Hi,
I’m Will Newman, I’m 19 years old, and I grew up in Dobbs Ferry, NY, a town in Southern Westchester. I’m a third generation American with the exception being that my paternal grandmother’s family has been in America since the 1600s. I am of Irish, German, and Hungarian descent. My family and I acknowledge our heritages, but we do not participate in any of the traditions associated with them. So I guess I see myself as American.
My name is Saranya Radhakrishnan. My parents moved to New York from India thirty years ago. I was born and brought up in Jamaica Estates, Queens. I can speak Tamil and Telugu with a heavy English accent.
My parents claim that there are so many similarities between India and American but all I can see are the differences. Nevertheless, I enjoy my Indian side as well as my American side of life.
Hey everyone, My name’s Stylianos Markou (but you guys can call me Stelios if it’s easier). I’ve pretty much lived all over in my life. Everyone that I know in my family is 100% Greek, including myself. I was born in Athens, Greece, but moved to New York at the age of 6. I then ended up moving to a small town in North Carolina called Mooresville for middle school. The small town life didn’t exactly suit me, or my parents so we moved back in 8th Grade, where I’ve lived since. I’ve really gotten the opportunity to be part of two separate worlds. Things seem to run differently in small towns, and it’s definitely helped me better understand the people around me, and have helped shape me as a person.
I love sports. Especially soccer. I breathe and live for soccer. I’ve been playing it for most of my life, and really don’t plan on stopping. Sports have probably been the biggest influence in my life. It definitely helps that in Greece the only thing you really have to pass the time is sports, so in my house odds are, someone is going to be watching a sports game. If you ever need to find me and can’t, just look for your closest soccer field!
I’m definitely looking forward to this class. Having lived in Queens for most of my life, I’ve definitely had the good fortunes of being part of a very culturally diverse community, but I know that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. There’s still so many things that I want to learn about all of the subcultures that live around me, and I’m really hoping that this class can help lead me in the right direction.
My name is Natalie Schuman. I was born and raised in New York City. My parents and my older sister come from Philadelphia so I feel a connection with that city as well. My parents Philly roots have influenced the way I speak in some little ways. I know that sounds specific but my cultural history is quite boring compared to many others’. My family has been in America for a few generations, so I have little cultural identity other than New Yorker.
My parents are both very much mixed. My mother is Irish, Czech and Polish. My father has ancestry all over eastern Europe. My father is Jewish and I was raised with both Jewish and Catholic traditions, though I am an atheist. I feel more connected to my Jewish roots and identify the religion as part of my cultural identity. While I may not practice the religion, I feel its traditions are a part of me and help define who I am.
The diversity of New York has always been one of my favorite things about living here and I am looking forward to learning more about the history of it, and looking at it from an anthropological perspective.
Hey ya – my name’s Michael Tirado. The most important thing about me is probably my music…in my opinion, anyway. I was born in Brooklyn and lived in Bay Ridge for the first year of my life – my parents decided they wanted to raise me somewhere with more space, so we moved to Staten Island (which seems to be everybody’s least favorite borough). For the most part I’ve enjoyed living in Dongan Hills up the street from a beach, and by that I mean take away the occasional flooding and Hurricane Sandy, and I largely prefer the casual suburbs to the uncomfortable city. I still dorm four days a week, though. I’m Puerto Rican and a quarter Italian, but my family is as American as a family gets. Even my paternal Puerto Rican grandpa walked around looking like Elvis Presley’s look-alike because he loved the music so much, and my maternal Puerto Rican grandma loved American tv shows like I love Lucy, etc. There has been extremely little presence of my original heritage in my immediate or extended family, only two members speak Spanish. For this reason I’m interested in learning about Puerto Rican immigration (even though people from Puerto Rico are technically not immigrants). The Hispanic kind of shows up, though…I’ve got curly hair and rhythm, and no food is too spicy.
Greetings everyone,
I am Fadi Habashy and my entire family is originally from Egypt. My immediate family emigrated to the USA in 2004. From 2004 till the present, we have been residing in Brooklyn, NY. The first few years were very challenging in terms of learning the fast-paced American accent, gaining cultural literacy, and making a living from dignified jobs. In terms of my identity, I neither feel too Egyptian nor too American. I am just me.
Since NYC is a very diverse place and this class is about the peopling of NYC, I am quite eager to learn interesting information about various cultures and backgrounds.
Peace.
Hey guys!
My name is Sabrina Kostusiak and I was born in Danbury, Connecticut. Shortly after I was born, my parents moved to Buffalo and I have lived there my whole life until now. I came to New York City for college this year, leaving all my family and friends behind. It was scary at first to start completely anew, but it’s comforting to know that so many people have come to the city just as I have, including my ancestors. Most of my family arrived in the mid 1800’s from Poland and Ireland. My ancestry, however, is more complicated, since I am a mix of many different European nationalities, including Polish, Irish, Russian, and French. I’m very excited for this class since I get to learn more about my classmates and more about my city!
Hey, I’m Carl. My father was born in Queens, and my mother in Taipei, Taiwan. My father’s roots stem farther back than anyone in his family remembers, possibly into the 1800’s, when the original families immigrated to the United States. His parents had, for the most part, separated from their original families, and eventually came to New York City from Virginia and West Virginia in search of better job opportunities. As for my mother, both her parents emigrated from China during the Chinese Civil War to Taiwan. After she completed her art studies in Taiwan, she came to New York to study Computer Graphics and Animation at NYIT, and then lived in Flushing, Queens to study at School of Visual Arts.
My extended family is far more diverse than my immediate family’s roots, and learning about the diversity in New York will certainty enlighten me to the experiences of different cultures clashing and blending.
My name is Patrick Jedrysek and I have a Polish heritage. Both of my parents came from Poland in the 90’s and made sure that me and my siblings are aware of our backgrounds. We all attended Polish supplementary school were we learned about Polish history, geography, and the language.
I was born in Brooklyn, however I spent ages one thru four in Poland. I even attend one year of pre-K there. So even though I am actually a second-generation immigrant, I sometimes feel like a first. I like to visit Poland whenever I can to brush up on my Polish and visit family.
Although my family claims that I’m distinctly and purely Turkish, the fact that nearly every European I’ve met has claimed to have a cousin who looks just like me back in the old country makes me wonder if that is true.
Regardless, it doesn’t matter to me because my “Turkishness” doesn’t really affect my being except in odd, idiosyncratic ways (like my obsession with olives).
My family is from Jamaica (the country). I’m the only one of my siblings that was born in the U.S. I’ve lived in Brooklyn my entire life, but I’ve visited Jamaica several times. I consider myself to be mostly American. In terms of loss of culture, its not so much that I don’t know it as it is that I don’t care to follow it. I don’t relate to Jamaican culture the way the rest of my family does. There are a few things, such as food and comedy that I enjoy from my culture, but that’s about it. If I wanted to live a more traditional Jamaican lifestyle, my parents would have more than enough knowledge to assist and educate me, I’d just prefer not to do so. That said, I don’t consider myself to be too “American” either, if that can even be defined. I’m not extremely patriotic and there are certain aspects of American culture that I really don’t care for. I prefer to live life based on what’s important to me as opposed to what a certain culture or tradition dictates.
I hope this class will teach me more about the geography of New York, which I’ve never understood very well. Learning about how the races and cultures of New York have changed and developed over time may be interesting as well.
Hello everyone!
I’m Ledia Duro and the answer to “Oh, you have an accent. Where are you from?” is Albania. I immigrated to the United States with my family in 2002 and have been living in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn ever since. I’m appreciative of being bilingual and a part of two distinct cultures. Although they often clash and I’m sometimes left feeling incapable of fully expressing myself, I do not wish to have it any other way.
As a result, I am particularly interested in exploring different cultures, religions, and backgrounds. Not only will this class stimulate my curiosity, but help me gain a thorough insight of the role of immigration in New York. Being a piece of the multicultural puzzle of New York, I hope my personal story adds to the experience of the class.
Hey everyone!
My name is Courtney Edwards. I was born and raised in Queens. Most, if not all of my family, comes from Jamaica. In my immediate family, my sister (who is only about 2 years older than me) and I are the only ones born in America.
My mother came to America on almost 25 years ago when my father sent for her. They both settled down in Queens and, years later, my sister and I were born. Although I am of Jamaican descent, I don’t really identify much with the culture although I love the food and music. My mother said that it was pretty easy for her to get adjusted to the American culture, being that we don’t speak a completely different language in Jamaica.
I identify myself as American with Jamaican roots because I feel there’s really no other way for me to embrace my heritage without having been born there. I’ve visited once in 2009 and I wouldn’t say it was a culture shock but it was quite different from what I’m used to. I’d love to go back some time soon and maybe connect more with my heritage because I don’t embrace it much. In my eyes, I’m just a regular Queens girl.
Though I was born in Northern Westchester and have lived my whole life in the United States, I have always embraced my Russian heritage. I am only half-Russian: my mother moved here from St. Petersburg in 1993. My father grew up in the suburbs of Concord, New Hampshire, and his mother (my grandmother) immigrated from Northern Italy to Brooklyn when she was a child. His father (my grandfather) had been an American for many generations–his ancestry traces back to the Mayflower Pilgrims (perhaps, the very first American immigrants!), and he is distantly related to William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony.
I feel that I straddle two different worlds, Russian and American. As a result, I am not sure exactly which I identify with the most. I am beginning to see that many New Yorkers also possess this “dual identity,” and I hope that learning more about the origins of other New Yorkers will help me better understand myself.
I was born in Mumbai, India on 1995 but my ancestors originated from South India. Four years later, I moved to Flushing, Queens where I have stayed for over fourteen years. Despite my time living in New York or my cultural heritage, I really don’t identify myself as being American or Indian. I view these as perspectives you can take to view the world, different colored sunglasses. By not connecting my identity with either perspective I feel I can look with a critical eye at both ways of thinking and see the advantages and disadvantages of each.
However, for a long time, I had considered myself quite Indian. I was brought within a tightly knit Hindu community in Flushing, where I went to the temple, learned holy texts, learned Indian Classical Music etc. However, this upbringing did not really expose me to other cultures as much as living in New York should have. Therefore, I have been trying to step back and delve into the different cultures that make up New York City. I hope this class will assist me in doing that.
Hey, y’all!
I’m Reylyn Roldan. I’m eighteen years old and I’m of Filipino descent. I moved to Staten Island, New York when I was seven years old. Along with my two older brothers and a handful of cousins, we became part of the second wave of immigrants in our family. Pioneering all of this is my great aunt, Felicitas, who came to America with dreams much bigger than the unfamiliar land she settled in. Fast-forwarding nearly fifty years to 2014, she still remains the foundation of the hundred or so family members she has helped brought to the United States. And for that, I am forever grateful.
Although I have been here for ten years, being around my family serves as a constant reminder of who I was, who I am, and who I will be. Because of that, I can still feel a deep connection to my past, to my childhood, and to my homeland.
Born and raised in Elmhurst, Queens, I’ve always been surrounded by diversity. On the way to my elementary school in Jackson Heights, I passed by Indian restaurants, Colombian stores, Italian delis, and Chinese bakeries — a mix similar to the friends I made. As a result, I’ve learned to appreciate all kinds of cultures and view myself as part of the melting pot that is New York City.
Since my parents were the first of their families to immigrate from the Philippines, Filipino culture is an important aspect of who I am. It is in the food I eat and the people I love. However, it is only one out of many aspects of myself and I consider myself American first.
Taken at the parade this past Halloween (I’m shorter in person)
I was born in Brooklyn and raised there until age 8. Then I moved to Queens where I lived from then on. I consider myself Chinese American. Though I identify more closely to my Chinese heritage as I am the first generation of my family and have been exposed to Chinese culture growing up. Although, I do admit that some culture has been lost from my parent’s generation and mine. I hope that this will be a memorable and interesting class.
Hello all!
Not you’re standard New Yorker, but I am a born&raised New York[state]er. I’m from White Plains, which is Westchester, but specifically is much more of an urban city than the suburban location may connote. My grandfather came from Germany to the Bronx, where my father was born, and my mother was born in Israel to two Polish parents, but moved to New Rochelle when she was 9. Not exactly 2nd generation, but I still feel the cultural and religious roots when it comes to familial relations.
[taken during high school graduation, that lovely lady to my right is the aforementioned Polish grandmother]
On a chilly Valentine’s Day, I was born in the neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn. I crawled in diapers on Stratford Road, spent most of my Catholic middle school years growing up in Bensonhurst and finally moved to Marine Park. While I was born to a Puerto Rican mother and a half Puerto Rican half Dominican father, I identify most with being a New Yorker.
Hi everyone!
My name is Alexis Romano and I’m from Long Beach, one of the only two cities on Long Island. I come from an extremely diverse background. The background I speak of is not only the city I grew up in, but also my family’s heritage. My mother is half Trinidadian and half Irish. My father is half Italian, a quarter Irish, and a quarter German.
Throughout my life, people have always asked me where I come from and my answer is always the same. I reply with, “I’m mixed.” The reason for this response is because all of my ethnicities are equally important to me.
Perhaps the beauty of being mixed is the pride I feel for my family who married outside their ethnicity. And for my grandparents, marrying outside their ethnicity meant marrying for love and not for what society said was right.
This is a photo of me and my nephew Adrian.
Hello!
My name is Paulina Librizzi. I am a New Yorker, born and raised in the city. I like to think that I am incredibly close with my heritage as an Italian-American, but I realize I am so much further from my heritage than most because the initial immigrants came over about a century ago. It sometimes seems bourgeois to speak of my heritage because connection to the actual culture has been diluted over the years. I cling to it still because I believe in stories. Stories make the wheels of New York City turn, because we each have something unique and interesting to share.
This is my picture from a few months ago.
