projects > brooklyn-queens days

When my mother was about 12-years-old, my grandmother took her to Macy’s in Herald Square. They lived deep in Queens–it was a 20-minute bus ride just to get to the Flushing/Main Street stop on the 7–and going to Manhattan was always a treat. Inside the store, an employee marched up to my grandmother and snapped, “Shouldn’t she be in school?,” referring to my mother. My grandmother, a generally shy woman with a strong propensity for sass, politely told the cashier that it was Brooklyn-Queens Day. As residents of Whitestone, Queens, my mother had the day off from school.

My parents grew up in Queens. My entire family left Queens to try to make a home elsewhere. I grew up outside of Boston. I now live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn-Queens Days is my attempt to find home.