Month: November 2020

Working Out Indoors: When Leaving Rooms And Gyms Become One

 

Host intro: The COVID-19 pandemic forced fitness enthusiasts and professionals to reinvent the way they train. Lylia Saurel spoke to a fitness instructor about what it’s like to work out from her living room.

AMBI: Instructions given to students “breathe in, breathe out” (FADE DOWN AS TRACK BEGINS)

TRACK: I’m here with Sakshee Sharmaa in her Manhattan apartment, watching her conduct a fitness class from home. Sakshee is a fitness instructor for the cultural academy Meri Sanskriti, which is popular with a South Asian audience. When she’s not teaching full body conditioning, she studies communication at Borough of Manhattan Community College, or BMCC.

ACT: SAKSHEE: I think at first I was really scared because I was so dependent on going to the gym and so less self-motivated that I was like I don’t know if I can pull this off, I didn’t have the discipline.

TRACK: Yet, after six months working out indoors she has settled into a groove. 

ACT: SAKSHEE: I live in a really tiny apartment so I have to move tables around, it’s a whole chore to work out and I kind of made that a routine for all of pandemic, so I’d say this is the most motivated I’ve been and it took home quarantining for me to get to that level.

TRACK: Only a few weeks into quarantine, she was so motivated to empower others that she decided to become a fitness instructor.

ACT: SAKSHEE: Once the world went virtual I felt like maybe I can do it, I started posting fitness videos for the sake of motivation and some academy found me on social media and asked me to fill in for one class, but now I’m just working for them.

TRACK: And that’s how twice a week she leads a 60min intense full body conditioning for a largely feminine audience who doesn’t seem to miss the gym.

 AMBI: Motivational feedback and instructions. 

TRACK: Sowmya Prahlad, a 47 year old mother who took a one year break from yoga says that the online sessions are a dream come true for her because she can do it from the comfort of her own house and still manage her busy schedule.

ACT: SOWMYA: I couldn’t have been happier, this is what I’ve been waiting for the whole one year that I missed yoga. I love the body conditioning, it has worked out to my advantage and I really look forward to it every week.

TRACK: This is the kind of attitude Sakshee loves to inspire, especially as someone who has struggled in the past with a healthy lifestyle. As a child in India and then as a teenager in boarding school, she would favor junk snacks over healthy food, which she says made her put on weight.

ACT: SAKSHEE: I started feeling very uncomfortable in my body, self-esteem issues etc. but over time I just ignored them.

TRACK: It was when she moved to Mumbai after boarding school, and saw more people around her taking care of themselves that she realized she wanted to work on herself.

ACT: SAKSHEE: I started getting into dancing and I started losing weight because of dancing and that helped my self-esteem and that made me feel better about working out. And then I started going to the gym because once I explored dance it was easier for me to explore machines.

TRACK: As a result she also started eating healthy, which led her to really get into fitness. Now based in New York as an acting student, she has witnessed the impact of the pandemic on the field, as well as the new opportunities it has created for her to remain connected with a fitness community. 

ACT: SAKSHEE: Technology has been a game changer and fitness instructors are stepping their game up virtually. This helps in cultures like mine, Indian-American, Nepalis culture, south Asian cultures because women would rather workout at home than go to a public space because of comfort or cultural reasons.

 TRACK: Now that gyms have partly reopened in New York City she says she will go back in order to stay toned and challenge herself, as well as continue teaching from home. Overall she believes people will continue to follow classes online for a long time.

ACT: SAKSHEE: I don’t think that virtual fitness is going anywhere, it’s not going to disappear. It’s going to be a trend, it’s going to be a business for a lot of people and people are going to make money off of it. 

AMBI: Instructions to inhale, exhale. (FADE DOWN AS TRACK BEGINS)

TRACK: For Baruch College, I’m Lylia Saurel in New York City.

TRACK: Back in early March, Westchester, NY was one of the first locations in the United States to see a high number of COVID-19 cases. According to The New York State Department of Health, as of November 1, 2020, Westchester County has a 4.23% rate of coronavirus cases, which is one of the highest infection coronavirus rates in New York State when adjusted for population.

AMBI: Keyboard typing

TRACK: Grace Ruggiero attends Rye High School as a freshman, while Charlie Hafitz attends Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua as a junior. 

TRACK: Westchester County schools have been taking the utmost precautions with their students’ health. Charlie Hafitz recalls an experience with the school nurse after requesting Tums for a stomachache. Move this anecdote to the top.

ACT: I went to the nurse’s office for that bit of a stomachache to get some Tums and since a stomach ache and nausea is a symptom of the corona virus they isolated me in a room and put on big dress and masks and they called my parents and they forced me to all go home.

TRACK: When the whole fiasco was over, it turns out it was just a tummy ache. While these precautions do seem extreme, it is clear that each high school is going to great measures to keep its students safe. 

TRACK: Both high schools have taken similar precautions to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks, including mandatory mask-wearing, social distancing, and hybrid scheduling.  

ACT: GRACE: Rye High school has implemented multiple rules during the pandemic to refrain from outbreaks such as one-way hallways and social distancing at all time including at lunch.  

TRACK: Horace Greeley High School has implemented quite a complicated hybrid scheduling system, which has changed throughout the course of the school year. For the first month of school, they divided the days into two parts with an hour-long transition period between. Charlie would go in twice every 3 days – morning or afternoon.  

ACT: CHARLIE: Now it’s 50/50, so I go in everyday either morning or afternoon.

TRACK: Rye High School has a more streamlined scheduling system allowing students the option to participate in a hybrid schedule or a fully-online schedule.

ACT: They split us up into 2 groups and as a group B student, I go in Tuesdays and Fridays and group A goes in Mondays and Thursdays and Wednesday’s everyone is remote and we get out early for cleaning. 

TRACK: As high school sports play a huge part in student’s lives, both Horace Greeley and Rye High School have handled the situation similarly.

ACT: Rye responded to sports by continuing all low-risk sports in the fall with masks and social distancing but all high-risk sports have been postponed to the Spring if they are fall sports. Confirm examples of each kind of sport.

TRACK: High-risk sports include football and volleyball, while low-risk sports include cross-country. Each high school has a protocol for students showing symptoms of COVID, which varies by school. At Rye High School, dramatic measures are taken to prevent any spread of the virus.

ACT: If a student starts showing symptoms of COVID-19 they alert the teacher immediately or alert an adult that works at the school and the nearest adult will escort them through a special hallway which nobody uses except for these students who are having COVID symptoms and they take them to the COVID-19 nurse which is a totally separate nurse than the regular one

TRACK: For both students, virtual learning has been a challenge. 

ACT: Personally, as a visual and hands-on learner, it is very difficult to receive information and be tested on it while doing virtual school.

TRACK: It is clear through the accounts of Grace Ruggiero and Charlie Hafitz that high school for the 2020-2021 school year looks very different compared to previous years. Looking ahead, there is much uncertainty regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Westchester County schools will continue to adapt to the constantly changing circumstances of the virus in order to keep their students and districts safe and healthy. 

For Baruch College, this is Lile Ruggiero in Westchester County.

INTRO: The Crown Act. It is also known as The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act and it has been making its way through many states in efforts to create a safe space for people with natural hair and styles such as braids, locs, twists, and knots. Within the black community, hair comes in many different shapes, sizes, curl patterns, volumes, and more. Numerous hours and days are spent trying to maintain and keep one’s natural hair. Reporter Mwamba Mpundu had a discussion with her sister about growing up with natural hair and the obstacles/stereotypes that came with it.

TRACK: I’m here with Mwenya in our family apartment watching her install her Senegalese twists in her hair. She is a young Zambian woman who currently lives in Maryland working as an administrative assistant for the General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists. Mwenya is currently in New York with her family, due to the pandemic, causing jobs to shift to remote work. This has forced her to have time to explore different ways to style, treat, and fall in love with her hair again.

ACT: So, I’ve been trying, well of course, twists, braids. I tried faux locks for the first time…those were fun, some regular twist outs, braid outs. My favorite was the faux locks. They took a lot of work to put in and a lot of work to take down, but they were my favorite look overall.

TRACK: Mwenya has been rocking her natural hair for 7 years now.

ACT: So, I decided to go natural because I really wanted to see what my natural hair looked like. I was tired of the perm, straight hair and I always liked the way curls looked on other people so I wanted to see what mine looked like. When I was cutting it, I was a little nervous, because I have a really big head. So I transitioned for like a year, but even when I cut it, it was pretty short.

TRACK: As she likes to say “YouTube University” is the reason she is able to style her own hair.

ACT: My issue as a young high school student, a young broke high school student, was trying to figure out where I would be finding $150+ dollars to get my hair done at least once a month by someone. But then I was also around the time that YouTube was becoming extremely popular.

TRACK: Hair influencers like NaturallySunny and Chiziduru were hugely helpful in sharing their experiences with transitioning to natural hair. She loved her new look but found that some people had opinions about it.

ACT: I remember one time, and this came from an African-American person I was working with. I would go to work with like twists or whatever, in my hair and this one time, I had gotten my hair pressed and I went to work and she was like “oh Mwenya I like your hair” and she was like “Umm wait but aren’t you African?” I was like “yeah.” She was like “so why is your hair like that?”and I was like “like what?” She was like “It’s so nice. Like my hair is so much harder than yours. Shouldn’t your hair be worse since I am not African African and your African, so your hair should be worse than mine?”

TRACK: She sees these kind of offensive comments as an opportunity to educate people and to help change the narrative of black girls with natural hair.

ACT: In a lot of the spaces I have volunteered for or worked with, it has been with people not of color or mostly non-black people. I always use the times when someone says something or it’s a little bit uncomfortable to make it a place to learn more or grow more from that situation, for them in understanding the black life and black life experience a little bit better.

TRACK: And she thinks it’s important to deprogram certain beauty standards that people internalize.

ACT: So just because we are so indoctrinated with this Eurocentric opinion of hair and beauty and beauty standards, we automatically think that someone with curlier hair or less dense compact curls hair is better than ours when it’s not… it’s just different. And it’s beautiful in, each style but that doesn’t mean that one person’s hair is better than the other, its just different.

TRACK: In September 2020, the house of representatives passed the Crown Act in efforts to make it approved on the federal level. The law was first introduced in June 2019 by Dove and the CROWN Coalition. So far 7 states have passed this law and there are hopes to get the other 43 onboard. The story of Jordan Winder, a student who could not apply to his dream school because of his dreadlocks is one of the many reasons this act was created. Many cases like Jordan’s continuously occur. I asked what Mwenya’s thoughts were on this topic.

ACT: I think it’s extremely crazy and ridiculous that hair that grows out of one’s head had to become something that was legal and something that was ok to go to work in. Whereas others go to work in the hair that grows out of their head, without having to alter it and that’s ok. How do we turn away someone from a job for basically just being them and not altering that?

TRACK: The natural hair community has faced much discrimination for something that grows naturally on their heads. Despite that, we can see that we are in a time period where young people are standing up and changing the narrative. With many protests and petitions going around, there has been some change happening.

ACT: I think it’s great to see all the representation that’s happening on screens right now. From the short hair documentary that just came out called “Hair.” Then when you look at actresses like Lupita Nyong’o and Chelsea Ellis Ross, Tia and Tamera Mowry, and the countless amount of black women that just are rocking their natural hair the way comes out of their head, unapologetically, and just living life the way it should be. I hope for the future, that we are all able to let everybody else live their lives the way they would want to live it.

TRACK: With many new initiatives to change the narrative, there is some hope for things to shift. For Baruch College, in New York, I’m Mwamba Mpundu.

https://soundcloud.com/user-50671348/depop/s-OdpSjuxF674

Host Intro: In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed consumer habits with more people shopping online than ever before. This has led to the popularity of online marketplaces such as Depop, where buyers and sellers can easily connect on a social platform. Arianne Gonzalez talks with two young sellers about how business has been for them on the platform during the pandemic.

 AMBI: Train sounds pulling in at the train station.

TRACK: I’m pulling into the Croton Falls station on the Harlem Line of the Metro-North on a crisp fall day to visit Jean Basiletti in her art studio. The pandemic has been a difficult time for many artists,  but she tells me that she is managing and even thriving. 

 ACT: I think my creativity has increased, to be honest. I’m very lucky. I think… how do I put this? Well, I’ve got tons of free time, and I have all these things that I’ve always wanted to do.

 TRACK: Basiletti, a 19-year old college student from Brewster New York has been artistic most of her life. Hailing from a creative family and developing her skills since the age of 2, she has used her summer free time to work on different projects.

 ACT:   I’ve started carving stamps. I’m looking at it right now. And I’ve been stamping them onto paper—a form of printmaking with rubber blocks. I’ve also been sewing a lot, sewing shirts and dresses and bandanas. And posting them on Depop actually where they have been, they did sell pretty well but that was more of my summer thing.

 TRACK: Depop, a mobile marketplace for art and fashion, has grown in popularity over the past year. Basiletti says she first got onto the platform as a way to resell clothes she didn’t want anymore, but then she started designing things to sell.

ACT: I made a friend at college who was very into fashion and she would also sew her own stuff. And I would look at it and I would be like, “Oh it’s so cool, like I want to try.” She has a style of shirt, the design she created by herself and I was like, “Can I try to make what you made?” And she was like, “Yeah, sure, and you can resell it too.” And I was like, “I probably won’t, but ok”. And I made it and it turned out really nice, but it was probably something I would never wear. So I was like, ‘let me try.’ And it totally took off.

TRACK: The London startup has 15 million users worldwide. Despite the competition, there are ways for users to be easily recognized as a top seller. Sophie Scott, a verified seller on Depop based in Denver, Colorado, tells me of the Top Seller program the platform has.

ACT: I’m a verified seller by Depop, which means that they just kind of like promote my shop. And I get like a little blue checkmark on my account and like I’m, I’m in like a group chat with all of the top sellers in the world. To stay in the top seller program, you have to sell 50 items, a month.  

TRACK: Scott, who has just reached her 400th sale, has been a member of the platform since the summer of 2019 but has only dedicated her time to it at the start of the pandemic. 

ACT: I got home from school. I didn’t have a job and like I really couldn’t get a job. I’m also a type one diabetic. So, my immune system is already more compromised. So, for me to like, for instance, get a job at like a grocery store or somewhere where there’s a lot of traffic like that can be very compromising towards my health. And so like Depop really allows me to kind of be my own boss and work with myself. 

TRACK: She mostly sells clothes she finds at local thrift stores and makes sure to follow Covid-19 protocols when handling her shipments. 

ACT:  I wear masks every time I go to the thrift store and just try to stay away from people. And then I like wash everything that I buy which you should do, regardless if we were in a pandemic or not, you know, you just don’t know what kind of germs are on these random people’s clothes.

TRACK: Basiletti concurs about washing clothes, and also adds wearing gloves and sanitizing before packaging items. She also notes the risk with shipping items.

ACT: I think when you do receive packages or send things out you do have to admit there is a little bit of a risk when you’re getting your stuff. But you trust the other person is also taking care of themselves.

TRACK: Scott hopes to keep up to par with the worldwide top sellers as the competition continues to grow.

ACT: I have noticed that what I’m doing, has become more of a popular thing especially during the pandemic. So competition is getting higher. So I’m hoping that I can like keep going, you know, and knock it like pushed out of it, in a way.

TRACK: She also mentions hope of opening her own in-person store, expanding her business from the online platform to the physical world.

ACT: Regardless of what happens with Depop. I’m hoping to like open a store or like convert like a bus or something and do like a mobile vintage store go to like events. Hopefully, the pandemic will be over by that time

 For Baruch College, this is Arianne Gonzalez in Croton Falls, New York.

 

Host intro:  Swaggy Sie has been in the ears of New Yorkers since 2015 on Sirius XM Radio. Alongside the likes of Sway Calloway, Torae, and more, she has been a staple in New York Radio and Hip Hop, not only as a DJ but for her Interviews with some of the biggest artists in the game. Swaggy is rapidly growing on a national scale, with her interviews being featured on prominent social media sites like The Shade Room, even having clips of her interviews shown on Access Hollywood. Michael Grullon has the story. 

AMBI- Intro to Swaggy shows- 7 secs

Track- I’m on a Zoom call with Swaggy Sie, who is speaking from her home in Harlem. To her, her recent success in radio is something she didn’t plan from the jump.

Act- When I was in college, I never really put so much emphasis on the fact that I had this secret desire and love for radio until I went to Long Island University, CW Post. I originally wanted to do sports, because I was always a sports-person.

Track- She also loved basketball and when she first got to college she wanted to play in the WNBA. While unfortunately, we don’t get to see her lace up her shoes for the New York Liberty Basketball Team, she realized that radio helped her combine her love for music, sports, and showing her outgoing personality.

Act- I saw the radio station, and I said “Yo this is crazy!” I could do anything I wanted to do, talk about everything I wanna talk about, and I could also play the music that I love. So (the radio station) for me in a sense was like how I was able to put together my melting pot, of all the things I was passionate about.

Track- Over the years she has interviewed rising stars from the ever prominent Cardi B to Blac Chyna and the late great Pop Smoke. When asked how she has been able to stay composed during these interviews in the presence of such star power, she said that it isn’t as nerve-racking as you’d think.

Act- “There’s nothing wrong with giving somebody their flowers while they can still smell them, but it’s also about still remaining professional. So like you said, sitting down with Cardi B, I’m a fan, I loved Invasion of Privacy.

TRACK: Still, she says we’re all human in the end.

“It sinks in sometimes, but then you snap back to reality and you’re like “Yo, this person is bleeding the same blood as me: you know? They might be on TV every day, they might be on the radio every day, but at the end of the day when you make those connections that make us human, and you find out what you guys relate on, that’s where it gets back to reality.”

Track- The past year, of course, has been drastically changed for all of us, and Swaggy isn’t any different. With the Sirius XM studio just down the block from Radio City Music Hall, she had to transition everything to working and hosting from home. 

Act- Once the radio station is shut down now, that creates a barrier of how we meet people, how we interact. So I have completely transitioned to doing everything 100% at home. Everything you hear from me, from my interviews whether it be Cardi B or Lil Durk or whoever, that’s literally from my living room. Which is crazy to say, you know I’ve had some big interviews, even Blac Chyna, technically in my living room. Those things have been a transition and it’s weird because we don’t know when we’re gonna go back right now, that’s just where we stand right now.

Track- Being one of her interns the last two months has been great, but I wanted to give another unique perspective on working with Swaggy Sie. So I also sat down with Niesha, one of my partners who interns with SwaggySie, and asked what this internship has been like compared to previous internship positions she’s held.

Act- It’s definitely been a different experience, that’s for sure. My last internship wasn’t fully mobile, and we had an office we would go to weekly to meet up, this has definitely been a transition. But Swag has made what would’ve been a difficult transition nearly seamless.

Track- She went on to explain how understanding, kind, and experienced Swaggy has been in their few Zoom interactions.

Act- Obviously zoom University has become very demanding being a stay at home college student, but she’s been very understanding. The internship has taught me nearly as much as my last one without the same immersion, and to me that says a lot about her and my teammates. It has been very fun and I’ve become a better writer and publisher in the last few months working under Swaggy. 

Track- Obviously this has been a rough year of change for all of us. But Swaggy prides herself on uplifting the youth and others around her and remaining optimistic. So she shared her advice on staying motivated and maintaining the hustle of life through the pandemic.

Act- You have to find those things, they may be very very small things that keep you sane at the end of the day. Maybe it’s cooking, maybe it’s reading, maybe it’s just unwinding and watching an episode of Stranger Things on Netflix. You don’t know what it might be, but whatever it is, make sure you’re doing that, however often as you can, whenever your schedule permits.

 

Track- If you want to hear more from Swaggy you can catch her on Hip Hop Nation’s The Heat weekday mornings and weeknights on Sirius XM radio. For Baruch College, I’m Michael Grullon, in Brooklyn.

Host Intro: There’s a lot of business owners that’s been around for years and but there company is still unknown. Dasia Richardson speaks to one business owner about the in and outs of their business and how it progressed since the beginning.

AMBI: Box Opening Sounds 

Track: I’m here with Julio Richardson in his Bronx Apartment, as he’s opening and closing boxes filled with clothes for his company watching sports. He’s the owner and creator of Bakery Inc. A company started years ago that he is always invested in expanding and making it worldwide.

Act:Julio: Um the company started in 2009, um that’s when we started. It first started off as a music company then we transitioned into fashion and media .

Track: Richardson  says the origin  of his company  name came from  the slang he used  in his neighborhood.  

Act:Julio: Bakery is a term ,a slang  we used to use . In a bakery they make bread So bread in the streets means you have money.The bakery is where you make your money at So that’s why we call the bakery the money spot That’s what bakery stands for.

Track: He promotes his brand using all aspects of Social Media.

Act:Julio: We promote our business through social media, word to mouth. So we do  a lot of posting off whatever we got coming , as far as if its music, if its fashion, if it’s anything else. We use the social media market and the word to moth as well.      

Track:  His company has a lot of clothing options for female and  male consumers.

Act:Julio: We sell female and male clothing,  we also  sell female and male bathing suits. So we  cater to mostly everything, We have accessories also.

Track: Threw a manufacturing business alot of the company products get made

Act:Julio: Our clothes get made threw a  manufacturer. We go somewhere and  they do print and broder and screen prints to  whatever we need as far as far as hats, skulls, etc. So that’s how we get the clothes made.

Track: Nia Richardson costumer of the Bakery Inc says that brand is very great and caters to her  needs when shopping.

Act: Nia: Bakery Inc clothing line is a very prominent line, they have a lot of cool styles which are very  simplistic but it works for different outfit choices that  you would like which is something I like tend to like when picking out clothing.I like to make sure that what I’m wearing is something I can wear over again with different type of outfits.etc.

AMBI- Box Opening Sounds

Track: Richardson always had a passion for fashion and  it was the reason  he added  clothing to his company.

Act:Julio:  I always has a passion for fashion for fashion, I was just mad at these  other companies for not making clothes that would fit me.So when I started making clothes I wanted to make clothes that would  fit me and my consumers. So I always had a passion of being fly and always wanted to  do   things that would make me stand out. So instead of me helping out another company,Ive rather just make clothes for me and have people dress like I would dress. 

Track: Richardson wants the demographic of his brand to dive into all aspects of entertainment.

Act:Julio: The demographic where trying to reach, is that where trying to bring our style into the world, Where trying to bring it within music, within fashion, and with media and film.So that’s what where trying to do where trying to incorporate the world into  into getting to know the bakery brand what we stand for and what we are.

Track:Richardson says that COVID has caused shipment problems within the company 

Act:Julio: COVID has affected are business with a lot of our orders from over seas and with shipping. So things tend to take longer now that we have COVID. So it’s been slow for us but it’s gradually getting back to normal but we still have a problem with getting stuff delivered.So COVID kinda messed us up with the shipment and a lot of orders had to be put on back order. So it messes with our business as far as  not getting our products out to the people. 

Track: Richardson wants his  business to expand worldwide and become a force in the entertainment community

Act: Julio: The thing we want for our business is for it to grow in the fashion industry so people are able to get our clothes worldwide, that’s one of the goals that we want. We also want to make sure the brand expands in all other aspects of the game. As far as fashion, as far as music, as far as media So that’s the goal for the brand we want to do a lot of stuff to incorporate everyone into our world.

Track: Coming soon Bakery Inc is diving into the podcast field of entertainment. hoping to talk about the world in a new way.Reporting for Baruch College, I’m Dasia Richardson.

AMBI: Box Opening Sounds 

Host Intro

TRACK: NYC is home to hundreds of thousands of Russian-Jewish immigrants, and is a major hub for the Jewish diaspora. As with many ethnic groups in the Big Apple, communities have formed that became home to a concentration of particular groups of people. As a Russian-Jewish immigrant, it may make sense to settle down in Brighton Beach, where one would feel comfortably surrounded by people with similar backgrounds. Some people, however, prefer to take on a different path when landing in America. Denis Minchuk sat down with his mother to learn more about her story.

AMBI:*Keyboard Typing/Work Station Sounds* 

TRACK: My mother, Anzhelika, sits at her work station in the home office. It was nearly 30 years ago that she left Belarus and came here at 22 years old with my 20 year old father, a two year old baby in my brother Yuriy, her parents, and her maternal grandparents who were holocaust survivors. They settled in Dyker Heights as opposed to more thoroughly Russian Brighton Beach. She says there were a number of reasons they decided to leave.

Act: Anzhelika: “the biggest one of them was of course that throughout the years the country suffered with big Anti-Semitism. Me being raised in a Jewish family and then married to a non-Jewish person created bigger problems for us, raising a child from a mixed marriage. More issues were coming with the breakup of the Soviet Union, when the economic conditions were absolutely horrible and raising kids was impossible. 

TRACK: But it all started in 1986 with [the] Chernobyl catastrophe.

ACT: I was living in Belarus in the 30Km zone, and that’s why the first conversations of leaving the country started.

Track: The process of getting to America wasn’t easy or quick.

Act: *Airplane sound*  Anzhelika: From the start of the process to us landing at JFK it was two years approximately. We started filling out the papers when our child was not born, when we came here our child was two years old. 

TRACK: They experienced some serious culture shock when they first arrived.

ACT: The first couple of days were absolutely shocking to us. We didn’t know English, we didn’t have money, we didn’t have anything with us except the family and a kid.

TRACK: The first year in America was the toughest year of their lives. 

ACT: Anzhelika: We obviously reached out for advice to whomever we could, getting the best advice honestly helped us to understand how to become Americans in this country. So the decision was made to go and get an American college education.

TRACK: Raising children with dual identities was a delicate balance. 

ACT: Anzhelika:. I still wanted to bring home country values to the kids, definitely bilingual education. They both started learning Russian first then English. We are all bilingual and I believe it helps, so I can’t really say that they are Russian vs. American. They are American kids and so are we American parents but with a little bit of culture left to make certain decisions maybe a little different.

ACT: *Russian grocery store advertisement playing*

TRACK: We do our grocery shopping in this Russian grocery store in Sheepshead Bay. If you didn’t know where you were, you could easily be in Odessa. But it was important for my parents not to take the easy way when they moved here. 

ACT: Anzhelika: We knew if we moved into a Russian community we would not be able to do it as successfully as we have done. Well reason number one, again we were young and we wanted to know the country, we wanted to become true Americans. Citizenship was our number one priority.

TRACK: For my grandparents, the experience was much different. They had more experience being Jewish in the Soviet Union, and no reason to stay behind while their daughter left to a better land. She said being Jewish in Belarus was difficult.

ACT: Sofia’s voice plays in Russian with my translation: It was bad. They called us yids, insulted us. We were able to get work but moving up and getting promoted was difficult.

TRACK: But she says she’s never  experienced anything of the sort in America.

ACT: Sofia’s voice plays in Russian with my translation: In America I haven’t seen any of that. We went to school to learn the language, two or three different schools. I found work quickly. My parents were old but they got SSI right away and everything was okay mostly. We had nostalgia at first, that first year.

TRACK: When asked if she feels like an American now, she gave a resounding yes. My mother seconded that thought.

ACT: Anzhelika: We feel at home. Seriously, after 28 years, we basically spent more of our lives here than back in Belarus. We do feel at home, and I believe we are successful, both us and the kids who are getting great education here. Professionally, financially, I think we are doing great.

TRACK: Now with my older brother Yuriy having a child of his own, the roots grow deeper in America, and a second generation of Americans in our family will begin to grow. Reporting for Baruch College, I’m Denis Minchuk in Brooklyn.