So the past two days have been great. Relative to our immigration theme the past two days, have more than anything, underscored the incredible cultural diversity of America. I am sure this won't be the last time the theme of cultural diversity will be mentioned in this blog but I think so far it's been the most obvious and important aspect of our trip.

Cam:
On St. Patrick's Day our group had a free day and we were allowed to meander around NYC as we pleased. After days of being dumped on with rain the sun finally came out and we got to break out our flip-flops, which was a welcome reprieve from all the horrible weather in NYC and Maryland. We woke up around noon-ish and a few of us ventured down to SOHO for the compulsory nyc shopping trip and to take in some of the St Patrick's day debauchery . After an hour and ten retail stores later I remembered how much I hate shopping. Luckily, I was able to meet up with our man of a trip advisor Owen Scott who had earlier in the day procured tickets to the daily show.

On a side note Owen Scott is a living legend, and im sure his reputation precedes him where ever he goes. Legitimately a straight boss. (sophie if you're reading this I guess you can say I told you so) But I digress, anyways Owen being the boss that he is, was able to snatch four tickets to the daily show. We got lucky, maybe because of St. Patricks day, and were able to sit in the front row probably ten feet away from jon stewart and snoop dogg, his suprise guest. It was surreal seeing a show in person that you see every day on tv but it was hilarious.

After the daily show we headed back to the hostel to regroup and prepare for a birthday dinner celebration for a member of our partner ASB group in NYC. The dinner was held at an Indian restaurant, Darbar, dipti will talk about dinner collaboratively at the end.

At the end of the day, despite my best efforts to do nothing relating to immigration, I still found myself thinking about the underlying themes relative to the trip. Throughout the day the cultural diversity of America was readily apparent. To start off in SOHO in the midst of a St. Patricks Day celebrating rich Irish heritage and then to go see a tv show where a prominent black figure is interviewed by a nationally syndicated white host followed by an amazing dinner at a great Indian restaurant really enforced that whole idea of cultural diversity. Perhaps the best way to sum up my day is from an interaction from the Daily Show. Jon Stewart, discussing snoop doggs crazy success in America, asked him "remember when America used to be scared of you? and now we've got your voice guiding us on GPS devices"!! Beyond the humor of this joke I really thought it was indicative of cultural norms and the way they change in America, which i guess is important given the growing resentment and even hatred toward illegal migrants.




Dipti:
St.Patricks day was our free day. We began by heading to times square to grab some lunch. As we strolled around Times Square we encountered seas of green as hundreds of people were out to celebrate the holiday! It was really cool cause I had never seen so much enthusiasm on St.Pattys day. After eating some delicious New York pizza we decided to hit up one of the most culturally diverse areas in NYC- Jackson Heights which is in Queens. Being from Maryland and usually being the minority this was an extremely eye opening experience. The area was filled with Latinos, Mexicans, Indians, and Africans. It was so diverse that I can honestly say that the entire area was devoid of any white people (except for maybe the one or two that looked even more lost than we did.)

We originally went to check out "Little India." I had never been there and was excited to see what it was like. I was actually extremely surprised about how similar this one particular street looked exactly like streets in India. With the bangle stands on the roadside, pashmina scarves for sale, punjabi music blaring from music stores, and sweet shops galore, there was essentially no difference between this scene and a street in India itself.
We did some shopping (mostly for the amazing cheap scarves) and ate Indian snacks (CHAT OMG<3 ) while we were there. Being the girls that we are, we jumped at the oppurtunity to get our eyebrows threaded, get facials done AND get pericings!!! all for super cheap prices. ALENA definitely won "most badass participant" when she spontaneously hopped in the chair to get her rook peirced.

After that we hopped on a train to go shopping in SOHO. We went to our usual favorites as well as some botique type stores that we couldnt afford...at all. lame. We also checked out the store UNIQLO which is a Japanese chain. It was awesome!!! I wish we had them back home. They are a mix of H&M/Forever/American Apparrel. whoo hoooo!
By the end of all the shopping we were absolutely exhausted yet had to head to dinner at an Indian restaurant on 55th street (which was soooo far awayy. SO MUCH WALKING.) It felt like a super productive day though. We were supposed to have an immigration free day but it turned out to be just the opposite. I realized that it is absolutely impossible to go a day in this city without coming across immigrants and thinking about immigration. As we spent our time exploring the city we first handedly experienced immigration every single place we went and got the chance to talk to all kinds of people. I find it amazing how it is completely broken up into little borroughs. Each one is filled with distant enclaves yet somehow still posses the seemingly intangible identity of New York.

As cam said before the Indian restaurant was delish and I stuffed myself silly. haha.

the end :)

new york city - turns out it's big

We kicked the day off right, by sleeping in after a long day yesterday, and then getting a huge, filling breakfast at a local soul food institution called Amy Ruth's. No one went all out and got the fried chicken and waffles, but the servings were large and scrumptious. After breakfast we came back to the hostel, played games for a while, and then four of us made an epic shopping trip to a tiny grocery store, so we're set for dinner and lunches for the rest of the week. Everyone wanted to explore the city, and since today was a free day, that's what we did. Some went to the Met, walked around central park, went to the Harlem flea market or got lost on the way back. Apparently the subway has a slightly difference schedule on Sundays, so yeah, now we know.

It may seem like we were just idly walking the city, unrelated to our trip topic, but NYC was wisely chosen as a location because we all interacted with people from different countries and cultures all day long. People remarked how they barely heard english all day, or how everyone who ran the shops they went in to (especially at the flea market) were obviously recent immigrants. We all brought these observations back to the hostel for some dinner and discussion. Neha had us all take an "immigration test" made up for 20 questions selected at random from the 100 questions that could potentially be posed to immigrants taking the test to become citizens. Everyone was amazed at how poorly we all did, since few of us could name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and I don't think anyone got the question about when the constitution was adopted correct (1787). This led our talk in to the differences between types of immigrants, and why people want to come to the US in the first place (refugees, seeking work, have family here, etc). It also turned out that only two of us don't have a parent who was born in another country, so all of us deeply identify with the trip issue. In fact people have been talking all trip about visiting family in India, or South America, and a number of us speak at least one other language. The discussion ended up centering a lot around two questions: how do you sort people out, and how should we as a country decide who gets to stay, and who has to go?

Obviously none of us had answers to those questions (because if we did, I assume we should be getting a call from the White House soon), but it left us a lot to consider as we explore the issue for the rest of the week. We're going to visit a center that helps recent African immigrants (http://www.africanservices.org/), see the experiences of immigrants from a hundred years ago at Ellis Island (whose descendants make up many of the people who are anti-immigration today), and check out the Chinese immigration experience later this week, so we'll keep you all posted as we learn more about why immigrants make this country great (sorry, couldn't resist editorializing!).

Day One cont. 1

We are finally here!!! who-hoo! and let me tell you it was so so hard to get here.

First of all, we were convinced that the bus wouldn't show up. and it didn't until the very last minute. Our Bus driver was a super duper nice guy named Ron. Most of the trip's participants slept on the bus ride up.

Once we got here, the excitement was so obvious. However the weather in New York was so terrible. I mean really bad. It almost seemed like a hurricane. The wind was so rough, and the rain was so cold. Everyone felt absolutely miserable. But we finally made to the Hostel! and thank goodness it is so great! The atmosphere and the rooms are wonderful.

We decided on getting Chinese Food for dinner and it was so yummy! After dinner we played a couple rounds of Mafia (in which I kept getting killed...seriously...everytime). But it was so much fun!

Travel Day!!!

Hey Hey Everyone!

This is our first post to our Blog! who-hoo. We are all very excited and very wet. Will post more tonight! Getting prepped for our 4 hour bus ride. Very excited.