When I walked off the subway into Queens for my first day this past week, venti Starbucks blonde roast clutched in my hands, I had no idea what to expect.

Here I was, in this brand new environment, still dazed by the shock of the city just two days after arriving, and I had to put my professional foot forward (another thing I don’t have much experience with).  Emerging from the station, I was surprised by how different the surroundings were from Manhattan—and how different they were from my expectations.

There is this idea promoted that Queens is run-down, or dangerous by people back home, but the opposite was true.  Queens was this bright, open city, so different from the tight streets of Manhattan that I had just left.  There were very few homeless, and manicured green spaces hidden behind moderately sized high-rises.  Then, I got to work, and was again taken aback.  I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but definitely not this friendly office space, with an attached waiting area and a brightly decorated and cheerful room for children to play in.  I was surprised by how positive the environment was as a whole, including my supervisors and everyone else that worked there.  I also don’t think I expected it to have such an office environment, with different sections devoted to legal services, or social workers.  I guess I really didn’t expect a nonprofit to be so organized, though I’m not sure why since Sanctuary for Families is a part of the Queen’s Family Justice Center. The only thing that went along with any unconscious pre-conceived notions was the presence of police officers wherever I went.  As I worked with the children of survivors of domestic violence, as well as attending a group meeting with parents and children who received services, I was heartened by the great sense of strength and hope in everyone.

These past few weeks, I have been thinking about the difference between what I must have expected of any and everything NYC, and the reality.  Sanctuary defied my expectations as a nonprofit, though the organized office environment makes a lot more sense after our Moxie group learned about all the government regulations placed on nonprofits.  Sanctuary defied my expectations as a resource for domestic violence survivors, with the open and warm environment created by workers and clients.  I am honored to work for such a necessary cause and am humbled each time my expectations and ideas are proven false.

When I found out that there was a jail literally next door to the center, it got me thinking about the irony and shock of reality.  This center worked to help enable victims to help themselves, provided services so that they could stay out of jail.  And even though Sanctuary is such a warm and welcoming environment, guards patrol this ominous, dark grey building next door with all the negative connotations.  And it’s not just Sanctuary, but New York City in general.  I did not expect to be able to see the blatantly obvious separation of economic status.  I might have thought I did, hearing about such issues, but this was nothing compared to actually witnessing the homeless everywhere along the streets, while right next to them are designer boutiques and Michelin Star restaurants.  It is incredibly disconcerting and heart breaking to see this disparity, coming from a city where the homeless are basically kept out of sight and out of mind. This is the reality of the world we live in, and I don’t think we get to see much of it in our sheltered microcosm that is Duke.  And I’m not sure how to make others aware of these issues to the degree necessary to create enough action to actually solve these problems.

But is that even possible?  And why should this be necessary in the first place?  Why do people need to witness the devastation in people’s lives first-hand in order to be motivated enough to actually do something about it?  Perhaps the answer isn’t to make people more aware, but to spread a mindset of needing to work for change despite not witnessing people’s suffering directly, to involve those who suffer themselves.  Some might retaliate and say human nature is too selfish for this, but with that kind of mindset, no human rights movement would have been successful in history, which we know to be false.  It might be a slow process, but there is hope everywhere, whether in large-scale laws being passed, or in the laughing eyes of a child who has survived through unspeakably traumatic experiences, able to be healthy and joyful again.