuine appreciation for the Garden State.
“New Jersey Fan Club: Artists and Writers Celebrate the Garden State” is a book edited by Kerri Sullivan, whose Instagram, @jerseycollective, has 31.7k followers. Each week, guests are given the ability to “takeover” the account, sharing their perspective as New Jerseyans.
In the same vein, contributors have lent their voices through personal essays, photographs, illustrations, comics, and more to “NJ Fan Club,” and will be presenting at an author panel on Sunday, June 19, in Princeton Public Library’s Community Room.
Sullivan and others will be reading from the publication for an in-person “Book Brunch” event from 10:30 a.m. to noon, each giving their point of views in different forms of expression.
In addition to the coffee and pastries available at the beginning of the day, Sullivan is starting the library’s celebration of New Jersey pride with the book’s introduction.
“I’m thrilled to have a launch event for my book in Princeton, a city with a rich ongoing literary tradition. The Princeton Public Library and Labyrinth Books are such wonderful supporters of New Jersey authors, and I’m really looking forward to the panel,” Sullivan says. “Two of the five contributors involved in the event are Princeton writers, and I’m really glad we are able to keep it so local.”
Others on the panel include Brittany Coppla, author of “Exit 0,” and Linda J. Barth, author of “14 Things You Didn’t Know Were Invented in New Jersey.”
To sign up, register at the PPL website, princetonlibrary.libnet.info/event/6641073. A YouTube livestream will broadcast the event online at youtube.com/watch?v=IBuPtd3Hb2w&ab_channel=PrincetonPL.
Princeton residents Pooja Makhijani and Lorraine Goodman are featured in the following interviews with U.S. 1 about their work. New Jersey is a journey best told in nostalgic sub sandwich shops and observations, stories that come to life — or are worth reminiscing about.
Makhijani’s position as the communications manager at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies means that the writer and mother currently lives in Princeton. She grew up in Edison, albeit in “an Edison that looks very different from the Edison it is now,” as she writes in her piece “On Immigration and Sandwiches: The Story of One Beloved Restaurant, One Central New Jersey Suburb, and One Child of Immigrants.”
Makhijani’s personal tale is about Tastee Sub Shop, whose “unassuming appearance belies its iconic status in the region,” she describes, sitting humbly at 267 Plainfield Avenue since 1963. The Italian deli is an accessible, local option for delicious sandwiches, even earning a visit from President Obama in 2010.
An important facet of the piece is her Asian American identity and race, which has also been frequently discussed in Makhijani’s edited anthology, “Under Her Skin: How Girls Experience Race in America.” Her picture book, “Mama’s Saris,” is about an Indian mother-daughter relationship conveyed with the traditional garments, while her New York Times article, “The Path to an American Dream, Paved in Vienna Fingers” details the author’s connection to her Indian grandmother’s love of stripping the cookies of their signature cream in a hot chai. It was named Notable in The Best American Food Writing 2019.
What takes the reader through a time in Edison’s history, and through Makhijani’s voice, is the strong connection that Central New Jersey has with the communities of color who established their lives there. Saying that central NJ does not exist is a direct disregard of the part of the state “where people of color feel at home and in community,” Makhijani writes, detailing the shifting demographics of Edison as a result of incoming Asian immigrants.
Watching the landscape change, Makhijani says to U.S. 1 that she “was really interested in capturing that from a personal perspective,” even as Tastee Sub Shop “stayed the same.”
“I use the history of the restaurant, as well as [the shape] of the town, and then my personal history — these three things intertwine in just trying to capture a moment in time, trying to capture something about New Jersey that’s, I think, often not portrayed,” especially in regards to “how diverse central New Jersey has gotten in the past 20 or 30 years,” Makhijani explains.
Newly able to settle in the United States following the “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended immigration-admissions policies based on race and ethnicity,” Asian immigrants were no longer “explicitly banned…to maintain a white majority,” her essay continues.
Frequently, these different groups took to areas like Central New Jersey, targeted by discriminatory practices and racial conflicts in areas such as Edison. According to the 2021 U.S. Census, Edison is 48.6 percent Asian — a stark contrast, but one young residents might not realize as only several generations in the making, due to an Edison cultural identity that now prides itself on that same representation that, Makhijani writes, felt so barren in her childhood.
As a way of measuring personally confusing, troubled feelings about her heritage in a predominantly-white town, Makhijani looked to Tastee as a beacon, the deli becoming “central to my aspirational whiteness but also to my family’s eventual assimilation.”
Accompanying the essay is work by Pennsylvania artist Emily Thompson, who recreated “Tastee Sub Shop” as an 8×8 oil original painting. Makhijani bought the finished piece from her and says that “it feels really special” to have.
Equipped with a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and a master of fine arts in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, Makhijani has touched on food, as well as New Jersey, in a lifetime’s worth of writing. Sullivan first approached her to submit a piece for the book, which prompted Makhijani to “tell the history of migration and New Jersey through sandwiches” in a long-awaited encapsulation of her feelings on the topic.
“It’s a constant running joke that there’s no such thing as central New Jersey, and I argue that central New Jersey is a corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia, and that’s where New Jersey’s diversity is. That’s where I felt more comfortable in the state, and I want people to understand that I think New Jersey gets a bad rap in so many ways. People think it’s either the refineries off the Turnpike, or it’s like the Sopranos,” she says, noting their importance, but also how diverse New Jersey truly is. “I think that really gets missed in a lot of the common cultural understandings of the state.”
While she paints her own picture of Edison in words, Makhijani is looking forward to the reactions of the audience, as well as engaging with her fellow contributors.
“Master Class” is a Broadway production about an opera singer’s life post-stardom, but for Lorraine Goodman, it was her moment to shine as she covered the part of Sharon for six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald — back when McDonald had one of those medallions to her name, not yet the only person in history to win all four acting categories.
But Goodman turns the spotlight on her adopted home state of New Jersey, with her contribution to Sullivan’s book, “New Jersey Trivia: So you think you know Jersey?”
Goodman is a native New Yorker, but even she, despite the Manhattan prowess, is proud to call Princeton home. She is an alumna of the University, receiving her bachelor of arts in history before returning to the city for her onstage career. There, she cultivated a range of professional performances under her belt, as well as directing credits.
But she did not stop there, as her early forays into the nonprofit sector became interwoven with a love of the arts. She earned a degree in performing arts administration at NYU/Steinhardt, then helped organizations like the Theatre for a New Audience, the New York Musical Festival, and Roulette Intermedium.
More recently, she worked as chair of the Development Committee, then interim executive director/associate director for Trenton-based immigrants’ rights group LALDEF (Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fun). The entity expands access and resources for “the Latin American community in the Mercer County area.”
Through it all, Goodman’s love of crossword puzzles endured.
Six years after moving back to the Garden state, Goodman is still exploring her work options in nonprofit administration, but is also active as a cruciverbalist — someone who makes or solves crossword puzzles.
What started as a yearning to complete the most difficult days of the New York Times crossword puzzle’s weekly schedule, Fridays and Saturdays, soon turned into a research rabbit hole. By looking for the best approaches to become more proficient in her hobby, Goodman found an article about diversity in the “highest echelons” of the industry.
Goodman discovered that the issue of inclusivity has been a longtime subject of discourse for cruciverbalists, as supported by a March 18, 2020, article from Natan Last in The Atlantic. “The Hidden Bigotry of Crosswords” acknowledged that older white men tend to be the main demographic writing and curating the puzzles for famous, high-profile publications.
Erik Agard, an accomplished cruciverbalist, “Jeopardy!” winner, and crossword editor at USA Today, started the “Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory” Facebook group to respond to this. As a young biracial man, Agard formed the initiative in 2018 as a way to uplift puzzle creators of diverse backgrounds, stating his wish in the pinned post to “rectify that inequality for women, people of color, and folks from other groups underrepresented in the puzzle world.”
With her interest piqued, Goodman joined, corresponding and collaborating with a mentor, Mark McClain, on her first ever puzzle published in June of 2021. Through another NJ resident, Goodman met Sullivan, who was actually looking for a vocabulary puzzle rather than an American crossword for “NJ Fan Club.” The former style, as Goodman says, is a specifically themed, simpler piece evocative of what teachers often prompt students to make in school.
“New Jersey Trivia: So you think you know Jersey?” is chock full of information about state icons, symbols, cities, celebrities and more — Goodman’s clues are expansive in scope, providing an interactive exercise that covers everything from pop culture to historical events.
As she continues to publish in crossword giants like the Wall Street Journal, many times in partnership with other women, Goodman surmises that one of the reasons Agard started the group is “because women, and different diverse voices, bring diverse clues, angles and perspectives…that’s the key to why representation on TV, in the theater, Senate, [or] on the Supreme Court is important.”
Frequently, Goodman encounters male-dominated clues and answers where others could work just as well, showing the significance of highlighting other viewpoints.
“The greater perspective you have on life and a lived experience, the more you bring to whatever you do,” she adds. “This is why the arts are so important, and I think crosswords really lie at the intersection between arts and logical thinking.”
Goodman also says that while those from New York tend to view New Jersey as the “Armpit of America” for its highways and exaggerated stereotypes, she holds the same sentiments as Makhijani in spotlighting the immigrant community.
Outside of the state’s typical image, there are not only beachside towns with underrated beauty, but what Goodman calls a “dichotomy” between the perceived luxuries of towns like Princeton, and the many contributions of essential workers who may or may not be undocumented. This, she says, gives New Jersey depth.
Goodman recommends that everyone explore puzzle solving as a life skill, because as a result of her own inquisitive mind, she is able to recognize and encourage others to “embrace Jersey in all of its flaws and wonderful things.” The cruciverbalist notes that “it’s a really fascinating place, and this book will kind of open your eyes if you haven’t thought that already.”
New Jersey Fan Club, speaking to that cultural richness, is a collection of love letters to a state whose passionate residents are from all walks of life — they might complain from time to time, but regardless, they are likely to defend the Garden State with their proverbial lives.
Author Panel: “New Jersey Fan Club,” a Book Brunch Event, Princeton Public Library Community Room, 65 Witherspoon Street, Princeton. Sunday, June 19, 10:30 a.m. to noon. www.princetonlibrary.org.
Find more information about the book or purchase a copy at kerrisullivan.com/njbook.
