By Yaldaz Sadakova
Photo by Yaldaz Sadakova
As soon as I opened the fridge in the communal kitchen, a smell of fermented cabbage and rotten vegetables assaulted my nostrils.
I grabbed a packet of sausages and a jar of mayonnaise, placing them on the greasy counter.
Then I took a tortilla from the cabinet, spread mayo on it and wrapped it around a sausage. Voilà, a tortilla hot dog.
While I microwaved my concoction, I looked out the window, which faced a brown brick wall. The proximity of the wall was unsettling, but I loved the fire escapes zigzagging down to the first floor.
The microwave beeped, and I took my tortilla hot dog to my dorm room. It was an austere white-walled room with a bay window overlooking the Hudson River.
The window was open now, letting in the August heat and the sound of sirens and honking. I looked out. As always, joggers in tights were running up and down the luscious Riverside Park.
At night, the window afforded a postcard view of New Jersey’s lights shimmering across the Hudson River.
My tortilla hot dog didn’t taste bad. Ketchup or some other condiment would have made it more flavorful, but whatever. I was proud of my ingenuity. I’d made the cheapest possible meal out of unpairable ingredients.
I knew, however, that bringing this concoction to school for lunch would attract pitying glances from my Ivy League classmates, whose meals consisted of gourmet sandwiches, organic salads and sushi.
One time I’d brought homemade rice with corn for lunch—literally just rice with corn—and a classmate said, “That’s all you’re having?”
Running home to eat tortilla hot dogs was no big deal. My dorm was just a 10-minute walk from school.
That was a small price to pay for attending Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism on a full scholarship as a poor kid from a poor country. That’s how I saw it while I ate my tortilla hot dog, less than a month into the school year.
Hunter-Gatherer
At the beginning of the school year, I cashed my scholarship check. It was supposed to cover my tuition, rent and living expenses for the duration of the 10-month Master’s program.
The after-tax amount left me with about $100 a month for food.
Because my school workload was insane from the start, I chose not to supplement my scholarship with a part-time job on campus. (International students like me weren’t allowed to work off-campus.)
In New York City, $100 a month for food was not much even back in 2007—particularly in the wealthy Columbia neighborhood, the Upper West Side, where at the time the cheapest pizza slice cost around $3.
The supermarkets on the Upper West Side weren’t cheaper than the pizza parlors. I went to these supermarkets mainly to try the free samples of gourmet crackers and to inhale the delicious pungent smell of aged cheese. While I ate the samples, I walked around the aisles pretending to look for groceries. Every price tag seemed like a personal affront.
Luckily, I soon discovered Astoria, in west Queens. I started doing my grocery shopping there.
Astoria was down-to-earth and more affordable than Manhattan, even though it was starting to be gentrified. Most of its residents were working-class immigrants, part of the army without whose labor (and possibly consumption dollars) New York could never survive.
Grubby low-rise buildings dominated the Astoria landscape. Ninety-nine-cent stores and establishments offering payday loans were everywhere.
Eastern Orthodox churches were common, too. The restaurants emanated soulful Greek tunes. Fluffy golden squares of baklava and spanakopita glistened in many bakery windows.
All this reminded me of my home country, Bulgaria, which borders Greece. The filo dough pastries in particular made me nostalgic. I grew up eating baklava and the Bulgarian version of spanakopita.
I usually went to the Trade Fair Supermarket on one of Astoria’s busiest corners, 30th Avenue and 31st Street. My strategy was to buy the cheapest possible items that I could make sandwiches with for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That’s how I ended up with creations like tortilla hot dogs and pita with ham and cream cheese.
I also liked going to the Associated Supermarket near the Queensbridge Houses, a subsidized apartment complex not too far from Trade Fair—although the grimy constellation of brown towers in Queensbridge looked depressing.
At Associated I bought mainly frozen French fries. I microwaved them since didn’t own a frying pan. I ate them as a main rather than a side dish.
I didn’t mind lugging my groceries on the subway, even though I had to change two trains and travel for at least 45 minutes. In fact, when I put my heavy plastic bags on the train floor, I felt satisfaction. I had plenty of food, including cookies, hot dogs and cream cheese! By Bulgarian standards, cookies, hot dogs and cream cheese were delicacies.
I also enjoyed riding the subway. It fascinated me how New Yorkers treated it as an extension of their apartments, doing everything imaginable on the train—knitting, nail clipping, drawing, reading. I loved how they gave each other privacy, even if they sat inches apart. You could cry in a crowded subway car, and nobody would look at you. They’d give you your moment, your space.
Photo by Yaldaz Sadakova
Coffee was another concern. I didn’t own a coffee machine, so instant coffee was the only option. I bought that from a 99-cent store not too far from Columbia. Surprisingly, it had the best price. I kept a jar of coffee at school, in the staff kitchen, to avoid Starbucks runs.
In the staff kitchen, I sometimes found trays with sandwiches and fruit left over from school functions. I always helped myself. That was pretty much the only time I ate fruit that year.
Conference leftovers were a godsend because securing food was a major concern and time suck for me, as if I was living in a primitive hunter-gatherer society.
Mental Fog and Imposter Syndrome
Each morning while I hurried up Broadway on my way to school, I would slip into tunnel vision, paying attention to nothing on the street. If someone in front of me slowed down, I’d get supremely irritated and scream at them mentally to fucking move.
As I rushed into the J-School’s majestic stone building on 116th Street and Broadway, I never noticed the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of it.
I never had time to stroll around Columbia’s gorgeous campus. Or to hang out, like students from other Columbia schools, on the steps of the Low Memorial Library and admire its stately façade columns.
Our classroom functioned like a newsroom, and our teachers served as editors.
We spent our entire time reporting on New York’s streets and then producing print, TV and radio pieces.
At the beginning of the year everyone chose a neighborhood to report from. I chose Astoria, which is how I discovered cheap supermarkets.
One of my favorite Astoria places to report from was Little Egypt—a short section of Steinway Street.
Hookah lounges with names like Layali Beirut and Eastern Nights lined that section of Steinway. Arab immigrants sat in plastic chairs outside the lounges, drinking black tea and smoking hookah. The smell of their fruit tobacco permeated the air.
I enjoyed walking around my beat, even when I wasn’t working on a story. That’s how I discovered gems like Astoria Park and Hunters Point South Park. Both of these parks afford a sweeping view of Manhattan.
That view always made my insides expand. Until New York, I’d been surrounded by nondescript utilitarian buildings—a remnant of Bulgaria’s Communist past.
New York—this gorgeous habitat for achievers, artists, oddballs and transplants from everywhere—gave me what many people get from being in nature. On the streets of New York, I could literally breathe the air exhaled from the lungs of achievers and artists. And when I did that, my own dreams expanded. More things seemed possible.
Although I kept walking around my beat and reading the news, I didn’t understand the major issues affecting it. I could name these issues—lack of affordable housing, gentrification, budget cuts. But I didn’t understand them well. I couldn’t connect things and see the big picture. My mind was constantly shrouded in a fog.
So I had trouble selecting issues to cover for my news stories. It was up to us to find story ideas.
Even when we had to write an immigration story, I struggled with picking an issue although I was a foreigner. Immigrants were everywhere around me, but the topic was too broad, and everything I could think of had already been covered. I needed a story with a new angle on just one aspect of immigration.
I was walking on Steinway one afternoon, panicking that I still didn’t have an immigration topic and that I would miss my deadline for submitting the story, when I heard a couple speak Bulgarian behind me.
I turned around and introduced myself. I explained I was a journalism student looking to interview an immigrant, and did they know somebody?
They did—an undocumented Bulgarian, a friend of theirs. I’ll call her Jenna. In fact, they said, we were standing in front of Jenna’s apartment building.
A few minutes later, I was in Jenna’s small apartment, which overflowed with books and stuffed toys.
Jenna looked middle-aged, with short black hair and black-rimmed glasses. She was very friendly.
She told me she’d been living in New York without papers for 14 years. So, even though she had a university degree from Bulgaria, she cleaned houses under the table. These housekeeping jobs also allowed her to have her young American-born daughter with her at all times. Jenna was a single mom.
She had no intention of returning to Bulgaria, even though she hadn’t seen her parents for 14 years.
“This country has been a home to me. There’s no going back,” Jenna told me.
Her story touched me. But, as I was leaving her stuffy apartment, I knew it would be considered the typical undocumented immigrant story. Similar stories had received coverage, so there was nothing newsworthy about what had happened to Jenna.
Still, I wrote a profile of her. I didn’t have time to look for another story. Of course, my instructor thought my topic wasn’t newsworthy.
Later in the fall, I did write a few stories that tackled newsworthy issues.
A local paper published one of them—my first ever New York City byline.
In December, I got my first-semester evaluation from my teachers.
“You have a good sense of the information that needs to go into a story, and the reporting needed to get the information. Your writing mechanics are very good, and you have flashes of style and creativity.”
I ignored these encouraging remarks and focused only on the negative aspects of my instructors’ feedback—namely, that I often had trouble with selecting issues to cover.
These critical remarks reminded me that I wasn’t among the best in class.
But it wasn’t for lack of trying. My best just wasn’t good enough, and I couldn’t stand that. Unlike some of my classmates, I wasn’t producing any brilliant work, despite the fact that I was in the most inspiring city, and my teachers were some of the best journalists in the world.
I felt like a failure.
I felt that I’d gotten my scholarship by mistake, that I wasn’t supposed to be there.
I didn’t know at the time that I was suffering from imposter syndrome. People afflicted with the syndrome doubt their competence, have difficulty taking credit for their accomplishments, feel like frauds and fear they’ll be found out.
The syndrome is particularly common among women and minorities.
Now it’s obvious to me why I didn’t understand the New York issues well. I was new to the city!
Yet, when I started school, I expected to hit the ground running. After all, I had just graduated from an American university in Bulgaria and had spent four summers working in the United States.
But learning about the U.S. electoral system or washing dishes in a New Hampshire restaurant doesn’t prepare you for understanding things like New York’s affordable housing crisis.
The other reason why I expected to hit the ground running at Columbia was that I had done reporting for my undergraduate journalism classes and for one of the college news publications.
But reporting on a small campus where you know everybody is different from reporting in New York.
The students who knew the issues well and produced the most insightful pieces were usually Americans—or international students who’d lived in New York or elsewhere in the United States for an extended time. And, these insightful writers had usually interned or worked at U.S. news organizations.
I felt intimidated by these classmates’ experience, talent and ambition. I’d assumed before Columbia that when kids get into elite schools, it’s usually because of money rather than brains.
But most of my classmates were fiercely intelligent, talented and hardworking. Money and inherited advantage had certainly helped them hone their talents. But the fact is, they had smarts and grit. I suspected they belonged to a rare human breed with superior brains (and looks).
Constantly worrying about money and food didn’t help my school performance either. These concerns were a permanent distraction.
I didn’t know it then, but poverty can inhibit cognitive function. Research based in Princeton University and published a few years ago reached that conclusion.
“The poor must manage sporadic income, juggle expenses, and make difficult trade-offs. Even when not actually making a financial decision, these preoccupations can be present and distracting,” the study noted.
“Preoccupations with pressing budgetary concerns leave fewer cognitive resources available to guide choice and action.”
The report concluded there was “a causal, not merely correlational, relationship between poverty and mental function.”
Here’s how researchers reached that conclusion. They asked farmers in India and American mall shoppers with different income levels to ponder financial scenarios varying from adverse to benign. The participants then had to perform cognitive tasks.
Contemplating adverse financial scenarios suppressed the participants’ mental function and caused them to make mistakes on cognitive tasks.
The researchers also found that poverty’s impact on the cognitive skills of participants equaled the effect of a 13-point decline in IQ—and the loss of an entire night’s sleep.
So it turns out every time I tackled a school assignment, I did it with a sleep-deprived, lower-IQ brain.
Friends or Lack Thereof
Poverty also made it hard for me to establish friendships because it caused me to feel inferior in every regard compared to my classmates.
Most of them sported preppy designer clothes. I wore Old Navy pants and Kmart shirts.
Many talked casually about overseas vacations and their families owning second homes. They dropped references to past internships at prestigious news outlets.
I couldn’t participate in any of these conversations. I’d never traveled. I’d never interned because I had to work minimum-wage jobs during my college summers to pay for school. My family didn’t own a second home.
A handful of classmates complained about their Columbia student debt. I couldn’t participate in those conversations either. I felt embarrassed by my full scholarship because it was a reminder that I couldn’t afford to be there, so I didn’t mention it.
My classmates were polite, but I sensed a distance. I felt they couldn’t relate to my experience of being poor. And I couldn’t relate to their experience of being wealthy or upper-middle class. I couldn’t even relate to the middle-class students.
Maybe I would have eventually connected with someone if I had socialized regularly.
But most of the J-School socializing occurred in bars, restaurants and coffee shops on the Upper West Side. I went out for happy hour a couple of times at the beginning of the year, ordering the cheapest beer and nursing it until the end of the night. But I couldn’t afford to keep doing that.
I also missed journalism award ceremonies and other events at Columbia because I had nothing to wear. I realized this only after I made a fashion faux pas while attending one of these galas early in the fall.
As soon as I walked into the glamorous banquet hall, I noticed that all the guests, including my classmates and teachers, were wearing suits and evening gowns.
Me? I was wearing casual checkered pants, a knit sleeveless top and casual square toe boots with block heels.
The chunky fake leather boots had seemed acceptable when I bought them from Astoria the previous week, specifically for this event. They did have heels after all, even if they were low heels.
Still, even when I settled on them in the store, I knew they weren’t formal enough.
But I couldn’t afford to buy boots that I would only wear on special occasions. Winter was coming, and I didn’t have any boots, so a new pair of casual boots seemed like a good compromise.
Now, however, while looking around, I realized that the fake leather and the crude design screamed “cheap.”
I noted that my black knit top—a hand-me-down—was inappropriate, too.
So were my checkered flared pants, with large side pockets.
I’d assumed they would be perfect for the gala because I’d bought them the previous summer from T.J. Maxx. I didn’t own anything else from a store like T.J. Maxx. So, despite their casual design, I considered them to be my dress slacks, my best slacks.
And, of course, there was the issue of my large fake leather studded purse, which I had bought specifically for this event from Astoria.
I couldn’t afford to buy a fancy clutch for special occasions only, like the ones women around me were wearing. A tiny clutch cost as much as a purse. And given that I didn’t have any purse at all, I figured I’d buy a larger bag, something functional I could wear every day.
I had miscalculated everything. I felt embarrassed and out of place in these glitzy surroundings. I wanted to become invisible.
A month later, the boots I’d bought before the gala started to fall apart. The fake leather on top literally disintegrated, and I ended up with holes in my boots.
I replaced them with a cheap pair from Payless. I thought my new beige boots were cute and expensive-looking.
But one time when I wore them to a TV news class, a classmate said, “They’re cute; are they from Payless?”
I wasn’t fooling anyone.
So I stayed home when Lucille’s Ball rolled around in December. It’s the J-School’s biggest event—the annual holiday party and faculty roast. I couldn’t afford to buy a fancy dress with matching shoes and a matching handbag.
I spent the evening in my dorm room, reading news on my laptop. More than fear of missing out, I felt relief. This time I wasn’t going to embarrass myself publicly, to go where I didn’t belong.
The next day, I saw pictures from the ball on Facebook. It looked like I had missed a lot of fun and bonding opportunities.
I never became close with my roommate either—even though she was a J-School classmate, and we never had any problem living in the same room. I actually admired her.
She had a dazzling smile and flat-ironed hair. She carried herself with confidence.
She owned expensive-looking button-down shirts and an entire collection of shoes lined against the wall—heels, rain boots, puffy winter boots, flats, running shoes and flip-flops. Wow, there are people who have shoes for every occasion, I thought with amazement whenever I saw them. I wished I could line up my wall with shoes like that.
My roommate also owned a full-length mirror, a pumpkin-scented candle and a TV perpetually tuned to CNN or some other news channel.
She seemed to be savvy about everything related to New York, from political and social issues to where you could get the best bagels. She was a good reporter. She looked poised in front of the camera. Even back then, I could imagine her anchoring for the likes of CNN. She excelled at shooting and editing video. She was among the best students at school.
She worked hard and barely slept. “I’m training myself to sleep six hours,” she told me at the beginning of the school year.
She was always friendly with me. She even shared some personal information with me, and that’s how I learned her life hadn’t been easy, and she wasn’t a spoiled kid.
But our interactions were always limited to our dorm room. We never hung out at school or elsewhere.
And because I kept comparing myself to her and noticing only the areas where I was lacking, I felt that there was a barrier between us, that she was superior. I felt intimidated by her confidence and her designer clothes. I thought it would be beneath her to befriend someone like me.
So I never tried to connect with her as an equal. And I was oblivious to any friendship attempts she—or anyone else—may have made because I was so self-absorbed. When she shared personal information with me, I didn’t reciprocate.
I did have a couple of good friends outside Columbia. I’d known them since high school, and they happened to be living in the New York area at the time.
But it never occurred to me to share with them, or anyone else, the full extent of how excluded and small I felt. I even turned down some of my friends’ invitations to meet up.
Aimless Strolling
I couldn’t afford to fly to Bulgaria during the winter break, so I stayed on campus. I loved how it emptied out. My roommate left, too.
In the mornings, instead of rushing half-asleep to the communal shower, I lingered at the window. Despite the cold and the snow, the joggers were running along the waterfront.
My room was quiet at those times, except for the hissing radiator and the hum of traffic.
I read the news on my newly-bought laptop while drinking my morning instant coffee and luxuriating in the warmth of the room. Then I worked on my Master’s thesis.
I spent many afternoons strolling around the Upper West Side. There was always so much to observe.
Couples dining at candle-lit tables in crowded restaurants.
Elderly women with crimson lipstick reading The New York Times in trendy cafés.
Doormen guarding historic limestone buildings with intricately designed windows.
Young women in tights hurrying down the street with rolled-up yoga mats hanging from their shoulders.
I noted all this with resentment. I couldn’t afford to live in these stunning buildings or to frequent these cafés and restaurants. It frustrated me to be on the outside looking in. Everywhere I turned, I was reminded of what I couldn’t have.
Still, I loved how the streets of New York fired up my imagination.
Were the young women with the yoga mats single? Or were they dating some of New York’s non-committal bachelors?
How much did it cost to rent a one-bedroom in those historic apartment buildings on Broadway? Who lived in these apartments? People like the yoga ladies?
Photo by Yaldaz Sadakova
During the winter break, I also made several trips to Queens on the 7 train, which runs on an elevated track along Roosevelt Avenue.
The first time I took the 7 train, I rode it standing, my nose pressed to the window of the subway door so I could see as much as possible.
As the train clattered past shabby low-rise apartments and houses, I could literally peer into people’s homes.
More boxy residential buildings adorned with graffiti and satellite dishes stretched in the distance. It was a magical bird’s eye view of west Queens, and I didn’t have to pay a cent to enjoy it, other than my subway fare.
On a whim, I got off at Jackson Heights to check out Little India.
I wandered into incense-scented shops which sold souvenirs, spiritual objects and saris.
I strolled past restaurants which advertised all-you-can-eat buffets and emitted delicious spicy smells. Maybe one day I would get to try these dishes.
I noted with surprise that there were tons of jewelry stores selling chunky gold necklaces and gleaming earrings. They seemed out of place on this grubby street, strewn with empty Styrofoam containers and other litter.
But my most satisfying discovery in Little India that day was Patel Brothers, a supermarket guarded by an elderly guy with a Sikh turban and a long grey beard.
I walked around the aisles of Patel Brothers, noting each price. Some items were cheaper than Astoria’s Trade Fair! I had to take advantage of that.
After doing some complicated mental calculations, I decided to buy plain yogurt and a bag of samosas. I could have the samosas for lunch and dinner. The yogurt I could have as a snack between meals.
Next time I rode the 7 train, I got off at Elmhurst Avenue and walked on Roosevelt.
That section of Roosevelt was lined with Latino mom-and-pops playing salsa and Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous Girl, which was all the rage that winter.
On the sidewalks, vendors sold empanadas, churros and other Latin American pastries out of street carts—and sometimes right out of old-lady shopping carts.
The pastries looked yummy. Their caramel smell was so tempting. I wanted to try them, but I couldn’t afford to. Maybe they have similar pastries at the grocery store which are cheaper, I thought.
During these aimless walks, I became more appreciative of New York’s size and anonymity. I’d spent my entire life in small Bulgarian towns where everybody knows everybody, and you have an indelible history.
Not in New York. Here, I could dye my hair green, wear a skirt without shaving my legs, pluck my eyebrows on a street bench or cry on the subway, and nobody would care.
Even within the limitations of poverty, I had more freedom in New York compared to my old life.
What Not to Do at a Job Interview
In March, I started looking for a job.
I hoped to find an employer that would be able to sponsor me for the coveted H-1B work visa after my one-year work permit expired.
My student visa came with a one-year work permit after graduation.
But I knew mentioning during interviews that I needed this visa after the first year would make me less desirable, especially at the height of the Great Recession. So I hoped I wouldn’t have to mention it.
I also worried about the sponsorship process. It required employers to pay thousands of dollars, and even then there was no guarantee that you can get the visa. The number of applicants usually outstripped the number of available visas—and the winners were chosen via lottery.
It wasn’t at all certain that I could stay in New York, and I badly wanted that. Already, Bulgaria felt too small for my dreams.
In April, I scored an interview with the New York Daily News. It was my first job interview in New York. And my first interview for a skilled position rather than a summer job in the service industry.
The interview fell on a hot spring day. Still, when I came back to my dorm room after my morning shower, I decided that I should wear a woolen pink sweater and woolen striped pants.
I chose the pink sweater because it was the newest sweater I had. Same with the black pants.
I’d bought these pants for the J-School job fair the previous month, from Forever 21. I knew they were on the casual side when I got them, but they were the cheapest thing that fit me.
And once again, I’d followed the practicality principle of buying something that I needed anyway and that I could wear every day.
After I got dressed, I put on a polka dot headband which was so wide it covered almost half of my bob. My hair was out of control that morning, my curls sticking in different directions. I didn’t have time to deal with it, so the wide headband seemed like an effective solution.
I put on concealer to cover the blue circles under my eyes, applied some lip gloss and gave myself a final once-over in the mirror attached to my wardrobe.
I knew my outfit didn’t qualify as proper business attire. But I was naïve enough to think that because the hiring editor liked my writing—he’d said so in his email—and because I had the Ivy League stamp, looks didn’t matter.
I hadn’t learned yet that job interviews in New York aren’t just talent contests. They’re beauty and fashion contests, too.
By the time I got to the Daily News office downtown, I was sweating and itchy in my woolen clothes. And I was chewing gum. Why the hell was I chewing gum?
Halfway into the interview, the editor, Jason, mentioned a Queens real estate story of mine which I’d referenced in my application.
“How did you come up with that idea, with that angle?” he asked. “It’s an interesting angle.”
Just then, the pink wad of cinnamon-flavored gum got stuck to my front teeth.
“Um, I’ve spent a lot of time in that neighborhood,” I said laconically, trying to keep my mouth half-closed.
I fell silent and nodded so Jason could go on to his next question. Then, while keeping my mouth closed, I made several attempts with my tongue to remove the gum from my front teeth. It didn’t work.
I spent the rest of the interview talking in a robotic awkward manner, my mouth half-closed. I tried to act as if nothing had happened, as if I didn’t look pathetic and ridiculous, as if I wasn’t making a fool of myself.
I didn’t get the job.
A couple of weeks later, I went for an interview with a newspaper in Queens.
This time I got rid of the headband, reining in my hair with extra mousse and a discreet black pin. I still had the woolen pants, but I wore a button-down shirt. I had the sense to tuck it in to produce at least a semblance of a professional look. I didn’t chew gum.
The paper’s office was on Bell Boulevard—a commercial strip in northeast Queens, but much less hectic than Roosevelt or Steinway.
Some of the cubicles in the office were empty, a reminder of the carnage the newspaper industry had already started to experience because of the recession and the availability of free online news.
I greeted the editor-in-chief—a rotund, middle-aged, bald guy. In my nervousness, I mispronounced his name.
I apologized and mumbled awkwardly that getting a name wrong is one of the worst things a journalist can do. He glowered at me in a way that seemed to say, “You’re making a fool of yourself, and I don’t have time for this extra talking.”
At the end of the interview, he said they weren’t hiring but offered me an unpaid internship.
I accepted because I couldn’t afford an unpaid internship after graduation. My scholarship would last me only until the end of the school year. After that, I needed a paying job.
The Mental Fog Lifts
I went to the paper’s office twice a week for my internship.
The commute was about two hours each way, with more transfers than an international trip.
I rode the subway from the Upper West Side to Times Square. There, I took the 7 train to the end of the line, in Flushing, where I transferred to a bus.
For the first ten minutes or so, the bus inched and honked through the busy streets of downtown Flushing, home to a gritty Chinatown. Everywhere, Chinese and Korean store signs vied for attention, each bigger than the other and promising a lower price. The sidewalks were jam-packed with pedestrians and street vendors selling foods unfamiliar to me.
It was as crowded as Times Square, but without tourists and with more character—and a distinct fishy smell. I felt like New York was letting me in on a secret only the locals were privy to.
As the bus lurched east, the hectic landscape of downtown Flushing gave way to calm suburban streets with Orwellian names like Utopia and Oceania.
The paper’s editorial team had no immigrants or minorities. But I didn’t feel out of place in the office—perhaps because it wasn’t a rarefied atmosphere of privilege.
The reporters included me in their conversations, which focused mainly on the stories they were writing and on sports.
One of the reporters looked like Dustin Hoffman and drew out certain words the way some New Yorkers do: kwoooffee, dwooog, apaaatment, aaavenue.
“You’re taaawking to a guy who owns just four pairs of black slacks,” he said once, pointing to his black jeans. The self-effacing comment referred to the fact that those jeans were his uniform because he lacked the fashion sense to pick anything other than black jeans. I was in no position to pass any kind of style-related judgment.
Dustin Hoffman informed me that the editor-in-chief had spent more than 30 years at the Daily News, starting in the mailroom and eventually becoming a managing editor. He was an old school journalist who knew the craft inside out, a member of a breed that was becoming extinct even back in 2008.
I loved being in the office. I loved being able to pick up my cubicle phone and say matter-of-factly that I was calling on behalf of a newspaper instead of mumbling apologetically that I was a journalism student.
Sources started taking my calls more easily, and I didn’t have to beg them to talk to me. I knew what to ask them and what was irrelevant. I began to understand the local issues better.
The mental fog started to lift.
At any given time in the office, you could hear snippets of simultaneous phone interviews.
“Hi councilman, thanks for getting back to me.”
“Have they scheduled a public hearing yet?”
“Let me get the spelling of your name.”
“I’m really pressed for time, so if you can get back to me as soon as possible, that would be great.”
The editor-in-chief’s phone manner was more abrupt. Whenever his phone rang, he’d bark an irritated “hello” into the receiver.
Outside of my days in the office, I covered events for the paper all over Queens—protests, town hall meetings, parades. I loved it. I felt so legit.
I discovered that many neighborhoods in the northern and southern part of the borough were suburban, without access to the subway. They were so different from the bustle of Manhattan, I could hardly believe they were part of New York City.
To navigate Queens suburbia without a car, you need intimate knowledge of the borough’s intricate bus system. I was starting to learn that stuff, which made me feel like an insider.
An Ivy League Diploma With My Name on It
Graduation season started in May, full of fun events I couldn’t attend.
The J-School organized a boat cruise, which I skipped because, if I remember correctly, there was a fare I couldn’t afford.
I even skipped the morning of graduation day because I couldn’t afford to rent a gown and a cap. So there’s no picture of me wearing a sky-blue gown with Columbia’s crown logo.
I didn’t have anything to wear for the afternoon of graduation day either. But that I couldn’t skip because I had to collect my diploma.
So, around lunch on graduation day, after filing a story for my internship, I took the subway to the H&M on 34th Street and 7th Avenue. I knew at this point to avoid the cheap shops in Queens.
As soon as I walked into the store, I saw a silk knee-length skirt hanging all alone on a clearance rack. It was $5, and it was my size. I snatched it with relief, even though I wasn’t crazy about its floral pattern.
I also bought a matching black cotton top and a headband. Sadly, they weren’t on sale.
While I was waiting in line to pay, I thought I was still going to be underdressed. An email to all students had gone out recently, informing us that the dress code for graduation day was “daytime wedding.”
But at least I was going to be out of the horrendous casual-pants-and-pink-sweater territory.
A couple of hours later, I changed into my new clothes and went to Broadway and 116th Street, at the J-School entrance, to meet Yusuf. He was one of my high school friends living in the New York area.
He’d invited himself to my graduation. It hadn’t occurred to me to invite him. I’d been too preoccupied with my internship, school and job search to think about graduation.
Yusuf looked more polished than me. He was wearing black pressed pants, a crisp white shirt and black dress shoes.
As we made our way into the crowded auditorium, I noticed that my classmates had their families with them. Even the families of the international students had flown in for the big occasion.
I didn’t have any family with me. The price of the flight was prohibitive.
Suddenly, I felt grateful for Yusuf’s presence. It hadn’t occurred to me to invite him, but he’d been prescient enough to know that I’d feel like an outcast if I didn’t have anybody with me that day.
When I collected my diploma on the stage, he took a picture and clapped.
I dismissed the diploma as a formality.
More than a decade later, it still hasn’t sunk in that in the drawer of my nightstand there’s an Ivy League diploma with my name on it. I never allowed myself to feel proud of that fact.
When someone asks me about Columbia, I downplay it.
My responses are designed to minimize my achievements and to falsely suggest that anyone can get into the J-School. “The admissions process is tough, but as long as you prepare you can totally get in.” And, of course, the curriculum is a breeze. “It’s a pass/fail system, and there are no textbooks or exams.”
The truth is that in all of these instances, I secretly long to share the painful details of my Columbia experience.
Because I crave validation for the tortilla hot dogs, the fake leather boots with block heels, the woolen striped pants, the missed happy hours, the feelings of inferiority. ♦
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