My name is Nadya Nataly Castillo and I am a second-year student at The Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. I was born and raised in Colombia (not Columbia) and arrived in the US with my family at age 14. Experiencing the last leg of my formative years as an immigrant in Queens – New York, I never really understood the nuances of the social injustices and disparities that surround our everyday lives, because I wasn’t much different from my newly made friends. However, after high school graduation, I quickly realized that my dreams (and my parents’ dreams) of me succeeding in this country would be much more difficult to attain without higher education and that all the odds were stocked against me. This is the reason why it is important that we turn our attention to the obstacles faced by immigrants and other people of color in their pursuit of higher education and become proactive in changing the narrative of people like me being here to do the work that “nobody wants to do.” We’re here to follow our dreams, just like everyone else. This also is the reason why I want to dedicate this project to my parents, and all the generations of immigrants before us who sacrificed their personal dream to make sure their children could reach theirs, who couldn’t pursue an education because their priority was to feed their children, one day at a time, and who continue to inspire us because quitting is just not in their DNA.

 

My name is Sharon Casandra Gonzalez. I am second-year graduate student at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in Clinical Social Work. I was born in Nezahuacoyotl, Mexico and lived in “Neza” until I was 4 which was when I migrated to the U.S.. Majority of my upbringing is owed to a number of the BEAUTIFUL and highly diverse neighborhoods of Queens, New York. Feelings of disbelonging due to my race or skin color were scarce in my childhood, however, as I journeyed into adulthood and higher academia, I quickly became aware of the whitening of the spaces I occupied. In college, it wasn’t just my professors that were white and lived an experience largely different from my own, as I was used to, but also my classmates who were commonly white, middle-class, citizens and coming from exemplry academic backgrounds that were not filled with metal detectors, truancy vans and metal barred windows. It was and continues to be lonesome within the high walls of the ivory tower for me as a Brown immigrant femme-identifed person. Nonetheless, I continue pursuing my goal of becoming a bilingual psychotherapist that serves the incrediblly underserved Latinx diaspora within NYC. This website is an ode to my resilience and that of all the folks of color that have pursued higher education in primarily white institutions that continue to occupy space with intention, purpose and community in mind, against all odds. Hopefully this website can be an aid to incoming students and a source of community where for a lot of us it is largely lacking.