My First Experience: A Trip To The Brooklyn Streets

Let me set the scene, I wake up earlier than I should during summer break and get on the train from Queens to Brooklyn. As I walk through the Brooklyn streets I felt the most out of place that I have ever felt. At first, when walking out of the subway station everything seemed like a normal day. I stood outside the Marcy Projects (a cheaper housing choice in NYC), where I found myself looking at familiar faces of Hispanic, African-American people and the occasional Caucasian tourist walking through to a nearby hotel. However, it was like I walked into a new world when I crossed the street onto Flushing Ave and I was the only person to not look like or dress like the people around me. I have usually been in diverse areas where I have encountered …show more content…
I couldn't say what the stores around me were named since they were in a different language. The same went for the school buses that brought girls and boys that dressed differently than I dressed as a child to summer camp and daycare. I saw advertisements for the tall black hats that the men wore and I saw a dry cleaning truck unloading rows and rows of the same black coat. The shorts and t-shirt that I was wearing suddenly felt very revealing compared to the long dresses and long sleeves that the women wore. I found myself walking faster through the neighborhood to quickly get to where I was going, after feeling the uncomfortableness of being an outsider. Being in that area made me truly know and feel the diversity of NYC and how someone can just walk into a different world so easily. Since the first time walking through this neighborhood, I have walked through every Tuesday and Wednesday for seven weeks and I have done research in learning more about the culture. The original "weirdness" of walking through this neighborhood has now turned into a "normal" feeling where I feel comfortable and have a new found respect for this culture and