Hi, my name is Debanjoli! I was born and raised in Queens. I lived in Jackson Heights for 17 years, but moved recently to Jamaica. Before college, I would rarely go out to see other neighborhoods, and mostly knew about Queens communities. One trip that I did take outside of my community was to Chinatown, where I went with my friend who lived there. The experience was really interesting, since I didn’t go to Chinatown many times before. From that day, I wanted to continue to explore the different communities around NYC. In college, I went around to different boroughs, such as Brooklyn, where I barely ever went before college. I hope that this semester, I can really learn more about the diversity of NYC and the communities it has. I also want to learn about the current state of the neighborhoods, such as Chinatown, which experienced a lot of stores closing down after the pandemic. I am excited to take trips to these communities to see up close what the life is like in those areas.

I attached a picture from when I went to Bryant Park over winter break to see the Winter Village. I knew about it before, but I never went. Now this year, I went three times in a row. Even though there were a lot of people, I grew an appreciation for how each stall had its own charm to it, whether it sold Christmas tree ornaments or hot chocolate (which was really good).