About Me:

My name is Diosmary Perez Trinidad and I am a Senior Marketing Major at Siena College. I have a minor in Multimedia Design as well as a concentration in Digital Marketing and Marketing Communications. I have been the marketing coordinator for Damietta’s Cross-Cultural Center here at Siena for about two and a half years. Throughout my college experience I have also acquired internships in the fields of public relations, advertising, non-profit consulting, social media marketing, and sales. I am originally from a small town called Sleepy Hollow, and grew up there my entire life. In my free time I enjoy spending time with friends and family, watching movies, listening to music, and expressing my creativity through photography and graphic design.

• 

• 

• 

My Family:

I am the oldest of three, accompanied by two younger brothers who are growing up way too fast. My entire family, apart from my brothers and I, immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic. Dominicans are the fifth-largest population of Hispanic origin living in the United States, accounting for 4% of the U.S. Hispanic population in 2017. My mother arrived to the states when she was 19 and acquired her G.E.D and never pursued a higher education, making me a first generation college student. Stats show that in 2016, 69.7% of students attended college. When I was born my mother chose to send me to the Dominican Republic to be cared for by my grandmother (mother’s side) because she didn’t want me to grow up around the current living conditions that she was experiencing as an immigrant who was just arriving to the states. I stayed with my grandmother and father in the Dominican Republic until the age of 4, at which point I returned to the states to begin school and both my grandmother and father had received visas to live in the U.S. as well. My parents got divorced when I was about 9 years old. Ever since then my household consisted of my mother, grandmother, my younger brothers and I. As far as social class, being a single-income household, my family belongs to the lower-middle class bracket. By no means does my family fit the mold of your “average American family” but I am extremely grateful for the family I have and beyond grateful for the sacrifices that have been made to ensure that I make the best of my life moving forward.

• 

• 

For the majority of my life, I was raised in the same small town of Sleepy Hollow. The town’s demographics are as follows: 54.5% Hispanic/Latino, 37.1% White, 4.11% African American, 2.37% two or more races, 1.99% Asian. The public school district is constructed in such a way that the same people you went to kindergarten with, were the same people you graduated high school with. Looking back now, I appreciate even more so the privilege associated with having grown up in an area that was so accepting of individuals with a diverse background. It was certainly one of the bigger changes I had to adapt to after coming to Siena. Below is a video published by my high school, where students run the production and creation of these videos that are to be aired every Friday during homeroom period. The purpose is to share events, or information on what’s going on at school, and  for general entertainment. I feel the video provides a good depiction of the atmosphere and overall setting of the high school experience where I grew up.

References:

“69.7 Percent of 2016 High School Graduates Enrolled in College in October 2016.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 22 May 2017, http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/69-point-7-percent-of-2016-high-school-graduates-enrolled-in-college-in-october-2016.htm.

Noe-Bustamante, Luis, et al. “Facts on Latinos of Dominican Origin in the U.S.” Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project, Pew Research Center, 2018, http://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/fact-sheet/u-s-hispanics-facts-on-dominican-origin-latinos/.

“Sleepy Hollow, NY.” Data USA, 2018, datausa.io/profile/geo/sleepy-hollow-ny#demographics.