Interview With Ren Lee

by 29victorias

Ren Lee is a therapist for young adults. While looking for fieldworks, I found her and called her number. She didn’t pick up the first time so I just kept looking for more fieldworks. The funny thing is when I was home she called me back. I thought it was a scam call so I answered with “hello who is this?” She responded with “I’m Ren Lee, you called m earlier.” I knew in the moment I had to turn to professional mode. Luckily we were able to set up a zoom meet after that.

During the zoom meet we asked what her experience was with young adults struggling with their mental health. She mentioned how she does have social media, but is also against it in many ways. Her clients seem to be abusing it, more then using it as a tool to help. She also said how covid definitely took a toll on our mental health.

As a follow up question we asked “how can a family of a young adult struggling with mental health help?” She responded with just saying that the most helpful thing is showing support. That doesn’t necessarily mean rolling out a red carpet and saying “I am here to support you.” It’s more just being by their side the whole time, and making sure they are comfortable, that might mean not expressing everything to you. It takes time to gain trust, but trust can be lost in a blink.

Once the interview was over, it was nice to take breather. This topic is definitely difficult, and not just the researching, but the research its leaving in my mind. I appreciate everyone who me and Walter have been able to meet with, and I can’t wait to make this project, a full reality.

by Hudson Lewis

On January 30, we interviewed Kay Notts, an administrator at Brooklyn Technical High School, a very nice specialized school. We wanted to interview her because we felt she would help us learn more about the SHSAT test and specialized schools. In this interview, we learned more about tests and school segregation, which was all pretty new and useful information for our project.

She thought that the SHSAT was the best possible test for students to get into high school. She thought this because they don’t see your name, address, or income of the students on the test so it is like a reset. There are a lot of other problems as well for example, she brought up school segregation she taught us about how testing and gifted and talented schools impact school segregation. They removed the gifted, and talented schools away from Brooklyn.
This makes it harder for certain students to get into better schools. She said that the SHSAT testing was not a huge factor for school segregation at Brooklyn Tech High School.

This interview was very interesting because we focused a lot of things we wouldnt have thought about learning before, like SHSAT testing and school segregation. Kay Notts was also very passionate about this topic so we were able to learn a lot more from this interview than if we had tried learning about this information elsewhere.

by Otis

On January 17th, 2025, my group mates and I were able to borrow Nathan’s office to interview BJ Neal, Director of Guest Services at City Relief.
Our interview with BJ was very helpful and interesting. It was cool to hear from him about his experience with food insecurity and homelessness. He told us about the difficulties there are when reaching out and asking for help as somebody who is struggling. He told us how it is hard to swallow your pride and reach out for help. His organization works with trying to help people in the long run by working with them over the years and helping them with more long-term solutions for problems in the world. BJ Neal was very helpful in giving us a look into food-insecure people’s shoes. Due to the fact that he has been homeless, he was able to give us great insight into the thought process and struggle when you are not able to know where your next meal will come from and if there will be one at all.
Overall, our interview with BJ was very helpful. He offered us fieldwork opportunities and some good resources for food insecurity. His story made me very inspired to try and combat food insecurity in New York.

by 29lucass

Recently,…

by Paige Destin

February 5th, 2025, Agatha and I interviewed my mother’s friend, Chrissy Sample. Chrissy is a mom to 2 boys, a 12-year-old and a 4-year-old. When we asked Chrissy about her previous opinion on the healthcare system, she said that she always thought that the healthcare system was flawed. Although she heard of friends and people she knew struggling with the healthcare system, she personally didn’t have a fully negative experience with the healthcare system before the pandemic. When she had her first child, she expressed that her doctor at the time was very thoughtful and attentive to her. He would check on her regularly and advise other doctors on what to do when he couldn’t be present due to Hurricane Sandy. When she was advised a C-section because she had been in labor for a long time, her doctor stood up for her and told the nurses that she didn’t need one so her hospital expenses weren’t extremely high. Giving birth to her first child was a positive experience, but everything changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. When we asked her about how the treatment she received with her second child was different, she said the care she received felt very minimal. She was pregnant with twins, so she was supposed to go to the doctor 2 times a week. However, the doctor’s office told her that she could return for a visit in 1 week. When she had to ask her doctor questions, they were extremely passive-aggressive and responded with “It’s relative”. In addition to this hurtful treatment, nobody else could join her doctor’s appointments due to COVID restrictions. Chrissy felt lonely and as though she had no one while going through this process alone. When she gave birth to her son, Cassius, the other baby wasn’t living. The doctors told her this could have been avoided if she received the proper care sooner. When she was in the hospital, recovering from her C-section, none of the doctors asked if she was okay. She went home after having her child and had to plead with one of the doctors to have an in-person appointment when one of them said they could check in on Zoom. Chrissy told Agatha and I that she didn’t want to assume that she was being discriminated against because of her race, and that she thought at first that the hospital had bad treatments and staff. Still, after hearing about experiences from white woman during their birthing experience during the pandemic, she realized race could have played a huge factor in the way she was treated. When we asked Chrissy how people can stand up for black woman being mistreated in maternal health, she told us that building community with others is the best way to spread awareness about this issue. Sharing information online, and educating yourself and others. A quote that really stuck with me during this interview was “Community sparks change, and the more information that you gather, the more conversations that you have, it propels everyone to have the conversation. These are hard conversations to sit in a room with people where they feel like, well, this doesn’t really affect me. It’s not really my problem. But it is, you should not think of anything that way. Somebody’s problem is everyone’s problem, like somebody’s injustice is everyone’s injustice.”

by Esme

I talked to two of the co-founders of the organization Project Pink Tax. Project Pink Tax’s mission is to spread awareness about Pink Tax. Pink Tax is working in many places giving children the period products they need to survive. They even worked in Tanzania showing young kids how to make reusable pads.
Rhaya Jacobs and Yochi Hobson Told us a little about how they both believed that Abortion was really important and how Pink Tax goes along the lines of that. Womens products are priced as a luxury item just because of the color of the product or how much a woman needs that product. They told us about how their entire organization is a non-profit and youth run. They have people in highschool in college and even right out of college.
They were a huge help and we loved interviewing them.

by Sebastian

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by Sebastian

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by Sebastian

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by Alex Corwin

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by Henry

For our final fieldwork, we reached out to another non-profit organization called Hope for Haiti. Their main goal is to improve the quality of life for specifically Haitian women and children. On February 21, 2025, we had the opportunity to interview Hope for Haiti’s director of philanthropy, Briana Beauvoir.

She grew up very interested in Haiti as her dad’s side of the family is from there. Briana told us about the time that she visited Haiti. She described nature, food, beaches, and told us how beautiful Haiti truly is. There was a time when kids were playing on a beach that was filled with trash due to the lack of garbage trucks. The kids were still joyful and grateful to play on the beach. Briana talked about how the people of Haiti are so pure and filled with kindness.

In the interview, we asked her if she thought that Haiti gets enough coverage in the U.S. media. She told us that Haiti was a big country and that Port-Au Prince was a very small part of Haiti. The U.S. only focuses on the violence that is going on in Port-Au Prince. There is so much more to Haiti than all the cruelty that is happening in one place. She said that the U.S. specifically covers Port-Au Prince because they like to use big headlines such as all the massacres going on.

I think that it is truly sad how people depict Haitian people and group them all together as violent people just because of gang violence. As Briana said, Haitian people are very nice and the U.S. media needs to cover things outside of Port-Au Prince.

by Luke Niziol

We had the opportunity to meet with Briana Beauvoir from Hope for Haiti. Briana is Hope for Haiti’s Director of Philanthropy. She helps with all of the funding and emails that they receive. During our interview, we learned about Hope for Haiti’s Hike for Haiti event. The Hike for Haiti event is about registering as a team to Hike the equivalent of 200 flights of stairs to raise awareness for Haiti. As of right now, Haiti needs our help more than ever. There is violence everywhere, and the thought of being murdered comes up everyday.

The organization Briana Beauvoir works at, Hope for Haiti, is a not profitable organization aiding Haitian communities in southern Haiti. Briana had told us about Hope for Haiti’s work, giving 7,000 children schooling. What we learned from the interview was Briana’s thoughts on Haiti in the media. Since Donald Trump was saying immigrants were eating dogs and cats in Springfield, for the people that believed that, it gave them a negative view of Haitian people. Haitians people are very kind, and it is upsetting that people view them like this. The media gives Haitian people a negative portrayal whenever they actually cover the media.

by Julian Martos

For our first fieldwork, we decided to interview Pauline Ross. Pauline Ross was the Attorney State of New York for many years and was a prosecutor at the Department of Justice. With her having experienced many cases, she saw patterns in the judicial system. We asked questions ranging from how she has seen the justice system in her eyes, to cases that she covered.

During the interview with her, we got to learn many things about how prisons are made up of people who are lower class and talked about how she has seen how high prison bail is for prisoners and because of this, they might not be able to pay it. This can lead to people spending a high amount of money to be free or to stay in prison or Rikers which has terrible conditions.

by Harvey F. Mollison

We interviewed Aja Two Crows from the New York Climate Exchange. She spoke about how she was very interested in the arts and culture, K-12 education, community-based research, citizen science, and micro-grants programs. She and her coworkers essentially develop programming for the new NYC Climate Exchange trying to push forward new plans and ideas.

She also talked about how we should accelerate projects that already exist and uplift other multidisciplinary issues. In other words, thinking about it from many perspectives. This can include buildings, food, air, building decarbonization, and many more. The idea of having many partners also came up a lot, regarding their relationships with over 12 universities, 3 corporations, and 33 community partners. They are there to help forge connections between them to help the issue at large. For example, they could pull together a bunch of scientists to discuss with writers about the impacts of climate change to attempt to get the word out.

This all was very amazing to me as the entire organization is fairly new to the world. It had only been founded in April of 2023 and Aja has been there for 8 months. To already have this much work completed and in place is quite an achievement. It is good to know that whilst there is so much to feel badly about regarding climate change there are also so many people and organizations that support this effort.

by Masami Umehara

On February 7, 2025, we had an interview with Anna Bateman, the Stewardship and Development Manager of NYC H2O. NYC H2O is an organization that educates New Yorkers about the local water ecology in New York.
Anna taught us about how it’s not just important to be mindful of our waste. We should understand where all our waste is going, and how long it stays on Earth. She also said it’s important to know why we’re consuming and try to consume less. She also talked about experiences she had on the beach. Of course, she found trash, but she also found a pile of creepy mannequin legs on the shore. Sadly, she also saw dead animals stuck in plastic bags washed up onto the shore. She could see the impact of ocean pollution just by walking by the shore.
Anna thinks prevention is the most effective way to stop ocean/water pollution. For example, people can prevent trash from blowing out of trash cans, or limit how much they use or buy something that can contribute to ocean or water pollution. Things that we, normal people can do to affect this problem is beach cleanups. It’s easy to sign up for and is enjoyable(for some people).
She also told us about ways we young people can impact ocean/water pollution in the future as a job. There are many types of skills and jobs around this topic. Most people think of trash and marine debris, cleanups and marine biologists when they think of ocean pollution. But there are many more different aspects of ocean pollution, and many ways to help. Anna said it’s important to know what you’re passionate about and what skills you have and connect it to ocean/water pollution to make an impact using your skills and interests.

by Julian Martos

While interviewing Robert Gangi, we asked if we could court-monitor his organization, PROP. This organization helps count race statistics in court and end bias in court systems. On February 12th, we went to 100 Centre Street, which houses the New York County Criminal Court. We arrived at 10:00, met many people from PROP, and settled into court.

During the cases, we recorded many facts like their race, gender, what they were being accused of, and their sentence. We saw many tragic cases throughout the day. One case was about a man being sentenced and was sent to Rikers Island. One surprising fact we saw inside the court was that 7/10 people having their case that day were African American, and one person was white.

At the end of the day, we met up with Robert Gangi for a closing statement, with him discussing what we saw and the statistics we got. With us learning many things about the court, we gained new insight into the justice system and how its flaws are biased and unfair for many people.

by Masami Umehara

On February 6, 2025, we visited the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn with Eliza and the Microplastics group(Xander, Hannah, Fox, Audrey, Taiyo).
We learned about how oysters can help the ocean. Oysters filter water and make it clear, and the clear water helps plants grow, which provides habitats for marine animals. Oysters have disappeared from New York because of pollution, dredging, and overharvesting. An organization called the Billion Oyster Project is helping restore oysters in New York Harbor.
We also learned about everyday items that can pollute our ocean and things we can use instead. Normal soap is better than antibacterial soap, because of the chemicals inside it. The chemicals will go down the drain, and into the ocean, and the chemicals can kill marine life. Regular soap works just as well to clean yourself. Powdered detergent is better than liquid detergent because it’s lighter and inside biodegradable boxes. On the other hand, liquid detergent is heavier to ship and comes in plastic bottles. We also learned that a single oil-change’s worth of motor oil dumped in the drain or gutter can pollute and ruin a million gallons of fresh water. Instead, you can go to their local auto parts store, and recycle old oil for free. When you flush old medicines down the drain, they would end up in rivers and oceans, which would damage marine life. Instead, you can return them to the pharmacy.

by Will Mankins

Theo and I watched a documentary called The White Helmets. It is about a humanitarian aid group that worked during the Syrian civil war. About 1,200 of them worked at 120 different locations. Throughout the war, they saved about 53,000 people, including 14,000 children. While doing this job, they lost about 130 different White Helmets. Watching this documentary has truly shown me how many people can be saved even with so few people over just about a decade. I have learned that just a couple of dollars can save thousands of lives.

by Jack Rosen

During this fieldwork, our group met with Nick Lesnansky, a police officer and homicide detective in Aurora, Colorado. Nick has over a decade of experience in public service. This interview gave us insight into what the job entails. He shared his journey from recruit to patrol officer, recruitment, field training officer, and finally to his current role as a detective. “In policing,” Nick said, “you go through a six-month academy before you begin working on the road as a full-fledged officer. Then, you’re paired with a senior officer for three months for further evaluation, and they sign off on you during your probationary period.” Even though we were seeing bias in the NYPD system, police are extensively trained everywhere to ensure “public safety.”

We wondered how he and other police felt about the growing prejudice in the system along with the programs aimed at defunding it. “That means less training for us, right? That means less active shooter training, that means less. That means less, you know, arrest control techniques, right? Less de-escalation training; less — like that’s the first thing that gets cut from training because that’s just too expensive. And then that means fewer cops, less well-trained cops, and less knowledgeable cops who know what they’re doing. And then, you know, the good cops who excel at their jobs don’t want to stay because they aren’t paid enough.” This resonated with us because it makes the solution unclear. Well-trained police lead to less crime, but there is still an enormous amount of bias in police systems, so what can we do? If there are no police, crime skyrockets, leading to another problem.

Overall, he wanted us to realize that these officers are not viewed as people. Like what Robert Gangi said, the public forgets that police officers are citizens like you. ” We’re not robots, we’re real people,” he remarked. “I have, you know, I have a dog and a fiancée and, um, you know, I like watching football and all that stuff, right? Like, um, we people too. um you know, I’m and like I said, we’re always trying to get better. We spend a lot of time doing training every year just to keep our certifications through the state. we’re always practicing and trying to be better. um and if there truly is an issue, um, you know, or people don’t, people have problems, I mean, we have, you know, all these different mechanisms for people to talk to the police department.” Nick does his job. In all of his 13 years of work, he never felt the need to use his gun. It’s more trained police like him that we need. Police are uncertain about what is going on, but are quick to sort out the situation without prejudice or bias. He emphasized the theme “Nobody’s perfect” meaning that he cares for improvement and feedback just as much as his colleagues. More police like Nick can change the way we arrest, try, and sentence individuals everywhere.

by Hudson Moore

On February 8th Me and my groupmate, Alex, went to the Manhattan Church of Christ to help the homeless by giving them food. A man named Carl Garrison runs it. When I got there,e we set up chai, rs, and Carl explained what to do. There were a bunch of things to do, and there was always something you could do, so it never got boring. I started by setting up the chairs. The,n I put a bunch of cookies into cups to give to the homeless people. Then we took out boxes of Oreos and chips. Then, homeless people started coming in, and I gave them cookies and coffee. Then, after a little, we started handing out meals. We did this for a while, then took a break in a room we could chill in downstairs. After a little, I checked the time, and it was almost over. It had only felt like 45 minutes,s but 3 hours had gone by.

by Hannah Huang

On Febuary 6th 2025, the Microplastics group and the Ocean Pollution group went to the NYC Aquarium to learn more about marine life and plastic pollution. We wanted to get more knowledge on marine life from experts, and how these animals live.
The first place we went was the conservation hall, where we strolled through in order to get to the other exhibits. There were different parts of the exhibit, where they showed different fish from different regions, the most interesting one for me was the ginormous fish from Brazil, it was called Flooded Forest.
The shark exhibit was definitely my favorite. You first enter to marine life and sharks swimming all around you, it was such a fun experience, below they showed you a description of all of the different fish that live in the shark tunnel. The most beautiful part of the exhibit was a dark area, where there were so many sharks and different types of fish. The glass was so clear that it didnt even look like it was there. The water looked super blue and it was so great to look at.
Although the aquarium wasnt just about fish, they also educated us on plastic pollution. Walking through the shark exhibit, there is a part where there was plastic everywhere. This room taught us about which items contain plastics in them, like detergent, teabags, clothing, and much more. There were activities where you can step on plastics to get rid of them, and another one that was similar, where you push a button when you see specific items in the water, like fishing lines and plastic water bottles. The aquarium also taught us about climate change in NYC. New York Cities’ seas are rising, and it can ruin our City. Aswell as there is much more precipitation in New York, it has been increasing and there are heavier downfalls. The NYC aquarium taught us a bunch of things that are important for our Citizen Action Project and for our knowledge on NYC in danger. Before we left, we visited the Sea lions, penguins, and otters. They were so cute, and in the description, there was a part where they told us what we can do to help save the otters. In order to save the otters, we have to cut down on oil consumption, and use public transportation more and to stop emitting C02. This isint just about otters though, so many animals are in danger because of how much our climate is changing. Some animals, like polar bears rely on cold weather, and icy conditions, but our earth is getting hotter, and changing their homes. We have to act in order to save all of these animals.
The NYC aquarium was very interesting, and it was a very fun field trip. I feel like I learned a lot more than I thought I wouldve. Although it was a very far trip, it was definitely worth the trip.

by Alexander Donadic

Me and my partners were lucky enough to get an interview with the commissioner of the DHS (Department of Homeless Services). We got to interview Molly Park, about what she wanted to do for the city, and what she has already done for the city. When we asked her what she wanted to accomplish this year she said she has a whole list. One of the main things was reducing the numbers of homeless people, and connecting people to permanent housing. Since she was appointed for this position, she has already increased the number of people connected to permanent housing by a lot. She then talked about how covid had a big impact. During covid everyone had more services and more help, and when that all stopped, people started having nothing to eat and nowhere to live, which has caused a massive increase in homelessness in the past few years.

We asked Molly what was one thing she would change about homelessness in NYC, and she said having more housing availability. She said that NYC doesn’t have enough housing to have everyone with a roof over their heads. If it was possible she would want to make more housing available and build more places for people to live. We then asked our last question about where she thought homelessness will be in 10 years. She said that New York City will try their best to make more housing space and get as many people housed as possible. But on the other hand she said that rent will definitely keep increasing, causing homelessness to get worse and worse. Rent is already too high in NYC, so if it gets worse and worse homelessness will become an insanely big problem.

by Alexander Donadic

Coalition for the Homeless has been one of the best sources throughout our project. We were lucky enough to get an interview with someone who worked there for more than 20 years! We talked to him a lot about the stereotypes on homelessness, and how it affects the homeless. He said that the stereotypes affect them a lot. He added that people stereotype the homeless to be crazy, mentally ill, drug addiction, alcoholics and raged clothing. He then said a quote that was very relatable to me, “I actually find it kind of depressing that you all have grown up in an era where mass homelessness is kind of considered a normal fact of life.” This really hit me because it is something we all see everyday, it is something that is a part of all our lives, and I completely agree with Patrick.

We then talked about homelessness in the future, and why it’s becoming worse and worse. The main reason we got was definitely inflation, and rent being higher and minimum wage not being enough. He then said he helped a man, who waited 7 ½ years on the affordable housing list to get permanent housing. He then contrasted the US to Europe. He gave us a statistic about how in Belgium, ⅓ of people in Belgium get housing with a poor income, which is insane how housing is so affordable compared to NYC.

by Logan Chen

In the afternoon of February 1st, I met with Mae Lee. She is the Executive Director of the Chinese Progressive Association. They assist newcoming Chinese immigrants as well as the Chinese people who have lived in New York City for generations. Their main goal is to serve the Chinese community as a whole. From our conversation I learned a lot more about the experience of Chinese immigrants.

She spoke to me about the early stages of immigrating to America and how the Chinese Progressive Association helps to ease the overwhelm and stress of moving to a new country. They offer English classes as well as assistance on finding jobs, justifying tenant rights, citizenship classes and help registering to vote. However, with more immigrants coming, she has had a different array of who she serves at the English classes. She has found that more parents are coming to class. This is not a surprise.

The experience of children to Chinese immigrants is similar to those of other children of immigrants. A lot of the time, they have to become the translator for their parents, even handling legal obligations. She told me that kids from even age 10 have to help their parents pay taxes or apply for a job, because their parents’ English is not up to par. In many of these families, the children also have to navigate the school system on their own. But, Chinese parents do a lot of work and sacrifice for their children. Mae said that one of the main reasons people have been immigrating from China is for educational opportunities for their children. This is a large sacrifice, especially for people with established careers in their home country.

One of the largest reasons that Chinese immigration is happening is also that many of their family members live in the US. Family is one of the core values in Chinese life and having family in America makes the move a lot more relaxed. A big motivator of getting a Green Card in America is that it helps you be able to bring family over. It also gives many more protections, especially with Trump’s anti-Chinese attitudes, they are needed.
With Trump back in office for his second term, Chinese racism is skyrocketing. He has pushed stereotypes on Chinese Immigrants. There was even proposed legislation by Tom Cotton, a Republican Senator from Arkansas, to restrict Chinese nationals from buying property, forcing generations out of a stable home to call theirs. Mae said that if we teach children more ethics studies on Chinese history and immigration, we could have future people who fight against policies such as this and people like Tom Cotton. I want to end off with that she told me we need to realize our common interests “to unite and stand together”.

*Image from the Chinese Progressive Association’s website

by Klara Moss

At Advent Lutheran Church, we led all sorts of people, many who spoke Mandarin and Spanish to the desk for their medical check-in. Guests were nervous about forgetting their IDs or not knowing if the experience was free or not. As the guests moved along to the clothing table, many were trying on coats and taking items for children. They seemed somewhat excited to get new things. One woman was looking through the gloves and mini-face moisturizers and claimed she had 12 daughters so she needed to take several more. We knew this was an extension of the truth, although we let her take additional items, also aware of the fact that we needed to save some for others. It’s unfortunate that she felt the need to lie to be able to take extras. When guests exited the church after the medical exam and clothing shopping, we handed them bags full of yogurt, bagels, granola bars, fruits, oatmeal, and an optional warm and fresh lentil soup. There were additional flyers with various languages which read about how to sign up for the upcoming food pantry that the kitchens were already preparing for. Everyone left with a fuller smile than when they entered.

The shift we had was a little slow, although it was nice to physically see how other volunteers who come often have built personal connections with guests. The church is a safe space, knowing that there are pantries and multiple ways of support through their community. It felt good to have left with the satisfying feeling of feeding meals to people who might only eat what we served that day. It was partly sad to see some of the up-close people around our city who need the help, but also eye-opening to the fact that there are so many good volunteers who dedicate so much of their time to these programs.

by Abigail (Gail) Pena

On February 3, We watched an important documentary called The Phantom. It spotlights a case that was very significant in the world of criminal justice. The case surrounded a woman named Wanda Lopez, who was murdered in a convenience store in the middle of the night in 1983. The witnesses described the murderer as a Hispanic man. The police investigated and found a suspect named Carlos DeLuna. However, the man was innocent. Throughout his trial, he kept trying to tell the judge that it wasn’t him, but another person, Carlos Hernandez. Nobody had even considered this until much later after he got executed.

The documentary also focused on different people who had worked on that case, and their points of view. One thing that stood out was when Rene Rodriguez, the attorney for Wanda Lopez’s family was getting interviewed, and he said that “all these poor people, they were all getting found guilty, they were all going to death row, and nobody represented them”. This shows how most people from poor backgrounds got poorly represented, and no one really cared enough about them to do anything about it. Rene Rodriguez expressed regret when he recalled the case.

by Esme

For our first Fieldwork, Esme and I met with Jenna DiMarino, our school nurse. Because she is a school nurse she knows a lot about abortion rights. We interviewed her about her opinions on abortion laws and women’s reproductive rights and health care. She said that women should have choice over their own bodies, and that the government deciding about abortions and reproductive health care was not fair. It was really interesting to learn about her views and about how we can take action to make sure women in America have safe access to reproductive health care.
She talked about how religion sometimes restricts what is considered appropriate, and in some communities abortion and birth control are not okay. Abortion, reproductive health care, and birth control should all be accessible to every woman. We also talked about rape and how it really affects survivors who are pregnant and can’t get a safe abortion because of where they live, their religion or other reasons. States should not be able to choose whether or not a woman has control over her reproductive health, especially because a lot of the people in power are men. Women deserve safe reproductive health care no matter what.

by Esme

Vivi and I interviewed Planned Parenthood lawyer Bethany Sousa. We talked a lot about self abortion and abortion access. She told us about the coat hanger abortion. She said it was a procedure where you stick the pointy end of a coat hanger into your uterus without touching the cervix to remove the uterine lining ending the pregnancy. She said it was not the safest method but became an emblem for abortion.
Regarding abortion access she told us about abortion funding which is when an organization provides money to a person in need of an abortion. She said because of the recent issues with abortion bans the abortion funding is not able to help everyone in need. We also talked a little about how Planned parenthood helped people in need of abortions in abortion banned states. Bethany told us that Planned Parenthood tries to connect the person to abortion funding or a facility nearby.

She was really helpful and is going to give us more patient stories and possibly a volunteering opportunity.

by 29massambaa

On February 7th, me and my group interviewed Paige Oberlag and Todd Lowans. We wanted to know more about organizations that help in Haiti firsthand. Paige is the leader of Mission of Hope’s Women empowerment team. She was living in Haiti up until 2016, when she was forced to leave her home due to the rising violence. When this happened, she decided to devote herself to non profit organizations helping people in Haiti from the D.R. She has made a great impact and is fulfilling her mission every day. Todd started helping out when one of his friends who was a missionary in Haiti told him about the crisis there and he decided that he was going to make a change. He had been working there for a while untill one day, he woke up with gangs taking over his city and being evacuated. he had to be brought to another city and then the D.R. While he was in the small town he helped out get families back on their feet, and that drove him to keep going with his work once he reached the D.R. We asked about ways we could help out, but sadly, no opportunities showed themselves. They told us that the best ways to help out, especially when this topic is so overlooked and there is nothing much to do when you are so far away. They told us that simply being kind to Haitian immigrants can make a difference, because they are probably here alone, in a foreign country trying to make a living.
Overall their interview was very interesting and helpful for us to move forward with our project.

by Harvey F. Mollison

We interviewed Sasha Abraham from the MOCEJ. She spoke about how important the impact that communities have on the climate change crisis. She echoed a lot of what we had heard regarding the fact that climate change does not impact all people equally. She talked about how important it was to recognize that people who have more money and resources are going to have massive advantages in the future.

She continued to discuss the possible solutions to climate change more specifically in the NYC environment. This included solar power, green infrastructure, and natural resources. It was quite helpful to hear this because it really backs up what we had been talking about in our research. Since we had not previously spoken about climate with a government agency it was very interesting to hear their perspective.

Despite this, the interview largely remained reminiscent of many other things we had heard from our interviewees. She was very emphatic and passionate about her topic and seemed to want to get the word out not just to adults but also to kids like us.

by Jack Rosen

Our group visited the New York Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street. We met Robert Gangi, the founder of the Police Reform Organization Project, along with three college interns. In the courts, we monitored the people being arraigned for that day. We would first write down the defendant’s race and sex, and report, that out of the 12 cases we monitored, only one case involved a white male, while the other 11 cases involved New Yorkers of Color. Meaning that 91% of the cases were for New Yorkers of Color. We recorded the crime that the New Yorker was arraigned for. The violations ranged from Petty Larceny to Parole Violations to even Assult in the Second Degree. Some notable cases we experienced were cases 12, 10, and 7 where the judge and police showed an extreme amount of racial bias.

During case 10, A Black New Yorker was charged with Parole violation and a form of sexual assault. This New Yorker in particular had not attended his Parole meetings since November. In two public places, one in a bathroom and one on an escalator, this New Yorker exposed himself to a female and attempted sexual assault in front of her. He threatened a security guard with a knife saying “If you come any closer you´ll regret it.” The judge set “an unreasonable bail price¨Gangi said, which was 7500 and 5000 dollars. During Case 7, Another Black New Yorker was charged with a Weapon on Transit Authority. This New Yorker was Previously homeless and avoided many court summons due to substance use, but the judge wasn’t empathetic. For possession of a knife, She sentenced him to 5 days on Rikers Island, along with a re-summons to the court.

During our final monitored case, case 12, a Black New Yorker was charged with criminal mischief, a low-level misdemeanor. The man in question had previously been arraigned and had multiple arrest warrants outstanding. However, unlike the white male and the Latino woman, the judge exhibited significant bias. Instead of giving the man an RoR and an Order of Protection, the defendant was sentenced to 10 days on Rikers Island for “Fear of escaping arrest.”

This fieldwork provided us insight into court bias while also explaining how the justice system works. Thank you Robert Gangi for providing us with this hands on experience.

by 29milesg

In our third fieldwork, we interviewed Ronald “Cook” Barrett. Cook runs a gang prevention program and has been doing this for 30+ years. He was inspired to start this program because of the gang rise in his area as well as losing a 16-year-old to gang violence. This program helps youth growing up in poverty not join gangs.
We also learned that the influence of movies and rappers is sometimes a problem and convinces teens to join gang life. For example, in 21 Savage’s music, he explains multiple times throughout his songs about gang violence. 21 Savage grew up in a low-income area in Atlanta, where he joined the Bloods. He is one of the many examples of rappers speaking this way on their songs.

by 29ekoc

Me…

by 29ekoc

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by 29stevieh

We interviewed Patrick on February 11th and we mostly asked him about the causes of homelessness and homelessness stereotypes. Patrick Markee worked as the former deputy executive director at Coalition for the Homeless for 20 years. He said that one of the main causes of homelessness is the affordable housing gap. The affordable housing gap is the money difference between someone’s salary and their rent. Patrick told us that rent is growing higher and higher each year while the average salary in New York is barely increasing. Patrick also told us about how when he was a child in New York City he never saw any homeless people living on the street, making him believe there were none. It was only till he moved to Boston to college when he noticed mass amounts of homeless people on the streets, making him believe that all of a sudden homelessness had become a big problem. Even though Patrick has dedicated 20 years of his life to working with Coalition for the Homeless before he obtained proper knowledge he believed certain stereotypes about homelessness that almost everyone believes. Patrick has spent his career educating people on the real meaning of homelessness and we are very lucky that we were able to obtain a small amount of his expertise.

by Vivi

For this fieldwork, Esme and I interviewed Bethany Sousa over zoom. Bethany is a lawyer at Planned Parenthood, and she’s worked there for a really long time. We asked her similar questions to the ones that we asked Paola Ferst, who also worked at Planned Parenthood. We asked her if she thought abortions should be legal in America, which is our opening question for almost all our interviews. She obviously said yes, and she also said that it should be legal in every point in pregnancy, and that the government and states shouldn’t control women’s bodies. We also asked if she’d ever volunteered outside her organization, and she said that she actually worked at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington D.C., and that she has volunteered. We talked about birth control and how it liberates women and lets so many people live their lives easier. Birth control has helped so many women and is such a wonderful invention that so many women rely on. We asked her about any stories with patients where birth control or abortion made a big difference, but she personally didn’t have any so she said she would send some in. The next question was, Do you think women in america have enough safe reproductive healthcare? She said no and actually told us about Care Deserts, where women need to travel really far to get abortions and birth control. Some of the reason for Care Deserts is religiously affiliated hospitals. Some religiously affiliated hospitals don’t provide abortions, and reproductive healthcare is not covered by medicaid or state insurance. A lot of women who live in Care Deserts can’t afford to travel to get an abortion or can’t afford to pay for the actual procedure. She told us that Planned Parenthood supports women in Abortions banned states by having health care centers that provide other types of care and helping with patient navigation. They also refer some patients to other organizations that will help them get faster, safer, and cheaper care. One source that is usually referred is Abortion Funds, an organization that pays for women to travel for abortions or pays for the procedures at safe clinic. They also do separate advocacy in banned states, and they try to get legislative seats with democrats. We asked her, Why do you think people think they can control other people’s bodies? She said a lot about systemic sexism, and some women being raised in a sexist world. She also said that society has a mindset about controlling women, and men thinking that women’s bodies can be owned by men. We talked about how at home abortions are becoming more popular, like coat hanger abortions, and other violent kinds of self contraception. Some women throw themselves down the stairs, punch themselves in the stomach, or use herbs to try and end pregnancies. These methods are really unsafe and do more harm than good. Now, there are ways to get abortion pills in the mail that are safe and reliable, but they are being banned by the government in some states. We need to make abortion rights a federal bill and add them to the constitution. Bethany was really helpful and gave us a lot of informational insight.

by Antonio Dominguez

We interviewed Ronald “Cook” Barrett. Cook runs a gang prevention program and has been doing this for over 30+ years. He was inspired to start this program because of a gang war that was happening in Long Island, as well as losing a 16-year-old to gang violence. This program helps youth growing up in poverty not join gangs. We also learned that the influence of movies and rappers is sometimes a problem and convinces teens to join gang life. He believes that there are multiple reasons people join gangs.

The first is poverty. Young men often witness their peers flaunting designer clothes while they struggle with dirty, ripped jeans. This fuels a desire for luxury items, sometimes leading them to illegal stuff, like selling on the black market.

The second reason is security. Many young people live in neighborhoods with gang violence and feel threatened. By joining a gang, they mistakenly believe they will gain protection. After that, they often find themselves in even greater danger.

Even though Barrett says these are the problems, he emphasizes that having strong family relationships can significantly deter young people from gang involvement. When children feel connected to their families and recognize that their parents would be disappointed in their choices, they are more likely to stay away from gang life. Engaging in family activities such as sports, game nights, or movie nights can effectively keep children away from gangs and promote better choices.

by Antonio Dominguez

This documentary was about Curtis Sliwa, who started an organization called Guardian Angels.
The Guardian Angels were a group that protected the streets and trains in NY. They hired volunteers from around the world to survey the streets. Curtis created it because he was attacked by many other gangs when he worked at McDonalds.

This made him create the group; however, it came with repercussions. People died and were injured, including Curtis, during the Guardian Angels. The Guardian Angels were a group that surveyed the streets and protected people from violence. The Guardian Angels are still a thing today, and gang violence has gone down significantly from the 1970s when gang violence was up 325%.

by Esme

Me and my partner Vivi went to washington square park to ask random people about their thoughts on abortion. We got a lot of interviews but there are a few we would love to highlight.

Our first interview we would love to share is an interview we did with an older man who was a professor. He told us that he believes that abortions should be available for life saving reasons. He said there have been preventable deaths that could have been avoided but were not because of abortion restrictions. He also said he worked a lot in prisons and he said that the worst thing that you could do to a child is let them get born without being wanted or being able to be cared for. He said it is a disservice to the child and the mother. We also talked to a person with a different view. This person believes he does not believe in abortion but he believes that people should have the right to choose. He had a completely different view about birth control. He said that he believes that birth control is murder and should not be allowed in any place. For our last interview we interviewed this woman from the UK. She was very pro abortion. She did not know much about the states but did know that women should be able to choose for themselves.

After all the interviews we were so surprised and happy with the amount of information we learned. This fieldwork was a huge help to figure out normal peoples opinions. If we could, we would do this again.

by Alexander Donadic

In this fieldwork me and my partner Hudson, went to Manhattan Church of Christ where we met up with Carl Garrison. When entering the building there were people waiting out front for the building to open for services at 9am. We entered the building and went straight up to the 4th floor, where we got into a room with tables and a kitchen and open space. Carl gave us and other families and kids a talk on how it’s gonna look. First things first we put chairs out for each table, and set up all the food for all the people.

At 9:30 the food area, which is where we were, opened up and people came in quickly. We had cookies set up in cups that we instantly started handing out to people. Everyone had their coffee orders, I could tell they have been there before. Many were asking for more than one cup of cookies, but Carl said not to give it to them right away, even though people were begging. Soon more and more food was let out and we walked around and passed it all out. Many people had bags and were taking as much as they could and were stocking up for the week. He does this every Saturday and everyone restocks.

There was a big poster in the room that said in bold “Black History is…” It invited people that visited to write on the poster. I thought this was really cool for the community to bond and think about a prompt. People were writing and drawing flowers on the paper the best they could. Carl really found a way to connect to the community. I can tell he knew all the people and that they have been there before. He was talking to everyone at the tables, having a laugh, telling a joke, he lightened the mood well. He was going up and down from the kitchen to the clothing area. Overall this was a great experience, and it was fun to help people in need.

by Henry

As…

by Abigail (Gail) Pena

On February 7th, my group mates and I had a zoom interview with Amy Donella, a criminal justice lawyer. She has been in this profession for about 40 years, but has been working in her current company for 4. She gave us a lot of information about discrimination about the incarceration system.

There was one case she told us about that taught about false witness. It involved a man named William who was shot and killed; the shooter ran off. No one could really see him, but the witnesses said that he was dark skinned and 6 feet tall. One piece of evidence that the police found was a cap near the crime scene. They used forensics and found that the sweat on the cap was traced back to two different people. However, they assumed that it belonged to the person with more sweat on it. That person was innocent. Ava helped them get exonerated. In the end, they found the real culprit, and he was light skinned and 5 feet, which was VERY different than what the witnesses had said. This shows how you can’t always depend on people who claim that they witnessed something.

Ava went on to talk about some more general information about the death penalty in the U.S. For example, she told us that America is one of the only countries in the world that still use the death penalty, alongside Japan, China, and other Middle Eastern countries. There are also hundreds of people every year that are exonerated after cases that were unconstitutional. We asked her what communities are affected the most by false imprisonment, and she said that the Black community is the most affected. Recent studies have shown that most prosecutors will seek the death penalty more often when when the defendant is black than any other race.

Overall, I learned a lot from my interview, and I’m looking forward to having more meetings with her.

by Antonio Dominguez

Our first fieldwork experience was with Alex Vitale, a crime professor, social justice project coordinator, and a parent at LREI. With 30 years of experience, he shared some insightful thoughts during our interview. He kicked things off by explaining what a gang is and the differences between the two main types. The first type is more like a close group of friends who hang out together regularly, while the second type refers to gangs that are involved in selling drugs or weapons. It was fascinating to hear his take on the topic! He believes that tackling gang violence starts with addressing poverty, as many people join gangs primarily for money and a sense of security. Alex Vitale said that some people live in super dangerous communities, and gangs represent a support system for the kids that live in these communities. This support system keeps gangs relevant because of protection.

by 29lucetter

Over the past few days, I and my group have watched a documentary titled Food Inc. This documentary teaches us about where food comes from and how unhealthy big companies can be. It was so unsettling to learn how bad some food you see at the grocery store is for you. It made me think about people who don’t have enough money to afford the more expensive healthy/organic food. I think that it is crazy how much of the food in our stores is just from one or two companies.

A crazy fact we learned is there is corn in diapers, batteries, and peanut butter. As a country, we need to get better at mass production and food waste. It’s so bad for our environment and is a major cause of the food industry throughout the nation.

by 29lucetter

This week I and my group interviewed Abby Diess She works there and is the head of the youth program. She told us about the work they do at God’s Love and how they help make good healthy meals for people who can’t make them for themselves. They work with people who are elderly or sick to make sure they have food and are checked in weekly.

Another point Abby brought up was that you don’t have to be homeless, poor, or in a food desert to be food insecure.Many of Gods Loves customers are food insecure but not for the usual reasons ,they may be too sick to cook for themselves or not able to get food on there own even if they live near a grocery store.Overall God’s Love is really trying to helps those who sometimes go unnoticed in the bigger picture.

by 29ariai

On February 6th Mabel Lucy and I went to God’s Love We Deliver. We went there to talk to Abby Diess about Food insecurity in NYC. Abby told us about how they deliver food to people who can’t get on there own. They deliver it to people all across the Burrows. Abby also took us on a tour of there kitchen so that we can see where all of their food and form and how they make it. There were lots people there that were very helpful and put all of the meals together so that everyone they serve can have a meal. They also make 17,000 meals per day and a breakfast lunch dinner and dessert plan.

After going to God’s Love We deliver I noticed even more about how much we should care for others about food. Everyone there loves to volunteers and help out. The kitchen also takes volunteers year round. Everybody there is very friendly and loves to do what they do. Having all of these people come out and spend time caring for others really makes a difference towards others health.

by 29stevieh

Franklin Spurbeck works as a senior research assistant at Portland Universities Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. Franklin’s job is to turn data into a clear and efficient analysis. For example, if 10 people are interviewed about how expensive their rent is Franklin will take their answers and turn them into statistics and graphs regarding past information and future prediction. After Franklin has created new statistics and compared them to other versions of data figuring out the causes and effects of homelessness becomes a lot easier. We asked Franklin some questions about homelessness and its main cause. The three main answers we got were, housing costs, income, and substance abuse. All of these things Franklin believes are the main causes/contributors to the homelessness epidemic. Another big takeaway that we took from our interview was how mental health affects an unhoused person. Specifically how negative stereotypes affect an unhoused person’s mental health. There are certain stereotypes that all homeless people are drug addicts, and that every homeless person wants to kill you and those things are just not true. Even though, yes there are some crazy people out there, they are less than ⅓ of NYCs unhoused population. It’s because of these fake ideas people have been so unempathetic towards the unhoused community. Franklin proved our thesis that New York City’s homeless community is often stereotyped and standardized as a crazy group of individuals all living on the street due to mental institutions closing almost 100 years ago by explaining to us that due to people’s fear and unwillingness to trust, homelessness has become a norm due to no one wanting to disrupt the century long tradition of normalizing the unhoused. If people were able to see past the stereotypes and minority of mentally unstable individuals they would understand that being unhosued is not a self brought curse. It is something you cannot control. If the public opened their hearts up, maybe landlords wouldn’t raise their rent a crazy high amount or an employer would look past the fact that someone didn’t have a home a couple of years ago. If people were able to do that the world would truly be a better place and we know this because of Franklin Spurbeck.

by Hudson Lewis

Hudson. L

On January 17, 2025, our field group interviewed Gabrielle Ramos-Solomon, who works at the Robin Hood organization which is a charitable organization for those who have less money to afford things like food, child care, and education. Whose mission is to get people out of poverty. Their main mission is to get people out of poverty. In the past, Gabrielle Ramos-Solomon was the chief of staff to the chancellor of the NYC Department of Education.

When we interviewed Gabrielle Ramos-Solomon, we learned that she used to work in schools that had low test scores, one of the reasons is because of funding inequality. Some of her eighth-grade students were stuck at a second-grade reading level, which is also partly because of funding inequalities. This was very frightening to hear because some schools don’t even teach their students how to read at a proper reading level. We also learned about the funding formula in schools. This is where schools get more money for kids with extra needs. Gabrielle said that the funding formula is very outdated because it does not cover the needs of kids now.

Learning all of this information was very helpful, and good to know because it helped me really understand how big and important my topic really is. Especially when she said that her eighth-grade students were reading at a level six grades below them. I always thought kids in New York had a decent education, at least decent enough to read at a level close to their grade. Hearing this made me actually feel sad because people deserve a better education. I think that because of this interview, I am actually starting to get more interested in my topic.

by Luke Niziol

We had an interview with Paige Oberlag, the leader of Mission of Hopes Women Empowerment Team, and Todd Lowans, Mission of Hopes Vice President of operations. It was a pleasure interviewing them as they work at a Non-Governmental Organization that helps Haiti. Paige Oberlag currently lives in the DR with her husband helping out on the issue. In this interview, we learned Todd’s and Paige’s thoughts of Haiti in the media and some personal stories of theirs.

During our interview today, we asked the two how they think Haiti is portrayed in the media. Todd said that there is little to nothing about Haiti in the media, but there are some things when there is a heavy assassination, like the president a couple years ago. But ultimately, Todd thinks Haiti is covered when there is an American person stuck in Haiti and can’t get back to America. There are a couple things in the media, but once they are back to America there is nothing new. Paige had previously lived in Haiti in 2019, but when the gangs were on the uprise, they had to go to the DR, and they went from the north coast to the south coast only because of the gangs.

Todd had a story where overnight, the streets where he had his campsite were completely destroyed, and there were hundreds of roadblocks in the area. Another note, this only happened overnight. They had been trapped in the area, and someone had to come help them. Some friends from a separate organization had been kidnapped by some gangs in Haiti, but thankfully they were able to rescue them.

With all of the stories they told us about, it really just tells me how dangerous and quickly things can escalate there. The part with the media also just screams at me that the US really just doesn’t care about issues in places like Haiti.