Who am I?- Crystal Danielle Lodico

Who am I? Is a question that I ask myself  quite frequently, who I am has changed many times throughout the years through experiences and influences. My name is Crystal Danielle Lodico. I have a black kitten named kiki.My mother is Ecuadorian (which was the more dominant side in my upbringing) and my father is Italian . Since I was raised with a more Spanish influence although I  speak the language very poorly growing up I related to Latina women such as Jennifer Lopez and Selena. I was proud of my Latin heritage and had no problem identifying with it.I grew up in Maspeth Queens and attended high school in Poconos where my sister and I were the only non white people in the area. It was a very small town their racial views and how things should be done were very narrow over the years living there I learned how to "white" myself. I knew I couldn't stay there forever unless I wanted to have a future living in a trailer and have two kids with a husband in the army at the age 17 (unfortunate typical stereo- type). While in middle school and high school I had begun pursuing interests in  modeling, acting, photography and trained part time in a small recording studio. After high school I made the decision to move back to my beloved city NYC and studied at Nassau community college in long island for two years. There I learned how to engineer, produce, and even host my own radio shows. I also helped a bit with the TV station there. I moved to Brooklyn and transferred to Hunter in 2010 which I think was the right decision. So far since Ive been at Hunter I have had only one internship with the Rachel Ray show and did field work for an independent film but I'm hoping for more opportunity. I'm not quite sure where I fit in the media world but I'm always willing to trying anything once. I'm am very interested in studying how media affects people socially and how it influences trends. Living on my own has been experience sometimes it is hard to balance work, school, career, and social life. I  currently work at a night club and have worked at other various restaurants for the past 6 years. One of my favorite jobs that I had worked at for a year was in the West Village it was a Mexcian food Drag Queen bar, honestly love drag queens <3.

As of right now the person I am today is very independent I enjoy challenging and finding different outlets to express myself. I am also a huge Foodie <3 i will eat anything. My family are my support system. I love to read,write, travel. I hope to one day live in Europe. Health and fitness are very important things to me I truly believe if your good to your body a person can live forever.  I like natural things (my friends refer to me as a flower child). My favorite movies are those that have Marylin Monroe and Audrey Hepburn in them. I love all types of music back to Monkeys through the Be gees to Dub step I have appreciation for most genres although country is still growing on me. I love meeting new people and learning about them you never know when you can meet your new best friend or future connection. I love life and try to keep a open perspective to everything.

I think that pretty much sums it up lol :)

Who Am I? - Michelle Lee

Like many other American Born Chinese, I can easily be defined to others as an "ABC." And quite honestly, there have been moments in my childhood where I have fallen prey to downgrading who I am to a measly 3 letters. I have come to realize that I am so much more. I am a musician. I am a baker, a cook...a Godiva Chocolatier (and no...I did not go to chocolate school). Growing up with television shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and The Nanny, the sight of an Asian actress/actor in American media was/is rare. To prove this, how many of you reading this right now can name at least 7 Asian female celebrities off the top of your head? And I presume that Lucy Liu will be within the first three people that you name. See my point?

So...who am I? I am an Asian American woman who is motivated to be comfortable as simply me. I want to make it a rarity for people to be shocked to find out I am fully Asian after hearing me speak perfect English through the phone. I want to make terms like "ABC" and "FOB" obsolete. I want to be seen as an equal in this country that I call home and what better way to do it than starting with what may be the most influential part of our society: the media!

Who I am - June Marie Davis

Coming from a single parent home my mother made it her business not to live off government assistance.  Back in the day it was a common stereotype for Latinos and Blacks living in urban areas to be on welfare.  My mother worked two jobs to give my brother and me a roof over our heads and have food in the fridge.   As a child, I never thought anything of skin color until one day my mother dropped me off at school and I was asked if I was adopted.  I laughed it off and said, no.  I was told that I had to be adopted because my mother is white and I am black.  It was that day that I became familiar with the word race. 

I am bi-racial, my mother is Puerto Rican and my father is African American.  Growing up I was never made to feel different, but outside of home I was.  It was also very relevant to me that I was not part of the “norm” because the shows I watched on television did not resemble my family.  I watched shows like, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Family Matters, Family Ties and Full House (http://classic-tv.com/80s-shows/). None of these shows pertained to my lifestyle, but you had shows like, Different Strokes and Webster, which were about white families adopting black children; yet that wasn’t me either.  The media I consumed growing up made me feel like I didn’t belong; that I was not “normal”.  I didn’t grow up in a two parent household; I grew up in the projects and I wasn’t adopted.  So who am I…I’m me and I love that I am.

 

 

Who Do You Think You Are? - Bruce Le

     On the first day of my Wednesday class this week, my teacher had all of the students say their name and what they planned to do after graduation.  I thought long and hard about an answer that felt right to me.  When it came to be my turn, I said, "after graduation I want to write for the New York Times."  I figured, "dream big, why not?"  I know there is a big chance that I won't be able to write for such a prestigious publication.  Or perhaps I will pursue other venues of writing before long.  However, I think it would be amazing and straying off the beaten path to write for such a newspaper in an industry that is predicted to die soon.  I think I am an optimistic idealist.

     I grab a Village Voice, Metro NY, or NYTimes paper whenever I can.  I am addicted to blogs like "Eataku," "Lucylou.livejournal.com," or "Angry Asian Man."  I was raised in a Vietnamese Catholic neighborhood in Texas and because of that, I like to ponder the purpose of traditional conventions in everyday life.  I recently started writing for the arts and entertainment section of the Hunter Envoy and I love it so far.  Not only does writing these articles help me with my writing skills, but it motivates me to look for all the amazing events, galleries, museums, and concerts that NYC has to offer.  My blog is The Periodical Bruce where I feature different comics I love.  Many of them are autobiographical stories written and drawn by the artist in different ways.  I am a reader, writer, outsider, and underdog.

Who Do You Think You Are? - Janis Mahnure

My name is Janis Mahnure and I am a Renaissance Lady. I am an artist, a writer, a poet, a scientist, and all around family person - or at least I believe I am these things.

I'm a graphics designer for a start-up marketing and consulting company. I also have my own project called 'Drops of Knowledge' which is an online publication and I have released two magazines through the project, currently working on the third and fourth one. I have also developed a children's iPad book.

I am in the Thomas Hunter Honors Program, majoring in Media Studies concentrated on Emerging Media and currently contemplating on doing a double major on Religion. I hope to finish my Bachelors and teach a class at Hunter called "Women in Islam" while simultaneously obtaining a PhD from Columbia in Media Studies.

I am extremely fascinated by sociology and psychology and it's relation to the media and manipulating the society. As soon as I receive my PhD I hope to be a professor at various elite colleges in NYC and also work on publishing many books.

Oh, and I love food. I bake and cook whether I have spare time or not and experimenting is the best. Bet you don't know how to make this beautiful eggs benedict.

Who Do You Think You Are?—Amal

 

The way I define myself has been largely influenced, I think, by my parents (pictured above in the Golan Heights). My most vivid memories of childhood take place in various newsrooms; my mother was a college dropout-turned-journalist, and eventually a managing editor. We lived separate from my dad, so on nights when she couldn’t get a babysitter and the news was breaking she would haul us to the newsroom, deposit us in whatever space was free and let us watch movies or wander around. Sometimes I found myself in the back with the huge printing press, watching the papers get cranked out for early-morning delivery. Because of her journalism career, an awareness of the media was ingrained in me.

While my mom gave me the newsroom, my dad gave me Palestine. My name is Arabic for “hope”; I think they called me that because in a place like Palestine, it really means something—maybe everything. As a Palestinian it became my responsibility to follow the narratives the media was creating or perpetuating around Palestine, because those narratives would define what much of the world would think of me or my family. I’m blessed to be at Democracy Now!, a news organization that humanizes Palestinians and counteracts dominant news narratives, from Israel/Palestine to stop-and-frisk to feminist issues. Reader, writer, Palestinian, daughter, sister, questioner, debater—that’s who I am.

Hello all,

It will be a fast-paced semester. I expect great work and dedication from each of you. I will make the material and the classes engaging and awesome - as possible ;) It is up to all of you to do your part, stay on top of the readings and the assignments and make this class awesome too!

I look forward to spending the next semester engaged in great discussions, impressed with your projects and getting to know all of you. Welcome!

Prof. Caçoilo

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (This is you), 1986