EMO, EQ, and WHB oh my! So, when I first moved here from Seattle, someone asked me if I was from EMO. Obviously they could tell I was slightly confused because I had a totally blank look on my face – I had absolutely no idea where or what an “EMO” was.

Turns out, it stands for East Moriches, just like EQ stands for East Quogue and so on and so forth. I’m sure you all have know this since, well forever, but I didn’t figure this out for a while so I was walking around wondering why people were so proud that they were from this strange place called EMO.

Hometown pride is no strange concept to me though. Most people are very proud of where they are from. Although what I have been wondering is why? What is the method to this madness? Okay, so maybe there is no madness but there is a reason behind why people are so full of hometown pride.

People in general are just proud of where they come from, for example people are proud to be from the U.S. because of what it stands for: land of the free, home of the brave, that kind of thing. It could also be just because we have football and hamburgers, depends on your opinion.

Either way it goes further than that. People are also proud of being east coast or west coast people. Even though there is definitely an argument to the whole east coast vs. west coast thing I won’t get into that. Although, the pride goes even deeper than Pacific and Atlantic coasts: hometowns. Whether you move away or have lived in the same place all of your life, people are generally instinctively proud of where they grew up.

Growing up in a place, getting to know the people, making memories there all contribute to how you feel towards a place. Sophomore Stephanie Prill recently moved from East Quogue to Savannah, Georgia yet she still misses her home. “Where you’re from is a part of you. It changes how you grew up and what you like. It’s hard not to be proud of something that’s shaped your whole life,” she said.

Living somewhere your whole life definitely alters your perception of the place but even for those of us who have moved around more times than we can count there is always the one place that we are proud to have lived in and proud to call home.