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Hi, My name is Veronica Karpoich and I was born in Queens, New York on August 9, 1989. I am currently a freshman at Baruch College and part of CUNY's MaCaulay Honors College. My family's immigration story has slowly been lost over the years, and I was able to discover only very little from those in my family who remember anything at all about it.

My mother's grandmother immigrated from Poland at the age of 16 with her brother, probably, like most immigrants, in search of a better life. Because my family has forgotten her last name, we only know about her life after she married my mother's grandfather, a Polish immigrant living in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Although my great-grandparents spoke Polish and kept some traditions from the "old country," they did not raise their children to have a strong link to the Polish culture. For this reason, a lot of the information and traditions have been lost over the years. Our only connection to this part of our heritage is the fact that my mother's cousin owns a Polish butcher shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where we get food for holiday meals or guests visiting from out of town.

My father's family comes from Ireland and Russia. His mother's family, the O'Rourkes, came from Ireland during the potato famine in search of a better life. They established themselves in Brooklyn and later moved out to Long Island when they achieved some success in the United States. Their main way of "keeping the culture" was by marriage: My great-grandfather demanded that his children marry only Irish and Irish-Americans. My grandmother broke the mold when she married my Russian grandfather, refusing a brand-new car offered to her by my great-grandfather as a bribe to change her mind. Our connection to this part of our heritage is also minimal and revolves around occasionally listening to traditional music and -gasp!- angry words uttered as the only example of the language anyone in my family can remember from any of these countries.

E-mail: veronica.karpoich@baruchmail.cuny.edu