From Welcome to Chinatown NYC

Julia Gorbach

I am a student at Macaulay Honors at Hunter College 2013. I graduated from Staten Island Technical High School with honors and absolutely admired the inspirational teachers within my high school. Surrounded by such an intelligent, outgoing, and down to earth group of teachers, I realized the importance of "following your bliss" and allowing myself to find my own identity in this world. Success is possible if you yourself believe you are capable of what you seek to do; therefore, I must thank the magnificent family members, friends, teachers, role models, and peers who have influenced me as an individual.

Within my first two semesters at Hunter College, I was elected the Vice Commissioner of the Brookdale Council, the Vice President of the GeoClub, and participated in an alternative break with Hunter Hillel and City Year in Los Angeles. In addition, I was involved in the Hunter College '10 Production of the Vagina Monologues, was the lead actress in a student film called Sunday, and was the lead actress in a Bombshell Film Festival Final student film called A Rose Among Thorns (created in remembrance of the Holocaust). Outside of Hunter College, I model for ShortStack, an agency that models girls 5'7 and under to promote change within the modeling industry, and actively participate in numerous other activities, such as volunteering for CyberChase Day at Channel 13.

Overall, I found this class and this particular group project very interesting. Similar to many other students within the class (and residents in NY), I immigrated to the U.S when I was seven years old. And up until this class, I was only aware to the particular struggles I had to face as a newcomer and the many reasons my parents emigrated my family from Ukraine. I never saw the other millions of people who were and still are going through similar situations. This project allowed me to see Chinatown and its immigrants from a new perspective and for this, I am grateful.