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My friend Collin Orcutt works for SportsIllustrated.com and he asked me to help him shoot and edit this video about the best young basketball players from around the world who convened in New York for the Jordan Brand Classic international game.

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Brooklyn – Growing up in Bensonhurst, Norhan Basuni always enjoyed an abundance of freedom.Her parents emigrated from Egypt before she was born. Though they raised her to observe Islam and her ancestral culture, they gave her the independence to explore their adopted home and make her own decisions.

She chose to play varsity softball in high school. She chose to study criminal justice and anthropology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. And she chose to resist the temptations of American society and devote herself to Islam.

Strong Devotion

In fact, the 20-year-old came to practice the faith even more devoutly than her parents. On a scale from one to 10, 10 being very devout and one being secular, she said her parents were a 10.

“I feel like, I myself might be a little big stronger than they are, religion wise,” said Basuni, a case worker at the Arab American Association of New York. “So if I had to rate myself, I would say I’m a 15 or something,” she added, laughing.

Basuni stands out as a first-generation Arab American in Brooklyn who swims against the secular current. She said that many young people in her community share the same dedication to putting faith at the center of their lives.

Sheik Tamer Selim, imam of the Muslim American Society Youth Center in Bensonhurst, estimates that 20 to 30 percent of young Muslims in the Brooklyn Arab community practice their religion devoutly.

Seeking ‘True Islam’

“The other 70 percent, they are still Muslims, and they respect their culture and their religion,” Selim said. “But they are very into the American way more than the Islamic way.”

Basuni began her independent exploration of Islam after September 11, 2001.

“That’s when I paid the most attention because I didn’t understand it,” she said. “I never wanted to be put in that position where someone said something about my religion and I can’t defend it because I don’t know anything, like I’m just Muslim by name and not by knowledge.”

Other young Muslims in Brooklyn share Basuni’s desire to educate the larger public about what they see as “true Islam.”

Aber Kawas, 17, and her sister Magdolyn, 19, who live in Bensonhurst, said teaching others about Islam is an important part of their religious practice.

Changing Perceptions

“When we’re walking down the street, people stare at you, they curse at you. They look at you in the wrong way, and you want to change that,” said Aber, who goes by Abby. “So we’re, all of us together, trying to change Muslim perception in America.”

Their mother, Manal Kawas, didn’t expect her American-born daughters to follow her example and wear the full hijab – the traditional head covering – or pray five times a day.

“They keep it and they do it very [much] more than me,” said Kawas, a Palestinian who immigrated to the U.S. from Jordan. “They keep their hijab, they wear abaya, they participate in the prayer. They wake me up in the fajr prayer at 4 o’clock [in the morning], say ‘Ma you have to.’ But I sleep and say, ‘No no no.’”

Khalid Fallous, an 18-year-old senior at Fort Hamilton High School in Bay Ridge, prays five times daily and frequently attends services at local mosques. Fallous, who plans to study business at John Jay College in the fall, was born in Palestine but spent his early childhood in Saudi Arabia before his family moved to the U.S. seven years ago.

Like the Kawas sisters, Fallous said that his immigrant parents do not practice their religion as devoutly as he now does. But their early lessons have stayed with him, he said.

“Without my parents, I wouldn’t be the person I am today,” Fallous said. “Since I was young, my mom sent me to a school that taught me Arabic, taught me the Qu’ran, taught me basics about religion, and she really influenced me a lot. Her and my dad.”

Basketball and Prayers

When a friend, Fadi Ebrhem, converted from his Syrian parents’ Christian faith to Islam, Fallous gained a deeper appreciation for his own religion. Now Fallous and Ebrhem, who goes by Fred, often pray together.

Whether they’re heading to the mosque or to play a pick-up game of basketball in the park, the two friends look like many other Brooklyn teenagers in their baggy jeans and T-shirts.

Unlike many of their peers, however, the two young men follow Islam’s prohibitions on drinking alcohol and dating.

“Your parents can teach you all they want, but at the end of the day it matters what you choose,” Fallous said. “It matters if you want to implement what they taught you. So they taught me it, and I’m implementing it.”

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Day Laborers Struggle in Queens

The recession has hit New Yorkers hard, especially working class people who don’t have a lot of savings to cushion the blow of sudden unemployment or a reduction in work hours. Latinos are one group especially affected by the current crisis. That’s because they are predominately employed in construction, manufacturing and hospitality industries, sectors that have had the biggest job losses. According to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, DC, the unemployment rate for foreign-born Latinos rose over the past year, with approximately 35 percent of working-age people unemployed.

But behind the statistics are people, like a group of day laborers we recently spoke to in Jackson Heights, Queens. These aren’t just undocumented immigrants. Many are men who have green cards and even U.S. passports. Some have college educations and have spent decades in the country. Now some are so frustrated by the lack of jobs, they’re deciding to return to their home countries. Others say that no matter what, the opportunities the United States offers are still much greater than they would ever get at home.

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Prizefighter or Weekend Warrior, Boxers flock to Renowned Gym

“Now, whoever has courage and a strong, collected spirit in his breast, let him come forward, lace on the gloves and put his hands up.”
-Virgil

So reads a large yellow sign bearing the name of New York’s most storied boxing gym. It’s not located in the same building in the Bronx where it was founded in 1937. It’s not even in the gym’s second location, and next month it will move again a few blocks away from its current home in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. But it’s not the gym’s address that has boxers of all skill levels fighting to get into its rings. It’s the name.

Gleason’s.

Listening to Bruce Silverglade tell the unlikely story of how he came to own the world’s oldest boxing gym, one gets the impression that he tells it often.

Boxers who train there know not to waste the opportunity, so the gym is constantly filled with a cacophony of thuds from punching bags, the shuffling feet of shadow boxers, and the rhythmic rattle of speed bags. Occasionally a bell signals the end of the round and the noise stops as the fighters go to their corners to rest.

Kay Stephenson is new to boxing and was lured by the gym’s reputation. She makes the trek from Woodside, Queens to train there – a trip she says is worth it.

“You think about boxing in New York, the first thing – even somebody like me who has no skills or knowledge of the sport – everybody’s heard of Gleason’s,” said Stephenson. “It’s a household name.”

The 31-year-old Indiana native started boxing to complement and build on her skills in mixed martial arts, and to see where the sport takes her.

Unlike Stephenson, Neuky Santelises knows where boxing is taking him – to the top. The Manhattan resident, by way of the Dominican Republic, is confident that he will make a name for himself in the sport, but, “just in case,” as he says, Santelises attends City College for computer engineering.

The promising young fighter hopes to join the names like Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Mike Tyson and George Foreman on Gleason’s hall of fame – though at 132 pounds, probably not right next to those heavyweights. Santelises makes time between classes for daily trips to the gym because he knows that his Golden Gloves won’t be served to him on a silver platter.

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[click audio clip below]

That was the scene at Solomon’s Porch in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn when MSNBC pronounced Barack Obama the projected President-Elect of the United States on Election Day night.

To be in New York City that night made the exorbitant rent, exorbitant everything else, sardine can population density, late trains, and the vibrant variety of vermin totally worth it. Not because I’m some Obamaton who spent the night celebrating with young liberals in the city, but because I am a journalist and we relish the opportunity to watch history in the making – or, rather, the reaction to history in the making. Either way, Bed-Stuy was a great place to watch it.

Baba Baro celebrates Obama's win in his neighborhood of Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn on Election Day night.

Manuel Williams of Canarsie, Brooklyn celebrates at Solomon's Porch in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn as President-elect Barack Obama takes the stage in Chicago for his victory speech on Tuesday night, Nov. 4, 2008.

With most significant historical events, I believe that it is the reaction to the event, rather than the event itself, that makes it significant. It is the symbolism and sentiments we attach to these events that truly affect our world, and sentiments are strong when it comes to race in America.

We all knew that Barack Obama is black throughout the election. However, he didn’t present himself as a black candidate any more than McCain presented himself as a white candidate. When race came up, Obama addressed it eloquently and dispassionately, and it was again put on the back burner. That is until Election Night.

I shouldn’t have been, but I was really surprised how much talk there was on the streets and in the media about the First Black President (or the second, if you agree with Toni Morrison, who has recently rescinded her 1998 opinion) on election night and in the days and weeks thereafter. It seems it was on the minds of everyone, including John McCain, who gave an extremely eloquent and gracious concession speech that touched often upon the historical significance of what just happened.

John McCain makes his concession speech in Arizona on Election night. (UPI Photo/Alexis C. Glenn)

He even drew enthusiastic applause from the Obamaniacs at Solomon’s Porch at times.

But, of course, the day was Obama’s.

Obama greets his supporters in Grant Park in Chicago on Election Night. (VII photo by Ron Haviv)

***EDITOR’S NOTE***

Love it or hate it, Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses got things going for Obama. Here are a couple of pictures I took in my home town of Davenport for my former paper during the months he (basically) lived in Iowa.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of McCain because he pretty much skipped Iowa and went straight to New Hampshire. Correlation? I’ll leave that for the reader to decide.

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I was enlisted to help a friend with a video for her series on Sneakerheads. Below is the video that I shot and helped to edit. To see the whole series, visit this page at kristenjoywatts.com.

“The Mayor, 36, takes sneaker worship to the next level. He recently sold the business he ran tricking out cars and is focusing, for now, on his tricked-out sneakers. The Mayor’s become so well known in the sneaker game that Nike often calls for input on shoe designs, and his sneaker collection is so big that he employs someone to manage it. Here’s your personal tour.”

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Posts from The New York Times’ “Lens” photography blog

Showcase: The Sport of Photography

On Assignment: Nine Eyes on the Prize

Essay: Finding Different Paths

This is a video I produced from Swaziland during an internship with International Bridges to Justice in the summer of 2009. The NGO deals with criminal justice issues in developing countries and the print intern, Walker Gunning, and I reported this story during our free time.

A version of this story, along with an in-studio interview with me, aired weekly throughout the New York City Metropolitan Area on CUNY TV’s 219 West news program in the month of December 2009. Please see the entire broadcast here.

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This is a project I worked on while at the University of Iowa on the growing number of Iowa City residents living in subsidized housing. In this long-term project, which appeared in a two-part series in The Daily Iowan, a reporter and I attempt to show the face of this often stigmatized and marginalized community.

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