Category Archives: Profiles/Faces
Frank Huang – Flushing Neighborhood Profile/Face by Patrick Chiang
Frank taking care of kids.
Standing at the edge of the three pointer line, he takes a quick breath and shoots. The team cheers as Frank Huang makes another three and they run to their defensive positions. Suddenly a quick pass interception turns the ball over. Eyes focused and ignoring the beading sweat on his forehead, Frank lets out a chuckle as he lets the ball fly.
“Haha come on guys, you’re making it too easy.” laughing as the ball fell through the hoop. Frank is a frequent visitor of this ball court because it’s directly across the street from his employment at Queens Herald Community Corporation. As a pastor and director of the after school Frank is busy but he always finds time to play some ball.
Why basketball specifically? Well Frank is a big sports fan and mostly because of an outreach program at his job. “We have a few basketball teams for the summer and winter where we get the kids from the streets and put them on teams and try to teach them about teamwork.” This year, Frank has already attended multiple games with his teammates in his age bracket.
As we walked to the nearby deli to buy some drinks he told me a bit about himself. He came here from Taiwan when he was nine has lived in Flushing for fifteen years now. Frank thinks of himself to be quite ‘Americanized’ but with the bonus of being able to speak Chinese which works very well in the neighborhood he lives in. “Immigrant life is tough and I know what they have to go through. It’s not easy.” he said.
Frank has always liked children and thinks that our society currently lacks supervision for them. At the same time we have a whole lot of immigrant parents who don’t know the system here so they really have the disadvantage in terms of the education their children gets, and their rights.
“So my heart is to really show those parents and kids that they don’t have to be stuck in that kind of situation and that they can have the same thing as Americans.” He commented after a gulp of water and a sigh.
One thing Frank noted after the basketball game was that many of the immigrants stick to their original language without trying to learn a new language and culture. “I’m kind of disappointed to see many of the immigrants coming here for a brighter future not trying to learn and adapt. When I grew up it was the same thing. The Chinese would speak Chinese in school because they could get by with just Chinese.” Frank mentioned his distaste for inequality and how sometimes people are limiting themselves and not realizing it.
Frank believes in helping others and there are a few families that because of their financial situation couldn’t afford the after school care for their children so Frank with the help of others helped them apply for different kinds of funding and assistance. Even the church has an assistance program that people can apply for.
He earned his BBA in financial marketing with a minor in marketing from City University of New York Baruch College and expected the businessman’s life. But because of how God has affected his life he now views things differently. From there he attended seminary where he learned the beginnings of how to start social work, the biblical principal of doing social work, and god’s teachings. “Social work should go hand in hand with everything that we do so we can show what love and grace is like.”
Elmont Neighborhood Face: Ana Iris Mojocoa by Sarah Moi-Thuk-Shung
Mrs. Mojocoa teaches students how to use geo mirrors for discovering angle relationships in reflections.
Ana Mojocoa is a favorite of the math teachers at Elmont Memorial High School. Her great enthusiasm and passion for teaching allows her students to excel in mathematics, from grades 9 through 12. Mrs. Mojocoa graduated from Queens college in 2005 and began teaching at Elmont that very same year. This year, in May, Mrs. Mojocoa earned her Master of Science degree in Adolescent Mathematics Education. “I finally finished my schooling, 10 years later” she jokingly said.
Although she served in the United States Navy for 13 years, Mrs. Mojocoa knew thats she wanted to be a teacher since she was a little girl. “I used to write on my walls and pretend I was a teacher. If I ever saw that my brothers and sisters or even my cousins were doing something wrong and I thought I could help them by correcting it, I would do that because I thought I was teaching them something.”
Originally from West Texas with Mexican parentage, Mrs. Mojocoa said that it took a lot of time to get adjusted to living in New York. “I do have to say that when I first moved here it was very hard, a big adjustment. I’ve been here for 11 years so now I’m used to it.”
After graduating from high school at age eighteen in El Paso, Texas and attending Texas Tech for one semester, she joined the Navy and lived aboard her ship in several states including California, Florida, and Maryland. Her final destination was Westbury, Long Island where she currently lives with her husband Anthony Mojocoa and their three children: Erika, 17, Cristian, 7, Andrew, 2.
Although Westbury is not too far from Elmont, the thought comes to mind, why Elmont? Mrs. Mojocoa’s original plan was to work at the main school in the district, Sewanhaka Central High School. After meeting the math supervisor at Sewanhaka and getting a taste of her teaching approach from a sample lesson, Mrs. Mojocoa knew that she wanted to work for her. “I am a very determined person and I was determined to work for her. So when they were doing the student teaching assignments I got assigned to North Valley Stream and I fought against it.”
“Nationally Recognized School of Excellence”
Mojocoa got her way and started at Sewanhaka. However, since there was no openings for the following year at Sewanhaka, she was placed at Elmont. It worked out and she was a perfect fit. She said, “ I just love it here.”
Podcast: Mrs. Mojocoa discusses the difficulty she faces in her teaching career at Elmont Memorial High School.
Profile Story (Maya) by Mayara Guimaraes
Joseph Khaled, A Man of Ridge
by Mayara Guimaraes
Walking out of his apartment building wearing sandals, jeans and a nice bottom shirt Joseph Khaled looked very Americanized, but more than that, he looked comfortable. “From JFK I came to Bay Ridge. I love this neighborhood, I knew back then I didn’t want to live anywhere else in this country,” explained Joseph.
But why Bay Ridge? The neighborhood is known for having a large Muslim, Indian and Bangladesh population. In the days people arrived in Manhattan by ship, they could see Bay Ridge while still aboard, and many immigrants made the decision to make the neighborhood their home at that very moment. Nowadays people arrived by plane, but the neighborhood still appelas to new immigrantes.
Khaled’s brother was connected to older immigrants who set up their own business in Bay Ridge. “Many people from my country had opened their own stores here. My brother had a Deli on 96Th Street for over 10 years,” said Khaled.
Khaled arrived when he was only 25 years old. Back then, as a recent graduate student from Bangladesh, Khaled came with the intention of getting a PhD at Kent state University in Ohio. He had just gotten his graduate degree in computer science so he decided to get a student visa to come to America and live with his brother.
Two semesters latter Khaled decided that while studying full time he was not going to have enough money to get by comfortably. His office job wasn’t providing him with a decent life, so Joseph embarked on what would become his career in this country: the restaurant business.
His first job in the industry was in a seafood restaurant that used to be on fourth Avenue in-between 85th and 86th Street (today the restaurant has become five different stores) and he felt like his horizon had expended. “I was working all day in the office to make the same money I could make in four hours inside that huge restaurant. That is when I realized I needed to become a server,” he recalled.
“Joseph picked up the business skills very fast, the only problem was his strong accent and his student status,” said Andrea Nanni, the manager of the restaurant where Joseph used to work. Since language was a barrier the alternative was to become a busboy, which to Joseph was a better option than being a server in a Bangladesh restaurant. “I learned in Bay Ridge that this country is full of people from all over the world, but the ones that really succeed here are the ones who learn the language. So I made the decision to stay in an English speaking restaurant for the sake of knowledge.”
Being financially stable made Khaled, who is a Muslim, decide he was ready for the biggest step yet, marriage. “My wife and I met after our families had already decided we should get married. I had gotten my American citizenship through my brother and was ready to start a family. I told my future wife everything about Bay Ridge and we decided that we were ready to start a family together,” explained Khaled.
“I love it here. My daughter loves it here. I am so free in this country, and feel so safe in my neighborhood. Everything I need is here. Joseph chose the right place for us,” sais his wife, Umm, agreeing with him.
The restaurant business has enabled Khaled and his family to a better life and to be able to save enough money to buy property back in his country. “I have about 10 people working in my house in Bangladesh. When I go back I am going to have a very secure life. I also want to open a school for poor people,” he said. But after reflecting on this he seemed to come to another conclusion, “I am still staying in this country for the next 10 years or so. My daughter still needs to finish school and I need to save more money.”
Not wanting to leave America even after establishing a good life in their country also represents the feeling of other immigrants, “I have enough money to go home, but I am not ready yet. Maybe this country makes you greedy,” explained Habib Rahman, another Asian immigrant who has been in Bay Ridge for over 10 years.
But Joseph seems to have a clear idea why he is here. He says his daughter education is the top priority in his life, and his family safety also plays a big role. “There are many political problems in my country that makes me worry. This country makes me feel free, and that is why I am still here,” he said.
Neighborhood Faces: Clayton Patterson
Sporting a bright red zip-up and his signature skull cap, Clayton Patterson arrives at 161 Essex Street and leads the way into his gallery, the extensive archives that have made Patterson one of the most reputable folk historians of the Lower East Side. He has spent close to forty years now documenting the life and culture of the area through photography, film, and art. Even at 63 years old, it’s clear that he has no intentions of slowing down.
“A lot of it is built in your own intensity,” Patterson said, “ whether you have the love and dedication and ambition…because if you do that’s a disease…but it’s a good disease to have.”
Clayton Patterson is not a native of New York City but he is most certainly a figure of it. A proud city dweller, Patterson is extremely passionate about his work. The intimacy he feels with the Lower East Side is palpable. So while he may have not spent his adolescent days hanging out on city stoops, he has plenty of pictures of kids who have. He may have not grown up with the American government, but he cares about the fact that they’re cutting art programs in schools, and he has made documentaries exposing police brutality. Patterson believes the key to establishing a name for oneself is to develop something unique and to believe in its potential so wholeheartedly, that others believe in it too. So although Patterson spent the first thirty years of his life in a town he described as “primitive” and “isolated,” his philosophy is hardly reflective of the fact.
“A big part of ‘making it’ is creating an illusion,” Patterson said, “I mean, you want your illusion built on facts and reality but, you have to create an illusion…if you can’t create an illusion of how great it is…you’ve got nothing.”
Patterson touches briefly upon the topic of Occupy Wall Street, as well as Romney’s recent “47%” comment. Lines begin to appear on his forehead. “I hope the youth of today doesn’t lose sight of the advantages they have…when I was a kid growing up it used to be like NBC, CBS…they were far away, they were castles in the sky, impenetrable institutions…now with the new technology, everything is much closer.”
As someone who spent his first years in the U.S without a green card, and a more-than-limited budget, its clear that Patterson relates to the struggles youth are dealing with today. And the illusion idea was one he became familiar with. He had to build his reputation from scratch despite having already built one back in his hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Back home, Patterson was a fine art print maker, well-known for his skills. He also taught courses at several schools, including the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. Patterson was comfortable in Canada, but unfulfilled. He wanted more. At NSCAD, Patterson got a taste of New York through the artists who visited from Manhattan. Patterson was intrigued but it was not until he visited New York for a weekend on a school-funded trip that he decided to move.
“Coming here for the weekend you kind of had that feeling,” Patterson recalls, “at that time the Bowery was down and dirty… but it sort of gave you the point of view that you too could be here…welcoming, not too intimidating…enough to let you know that it wasn’t all just paved with gold or whatever.”
Despite being lured by the welcoming atmosphere of the Lower East Side, Patterson’s first gallery exhibits were in Soho, with a crowd he quickly grew tired. At the risk of losing money and stability, Patterson began to focus on the Lower East Side. To display his work, Patterson bought a building that was once a sewing factory and converted the space into two parts: a small storefront for his custom baseball caps, the other an art gallery. The gallery looks like something out of an I Spy book. Paintings, photos, books, stickers, dvds and posters flood the room with color and imagery. While the stimuli would surely prove overwhelming to some, it does not seem to faze Patterson. Upon entering the room he pulls two chairs from the clutter effortlessly. After extending an inviting palm towards one, he sits in the other and looks around the room the way people do when they realize someone is looking at their work for the first time.
“It’s all about doing what inspires you and makes you happy…” Patterson said, “That’s heaven.”
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Tammy Tibbetts: Empowering the World One Girl at a Time
Tammy Tibbetts
Lindsay Brown, STF Volunteer and Seventeen Magazine October cover girl. Photo courtesy of She’s the First
By Vivian Nunez
On a normal day you will find Tammy Tibbetts sitting at her desk with teal and magenta colored She’s the First gear, cupcake ornaments, and images of young girls from all over the world surrounding her. She is a 26-year-old former magazine editor taking on girls’ education with an organization that as Tammy said, “started as a piece of my heart, but before long became an international network of students, educators, and volunteers.”
Tammy is the President and Founder of She’s the First, an organization that started as a media campaign in 2009 and recently became a full-fledged 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. She’s the First has grown under the attentive eye of Tammy Tibbetts, who up until this year was a full-time volunteer for her own organization. The original media campaign and ultimate vision for She’s the First grew from both Tammy’s journalism background and a life changing trip she took to Liberia.
“My vision is to use the power of storytelling to promote digital literacy and cross-cultural dialogue among youth worldwide,” said Tammy, “and use social media to create social change.”
She has used the power of social media to delve into issues that have been plaguing the world for years, creating a growing brand presence on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Many of the current volunteers and chapter members of She’s the First have found out about She’s the First through social media sites this is why, “beyond supporting girls’ education in the developing world, She’s the First also has the unique opportunity to drive involvement, leadership, and experience among students in the U.S.,” said Tammy Tibbetts. Her drive to empower girls worldwide is one of the reasons why there are now 40 She’s the First Campus Chapters in the US and more than 265 girls being sponsored to date.
Yet, Tammy said that she “didn’t just hop out of bed one day and say let me start a non-profit organization.” At age 23, all she wanted to do was bring awareness, through a PSA YouTube video, to what the lack of girls’ education really meant. A video that was influenced heavily by her experience in Liberia where she said she saw the “transformative impact an education could have on a child and the only hope of breaking the poverty cycle.” She hashed out the details of the mission statement “on a sweltering hot August evening in my Upper West Side apartment,” she said, with Christen Brandt, the current Director of International Operations. By mere coincidence the She’s the First video ended up snowballing into “a movement led by Millenials,” explained Tammy, “women declaring their ‘firsts’ in creative ways to show that with an education, we can break barriers, pay it forward, and ultimately eliminate gender disparities in the classrooms worldwide.”
She’s the First’s connection with the Millenial age group has also led Tammy to become a mentor to many girls she comes across. She does not hesitate to “take everyone under her wing…she is probably a personal mentor to hundreds of young women,” said Meaghan O’Connor, a She’s the First volunteer. “Mentoring is so rewarding,” said Tammy, “if you empower others to succeed and they in turn then pay it forward, you’ve created an incredible ripple effect that will far exceed anything you are individually capable of.”
The stance Tammy takes on mentoring is also the stance she takes in regards to girls’ education and She’s the First. “Scale of impact is very important to us at She’s the First, but at the end of the day,” said Tammy, “I think about individuals.”
Hima Tamata, one of the girls She’s the First sponsors.
Tammy has taken on the reigns to lead a movement that plans on changing girls’ education one girl at a time. “For underprivileged girls, the impact of a sponsorship is life-changing,” said Tammy Tibbetts, and “what I know for sure is that education is where all opportunity begins.” She hopes that 10 years from now “when I think of She’s the First 13th birthday party, I will tell everyone that we’ve sponsored thousands of girls around the world and that we have hundreds of chapters around the U.S..”
Hear a little about girls’ education and social media from Tammy herself:
Sailing the Hudson: Emily Whipple and the Manhattan Sailing School’s Rite of Passage
As tides change in Dennis Conner’s North Cove marina, the enduring constant in Battery Park City’s waters is the Manhattan Sailing School that Emily Whipple helps direct.
The Mermaid, an office-classroom hybrid flanked by the school’s 24 J-24 sailboats in the marina, rests in the shadow of the World Financial Center and the ascending Freedom Tower. For the last three and a half years, Whipple has stood in the center of that bobbing vessel, helping New Yorkers discover and develop their passion for sailing.
“On the weekends, we’ll teach a basic sailing course for 50 to 80 people, for a Level 1 certification,” Whipple said. “We decided to add more weekday courses, so we teach the two-day course throughout the week, too. We can teach up to 150 students a week.”
Originally located in the South Street Seaport, the Manhattan Sailing School is celebrating its silver jubilee this year. That’s 25 years of introducing enthusiastic people to life as sailors in a city where most time exhausted on the river is on crowded ferries.
Working as a Mid-19th Century Carpenter in 2012
By: Teresa Roca
Norm Pederson arrives at his 19th century style workshop at the crack of dawn almost every morning. Inside, wooden buckets hang from the ceiling above him, spoons, butter presses and rolling pins sit on tables beside him, and scraps of wood are scattered around him. As Pederson carefully makes his way through the cluttered room, sounds of wood shavings crackle beneath his wood-dusted work boots, as he gathers his tools, and prepares to split and shave wood for his next creation.
Pederson isn’t a professional carpenter. He is a volunteer at Historic Richmond Town on Staten Island.
“I portray the farmer who would be working in a shop like this in the 1850s,” said the 17-year volunteer. “I make things the way they were made at this time. That means style, materials and methods.”
Norm Pederson in his carpentry shop.
A Staten Island native for 66 years, Norm Pederson dedicated his post-retirement to fulfilling two passions that began during childhood: carpentry and history. With Historic Richmond Town becoming more volunteer dependent as business decreases with each passing year, Pederson volunteers to help the village stay alive and to inform people of America’s history, just as he was informed as a child.
“My grandfather came to this country from Norway in the 1890s as a carpenter,” said Pederson. “My father taught me carpentry when I was a little boy with my grandfather’s tools. He taught me how carpentry was done during my grandfather’s time. I still use some of my grandfather’s tools, which is a pleasant connection with my own past.”
Pederson visited Historic Richmond Town, the only living historic village in New York City, frequently as a boy. The now 25-acre village with 15 restored buildings only consisted of a museum and the Voorlezer house, which is a national historic landmark.
Despite his passion for carpentry and history, Pederson didn’t pursue either as a profession. After flunking out of college (“I had a lot of fun in college”), Pederson enlisted in the army. He later worked for the city is a deck handler on the Staten Island Ferry, cleaning litter and handling lifeboats. However, he never forgot the skills taught to him by his father. He continued to practice carpentry and research history casually throughout his life.
Pederson got involved with civil war reenacting and returned to Historic Richmond Town for an event in 1994.
Pederson’s carpentry shop.
“I got talking to some of the people who work here and they were very interested in other people who were interested in history,” said Pederson. “Then an offer was made and I got involved. One day I saw the shop, which hadn’t been used in ten years or so and I said, ‘can I kind of hang out in this shop?’”
Pederson now helps visitors explore American life in the mid-19th century by allowing them to experience the life of a farmer through his carpentry demonstrations.
When people come to Pederson’s shop, he always makes sure to follow one simple rule: grab the visitor’s attention.
“Sometimes I go for a cheap thrill, such as splitting wood,” said Pederson. “Showing how it splits seems like a very simple thing, but it actually catches people’s imagination. If you can do that, then you might go a little further and talk about the technical part of it. You don’t want to start out with the technical part because we don’t want to bore people to death. We want to entertain them.”
According to Felicity Biel, the director of education and programs at Historic Richmond Town, “Norm is a wonderful asset. He relates well to all ages of visitors and makes the story of earlier American life so accessible to people who visit his shop to see his demonstration of farmer and carpentry skills.”
Pederson’s wooden pieces aren’t just for show. His items are displayed in museums, sold to visitors, used to furnish historic houses and more. Pederson also helps Richmond Town by performing American Folk music by playing the fiddle with band member Bob Conroy at Richmond Town events, helping the maintenance team pick up litter, and fixing things around the village.
“Beyond what visitors can see, Norm has also helped behind the scenes,” said Biel. “He has repaired spinning wheels that are used in the school workshop programs and carved wooden yokes so young visitors can try them out.”
Despite school and camping trips that drastically helps Richmond Town’s business, the village still suffers because of the neighborhood’s development throughout the years. As Richmond Town continues to modernize, becoming more upper class, people are beginning to forget about this rustic village that has been at the center of Staten Island’s history for hundreds of years.
“You get a lot of people from other countries. You don’t get many Staten Islanders,” said Pederson. “Since the bicentennial it has been down. Europeans are great listeners because they are interested in our history. Americans are not interested in their own history anymore. That is partly why this place doesn’t have much money.”
Although Pederson does not get paid with money for his long hours of hard work, he does get paid other ways.
“I never make a lot of money, but that was my choice. I enjoy my life,” said Pederson. “I am a very lucky person in the sense that Historic Richmond Town needs something like this and they’re nice enough to let me do this. When you are teaching, it’s really rewarding to have people pay attention to you. Having people ask intelligent questions and being respectful, what could be better than that?”
Podcast: Although Pederson enjoys volunteering at Old Richmond Town, there are down sides to volunteering as a carpenter.