On the Lower East Side, I feel that you walk and you feel at ease and people smile. It’s like time kind of slows down here. There’s always this need to be going somewhere, and in this short time that I’ve worked here, time just seems to slow down. Things are happening, but people are taking time to smile and look into each other’s eyes. I’ve been in many neighborhoods, but for some reason I’m just noticing that. It’s almost as if somewhere in your subconscious, ‘I hear you, I know you.’ You feel known, you feel understood.  I can’t translate it into why. Is it because of the diversity? And there’s a wealth of cultures here, ethnicities, but it’s that feeling of, ‘I know you.’ That’s how I can explain it. And there’s a need for that because everywhere else is this hamster in a wheel kind of feeling. 

– Yevgeniya “Jane”

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant