My mother came here to New York. She and my grandmother were domestics, cooking, cleaning for other people.

Some of us claim that New York City is the capital of the country, indeed the capital of the world. Now, that may be a bit much for those who don't come from New York, but clearly we are an important city for reasons of our cultural advantages.

I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.

But I make the observation that no one of us would do things exactly alike.

. . .little has changed in our New York neighborhoods except the faces, the names, and the languages spoken. The same decent values of hard work and accomplishment and service to city and nation still exist.

My mother came here to New York. She and my grandmother were domestics, cooking, cleaning for other people.

Well, I was about six or seven, and my mother and father separated.