Author: Awa Diawara

I have witnessed the effects of neoliberalism while living in New York. I’ve noticed that over the years, gentrification is becoming more and more common. I’ve noticed that in places like Harlem, bigger corporations are coming in and running smaller businesses out. Even in Chinatown, there’s a campaign going on called “Save Chinatown” because the same thing is going on there. Bigger private companies are buying out smaller companies, forcing them to shut down. I’ve noticed that a lot of new NYC apartment buildings are being built, and only the higher classes can really afford to live there. Smaller communities are being broken up because of this.  Another effect of neoliberalism I’ve witnessed is inflation. For example, potato chips used to be a dollar, but over the years the price is now around 3-5 dollars for a bag. I believe it’s because bigger private companies buy over the smaller ones and increase the cost of production, making inflation occur. I think that this is happening more and more because more people are moving to NYC and with the money, the city gets from this, they want to make the city “better” but they’re just really destroying it and destroying the communities. Around the area where I live, they’re building so many new apartment buildings, that are way more affordable for people, so I guess not everything is so bad. The company that is building these new apartment buildings is owned by the city. I always think of these companies fighting each other. Both the company that is owned by the city and the private companies. The company owned by the city is trying to make people’s lives easier by building affordable housing and providing other things such as free education etc. Private companies make things more difficult by driving out smaller communities and building their own.

 

My name is Awa Diawara and I’m from the Bronx, NY. This is my second semester here at Baruch and I am majoring in digital communications & culture. I chose this photo of the Eiffel Tower as a piece of art. The reason being that I took it when I went to France back in 2014, and that was the first time that I had ever been out of the country. I stayed with my family for about a month and it was a good experience.  I have a photo album of all the pictures I took when I went to France, and I always look backat it every so often. Since I haven’t been able to travel outside of the country because of the pandemic, looking through the album brings back a lot of memories. This picture represents me as being someone who loves to be out and about.

When I look at that picture, I’m reminded of everything I did that day, and how the weather felt. I remember it as a gloomy day and going to see the tower. We also saw the Arch de Triomphe. After that, we got food and took pictures of that. The photo also reminds me of my time in France and it consisted mainlyof visiting family and visiting tourist spots. This photo really resonates with me because it reminds me of traveling. Traveling is something I really enjoy doing, and it is something that nowadays I have to do with caution because of the pandemic. I hope that in the future, Iam able to do more traveling.