Category: Issues of New York Profiles (Page 1 of 2)

“A few months ago I was on my way back home from Nebraska where we had a holiday vacation with some family friends. The flight getting there was smooth, the party was fun, but coming back… I don’t think I can ever forget what happened. I’m a bit self conscious about my body so I stood on the line for the regular metal detector even though it was much longer than those nude body scanners. I was only on the line for a few minutes when a TSA officer approached me and said I’ve been ‘randomly’ selected for a pat down. Your cousins were with me and they were just as horrified as I was. I refused and refused and I even threatened the agent with lawsuit. Nothing worked though, and it ended with the TSA official grabbing me by the arm and forcing me onto the carpet area where pat downs are done. The worst part of the experience was when the officer told me to relax and said I would feel a ‘tightness’ as he pressed upward against my groin and butt area. I’ve never felt so violated… And I had to go through all this for what? Just because my skin color is brown? Because I’m unfortunate enough to have the stereotypical look of a terrorist? It’s unfair, it’s wrong, and it shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

– My Aunt, Alpa Trivedi (translated to english) Queens, NY

“In 11th grade I dropped out of my religious high school due to my lack of interest in the religion and disagreements with the faculty. I then took it upon myself to study and take the GEDs, which I luckily passed, while at the same time taking 2 classes a semester at QCC as a non-matriculated student. Due to my weakness in math, I have taken and finally completed remedial math and now am taking College Algebra. If I can succeed at passing that, I will be able to transfer to Queens College and have a normal four-year college experience. This is a unique situation I am in and has led to me being surrounded by peers two to three years my senior when I hang out at Queens College Seeing freshman come in who are older than me is interesting, to say the least. It is surreal and slightly euphoric having two years of college experience when many people two years older than me have none. It just goes to show what a waste high school can be.”
(Flushing, Queens)

“I came out when I was 18. I had internal homophobia, but it’s something I wasn’t really comfortable talking about a few years ago. I’d often cry since it was so hard to talk about. It’s all these factors: society, culture, and people who have said homophobic things that have played into me having it. But I’ve become so much more comfortable, not with the idea of internalized homophobia, but the fact that it’s part of my identity and it’s who I was and that’s okay. I think one of the reasons I had internalized homophobia was because I grew up in Guyana and it’s a very heterosexual society. Heterosexuality, like in any other place, is idealized and romanticized in different ways and I felt like I had to be that. Society taught me to hate gay people and homosexuality in general. Society shaped my perception of homosexuality and I don’t want to blame everything on society, but it does play a factor in me suppressing all of that and I can’t ignore it. At first when I came to the United States, I thought I was comfortable to come out but I still waited 4 years. I wouldn’t say I’ve gone through a lot because I’ve had friends that have gone through way more. The hardest part of coming out was realizing that if I came out, I might lose certain people who meant a lot to me and I value relationships, so it was really hard and made me wonder if this was something I wanted to do. It taught me what unconditional love really was. To be able to come out as something society doesn’t really idealize and still know that people will have your back. It took a long time to get here, but I’m here. I’ve learned don’t let the label define you, you define the label.”

“The kids are improving every year. We’re an A rated school. There are still children that do not come to school. We have a 90-92% attendance, that leaves 8-10% of students that are either coming late to school or are not coming at all. I’ve found as a guidance counselor the biggest issue is when the child isn’t coming to school. We just had the 100th day of school celebration and some of the kids have already missed 40 days. I call the parents and tell them their child won’t be able to get into a good Junior High. The good Junior Highs don’t want to take the kids with bad attendance, because if they’re not sitting in their seat, then they can’t teach them. I love my job, but I do worry at night, sometimes, because there are so many kids that are in really serious situations.”

-Public School Guidance Counselor

“I lost my mother ten years ago. She raised me and my brother in a single-family home. My mother worked for AT&T from 5:30am to 5pm, and slept on the weekends. When crime rates in our neighborhood was rising, my mother made me do my homework and stay out of trouble. I finished high school at fifteen years old, but my mother wouldn’t let me graduate. I took gym and vocational classes to stay in school. I was a C-average student, focusing my time on sports. My high school track team once qualified for state championships, but one of the relay runners fell sick and could not compete. To get the open spot, I had to race another teammate. As I was stretching before the race, I saw my mother in the stands. She could barely come to my meets at the time, but she took off of work early that day to watch me run. My mother told me to focus and that I had the opportunity to do something. However, she was gone as I finished the race. When I saw her at home later, I asked her why she came but left early. She said that I needed to know that she was with me as I ran, even if she didn’t get to see me finish. If it wasn’t for sports and my mother, I probably would have been a pregnant teen on welfare.”

(Queens, New York)

“Honestly, finding the right college was stressful for me because guidance counselors didn’t turn in student records on time, financial aid packages were little to none, and my personal life was stressful during the time. Actually, my two choices of colleges before deciding on Queens was the University of West Indies because my family is Caribbean and Virginia Union University (Historically Black College) because I think that it is important for black people to be around each other and encourage each other to achieve success. Queens College was right for me because it was close to home, but not too close. Also, due to my Brothers sickness, and him staying in the hospital, I did not want to put a financial burden on my parents. But God is good, and I got into Queens through the SEEK (Search for Education Elevation and Knowledge) program which looks for college students that are financially or educationally struggling. It gives students a second chance, and defies the stigma that those who do bad in high school will do bad in college, especially since my high school stressed me out, and babied me for the four years. They require you to do volunteer work and go to different workshops that help you figure out what you want to study, and your career path. Although those requirements can be at times annoying, it made me realize that college is not as difficult as my high school drilled in my head, as long as you have a good work ethic. Even with those requirements, I love the program because you learn the history of racial minorities, especially because the program was first built to cater to minorities. If I had the choice to apply to SEEK again, I would because the program helps you remember where you came from and how far you have come from a time where black people were not even allowed to go to college. In contrast to other colleges that I know of I like that the program offers a lot financial aid. Some of the main problems with that is many people who know of SEEK lie on their FAFSA to get into the program, while other students who can really benefit from it either get denied from the program, or do not know about it because their school does not inform them about it. What I wish SEEK can do differently is open it to students other than freshman because it is an amazing program .”

– (Queens, New York)

“First time I saw the Garden I was 10 years old, me and my dad took the trip up from North Carolina to see the Knicks.  Second you walk into the place; you know something is special.  That feeling, when you see those banners, see that ceiling, is something that’s special.  That building has been with me through it all, and to tear it down would be tearing down the heart of the City.  There is no New York, without the Garden.  I hate saying it, but I played ball here cause of that building. It got me through some tough places. Was there when I went away, there when I came out. But you tear down that building, you’ll be taking my home from me, and taking the heart right out of the City- The fight right out of the City.”

(Far Rockaway, New York)

A plastic Starbucks cup lays motionless on the ground. Plastic pollution continues to play a large role in the decay of the natural environment around us. While some places in America have adopted regulations to ban certain types of plastic, others have resisted. One thing is for sure, the future of plastic is uncertain.

“Well yeah I do think that we are wasting too much plastic. Most of it just ends up as litter and not many people recycle but I feel that a ban on disposable plastic wouldn’t do much. First of all, it would be difficult to enforce the ban. It just reminds me of a few years back when Mayor Bloomberg tried to ban large soda drinks in order to improve public health but that didn’t work out so well for him. The same would probably happen if New York City banned plastic bags or other items made with plastic. Banning bags and other kinds of plastic would probably cost a lot more for businesses that already make use of stuff like that. A better way would just be convincing more people to recycle or offering an alternative. Not everything has to be made with plastic.”
– Queens, New York

“Honestly the lack of security on our campus often scares me when I actually think about it. The fact that anyone can walk on to our campus, such a public campus, is frightening. Just to think that if anyone were to get a gun, which is quite easy in this country, they could come onto our campus and shoot a whole bunch of kids up… and then leave. Yeah. I think that the fact that our security guards don’t actually have guns to actually shoot down any potential threat is scary.

If anyone wanted to do real damage to the students on this campus, they would be easily capable of doing so, especially with the amount of mass shootings on college campuses in recent years. Thinking about that and the lack of security often worries me, especially focusing on the Jewish community with the recent bomb threats at Jewish centers and vandalization of Jewish centers. A lot of Queens College students are Jewish, about a quarter of this campus.  And if someone were to really want to do harm, they could move past that threat and take action. And that worries me. A lot.”

(Queens College, New York)