Month: December 2018

Edwin recalled the afternoon in 2005 when he decided to join the MS-13 gang as a personal low point. He was 14, recently arrived on Long Island, and hating his life.

A group of boys who belonged to the SWP gang had been harassing him in the hallways, cafeteria and locker rooms at Turtle Hook Middle School in Uniondale.

They called him names, pushed him and pinned him against walls and, when no adults were around, punched him. Even though they were immigrants too, they used expletives to berate him as an immigrant, mocked his inability to speak English, commented on his unfashionable clothes and dubbed him "primo"— literally "cousin," which he said was a demeaning term for a "hick."

Edwin, who asked to not be identified by his full or street names, had been leaving school in a rush to avoid his assailants, but that day about 10 of them waited on his path. One called him out to fight. He said he couldn’t turn around without looking like a coward.

They got down to it, and when Edwin landed punches, the other boys jumped him. They were punching and kicking him senseless and he thought he was going to die.

Then, something of a miracle happened. He remembers seeing a souped-up Toyota 4Runner SUV pull up out of nowhere and stop. His attackers ran. A tough-looking guy in his 30s told him in Spanish "Súbete" — to hop in the car.

"To this day I don’t know who he was," Edwin said.

The man revealed that he was an MS-13 member in Hempstead. He delivered him to safety.

Thus began Edwin’s devotion to an organization that largely bypasses the sustaining criminal rackets of other gangs for a loyalty built on crude violence, with a lure so potent it has enabled it to regroup despite decades of crackdowns. Only a turn toward religion while he was in the depths of sadness and depression enabled him to escape this life and replace it with something better.

An unknown newcomer

When MS-13 first arrived on Long Island, it would have been hard to imagine Edwin being drawn to the gang.

The landscape was populated by the Latin Kings, Legion of Doom, the then-emerging Bloods and Crips and other rivals. John Oliva, a retired Suffolk County detective who specialized in gangs, remembers driving north on Crooked Hill Road in Brentwood in 1996 when he first saw the blue letters “M” and “S” with the number “13,” painted 2 feet high on the side of a building.

The graffiti was a head-scratcher. He had no idea that it signified the arrival of a gang that was uniquely violent in a very violent world.

The Mara Salvatrucha — slang for "Salvadoran gang," as the MS-13 is also known — has its origins in Los Angeles. There, young Salvadorans who had fled the civil war in their country from the 1970s and ’80s felt threatened and outnumbered by Mexican gangs and banded together, gang experts and federal government agencies have said.

The gang sunk roots in El Salvador after gang members were deported and set up operations there, but it spread internationally as well — growing throughout Central America and the United States, with many members concentrated in parts of New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Those are places where large populations of immigrants from Central America have flocked, fleeing poverty as well as the threat of violence associated with the gang.

Since Oliva’s first sighting, Long Island has turned into a hive of activity for MS-13.

County police officials have recently estimated membership at 500 in Nassau County and about 600 in Suffolk County, though one federal prosecutor speaking at a roundtable with President Donald Trump earlier this year stated that "2,000 are estimated to be right here in Long Island." Nationwide, the estimate is 10,000.

Its growth, resilience and trademark viciousness have all surprised experts more used to gangs supporting themselves through entrenched criminal enterprises and using violence to support their rackets.

‘It’s not about creating a powerful criminal structure… It’s about proving their self-worth within this perverted social structure, and a lot of that has to do with violence.’ -Steven S. Dudley, American University researcher

Although MS-13 leaders have been trying to develop a more sophisticated and lucrative operation, the gang has traditionally not run large-scale criminal enterprises that would put it in competition with cartels, according to gang experts. Members are usually involved in low-level drug dealing and extortion, and most work at menial jobs.

Steven S. Dudley, an American University researcher who has investigated the gang under a U.S. Department of Justice grant, said that the motives of MS-13 members are more petty and personal.

"It’s not about creating a powerful criminal structure," he said. "It’s about proving their self-worth within this perverted social structure, and a lot of that has to do with violence."

The gang’s Long Island rampage reached a peak in 2016 and 2017, with a score of killings linked to MS-13 in both counties.

There were hackings with machetes, knives and other cutting tools, beatings with baseball bats, and the occasional shooting. Bodies were found in shallow graves in the woods. Some were killed in or near residential streets.

The gang as family

Simple protection, rather than anything that wanton, is what Edwin says drew him to the gang toward the end of his first school year. He said he wanted to emulate the mysterious figure who rescued him.

He had not been exposed to gangs in El Salvador, because he grew up more than two hours from the gritty neighborhoods in the capital of San Salvador that served as their wellsprings. But after his encounters with the Uniondale boys, he decided that he couldn’t go it alone.

"I thought, ‘This is the solution so that I can be protected in school,’" he said.

Edwin went home, logged onto MySpace and started searching. He found a profile for an MS-13 clique in nearby Westbury and chatted with the person running it. He soon knew all he needed to know: If he joined, the group would have his back.

These days, Edwin doesn’t look threatening, but he says he ran with the worst of them. He’s 27, easy to smile, even shy; slender and 5 feet, 7 inches tall.

While sipping agave lemonade at a Panera in Bay Shore, he displayed a photo from those days, wearing a sporty shirt several times bigger than his size and hugging a girl, his eyes hardened into what he described as "a look that could kill."

Edwin agreed to discuss his past because he wants others to know that he turned his life around and that it is possible for them.

He builds concrete patios, driveways and paths during the day. On nights and weekends, he’s dedicated to prayer, preaching and worship at an evangelical Hispanic church in the Town of Islip.

Edwin said he was 13 when he and an older teenage sister journeyed about 25 days from their rural village in Chalatenango, El Salvador, through the length of Mexico to the U.S. border, which they crossed illegally into Texas.

Like the thousands of unaccompanied minors who have made that trek to Long Island, they sought to reunite with a mother they had not seen in years and a father he had never met, Edwin said. Once they made it here, they realized their mom and dad had split and started new families.

They went to live in Uniondale with their dad, who he said had paid to smuggle them, but he seemed uninterested in them. If he wasn’t out working, he was out drinking, and he would arrive in a foul mood and become verbally abusive, Edwin said.

Edwin would find his family, instead, in the gang.

Back in those days when he first approached MS-13, he said, he took a taxi from school with his dad’s money and went to hang out with gang members at a Westbury street that was their hangout spot. He felt accepted, and he returned, again and again.

To prove their allegiance, prospective homeboys — as top members are called — are expected to commit a violent crime against a perceived gang enemy and to endure a 13-second beating by their clique. There are a variety of explanations for why the number 13 has significance to the gang, from the prosaic — that "M" is the thirteenth letter — to the supernatural — that the number carries magical and even demonic power.

According to police accounts, young women have had to submit to gang rape to be accepted as homegirls.

Edwin was eventually permitted to join the Normandie Locotes Salvatruchas, a clique from El Salvador and Los Angeles that was then one the gang’s most feared cells.

He endured a traditional initiation beating by about a dozen members as one slowly counted, telling himself he’d rather take those punches and kicks one time than be abused, attacked and belittled every day. Uno, dos, tres . . .  all the way to 13, as is the norm.

He said he learned the hand sign of the Devil’s Horns, dressed in trademark loose shirts and blue Nikes, and carried a blue bandanna that he let hang from a back pocket.

Edwin bears the physical and emotional scars from those years. He compares the gang to a satanic cult, with its adoration of thug life, gang signs, devilish tattoos and graffiti.

Across a restaurant table, he quickly put his hands together — his index fingers pointing out, the middle and ring fingers hidden, his pinkies and thumbs curled into semicircles — and asked: "What do you think this is?"

His answer: It’s Satan’s face.

‘Wherever I arrived, people respected me.’ -Edwin

He said that when he started looking the part and telling others that he was a Normandie guy, he noticed an immediate change of attitude. The bullying stopped. Other boys made way for him in the hallways. Girls looked at him differently.

"Wherever I arrived, people respected me," Edwin recalled. "They offered me beer, girls, drugs . . . There were a bunch of girls. Those girls love to hang out with mareros," as gang members are known among Central Americans. "It was like achieving a rank for some of them."

He didn’t want to go into detail about some gang activities, saying that life is behind him, but he did discuss how he found himself enmeshed in the group’s violent culture.

Joining the gang gave Edwin his revenge. He and his crew jumped guys who had bothered him. He won’t say much about those incidents, other than he’s ashamed of them.

Becoming a gang member created its own problems. He became a moving target for other gangs and he learned not to go out alone. He started carrying a serrated knife. Others kept longer bladed weapons, including machetes.

He said the purpose of using knives rather than guns was to avoid capture. They knew that Nassau police, and later Suffolk, had installed ShotSpotter soundwave detectors at undisclosed locations to pinpoint where gunshots were fired. Cops would respond quickly to citizen reports of "shots fired." Fistfights and stabbings left time to escape.

Membership in the gang had its requirements. Soldiers couldn’t wear other gangs’ colors, couldn’t deny membership in MS-13 if asked, and had to attend meetings in the Hicksville woods twice a week. They had to join in beatings of rivals and go on the hunt for them if told to do so. They had to take part in the initiation and punishment of members, boys or girls.

He said each clique has rules. Normandie girls weren’t sexually assaulted, he said. Instead, they were beaten up by other girls in an equivalent initiation rite to the males’.

‘The gangs don’t bother people just for the sake of it … That’s the law of the gang.’ -Edwin

He doesn’t know, though, how recent cliques, such as the Sailors or Leeward implicated in the recent murders of 2016 and 2017 in Brentwood and Central Islip, operate or whether they followed the same code of honor. Those cliques were not as prominent when he was active.

And while law-enforcement authorities have not linked all recent victims to gang activity, Edwin maintains that the MS-13 members he knew didn’t attack people who weren’t part of that life. He said some of his clique members were punished for getting into fights outside their turf wars. "The gangs don’t bother people just for the sake of it," he said. "That’s the law of the gang."

Edwin said he was locked up seven times at juvenile facilities, mostly in Nassau County, and that five orders of protection were filed against him to protect other young people who had come to fear him. His arrests couldn’t be verified because juvenile arrest records are kept confidential.

"You have to show," he said, "that you are willing to do whatever for the group."

He told this story: In 2008 he and his crew staked out a house where members of the rival 18th Street gang were living. They wore hoods and bandannas and disguised their faces. When the other teenagers came out they went at them, ready to cause serious injuries, but their rivals ran to a car and took off.

They left a person behind, though — a girlfriend of one gang member who was paralyzed with fear. Edwin said he egged on his girlfriend to give her a beating. Some Normandie clique members watched; others vandalized the house.

The incident did not end there. He was later identified as being involved, allegedly by another MS-13 member who was in custody. Nassau police detectives came to his father’s house weeks later, looking for him, and arrested him on the spot. They locked up his sister as well, even though he still says she wasn’t there, and that she paid for the assault that his then-girlfriend committed.

At the precinct where he was processed, Edwin said, he saw an MS-13 member who he suspected was the snitch. Edwin and another MS-13 member spotted him on the street later. He recalls hitting him with a bottle and how they punched him near unconscious. His accomplice pulled out a long blade and was going to kill him, but, Edwin said, he stopped him.

He claimed he never went as far as murder.

Edwin said he and his clique members would often just get together and drink Coronas.

He remembers snorting cocaine with them, first because it helped him enjoy the alcohol without getting sick. That led to binging on the white powder. He overdosed more than once and fell, foaming at the mouth and convulsing. His homies watched over him and fed him milk, an ineffective street remedy, to try to help him recover, he said.

He would steal, he would threaten others and he would fight to get what he wanted. He said he stole from relatives, including cocaine from his dad. The worst thing that happened, he said, was when a cousin of his who was not an MS-13 member was killed in a Westbury shooting because, as Edwin told it, rival gang members had seen them hanging out together.

Still, Edwin saw himself as a soldier of the Mara Salvatrucha. He joined in bar fights and jailhouse melees against others from the 18th Street, Trinitarios, Latin Kings, Bloods and Crips gangs. For many of those fights he only remembers throwing punches and getting punched.

Skin on his right forearm looks like the stitched hide of a football, a mark from one such fight at a Hempstead nightclub. He had been with his crew, drinking and having a good time, when young men arrived and started throwing hand signs, he said. They were Trinitarios — largely a Dominican gang that this June gained considerable notoriety in the mistaken identity killing of Lesandro Guzman-Feliz, 15, stabbed with knives and machetes at a bodega in the Bronx. Their hand gestures were a way to claim territory and disrespect his clique, Edwin said.

This meant they had to fight. He doesn’t remember how it happened, but one of them broke his right arm, and he later took himself to the hospital. The scar is a reminder of where a metal rod was inserted to repair the injury.

Another time, he said, a group of rival gang members found him walking around Uniondale alone and they pummeled him so hard that he was bleeding from his ears. He ran down Jerusalem Avenue while his assailants chased him wielding machetes. He made it to a gas station. Police arrived and, though he didn’t know who had called them, he said he was relieved that they arrested some of his attackers.

He remembers one of them, a member of the 18th Street gang, turning to him when they ran into each other in court and telling him in Spanish: Sí te vas a morir.

Rough translation: You are going to die, for sure.

‘My relatives called me a black sheep and they told me I was going to die in the streets.’ -Edwin

The episode helped cement in Edwin’s mind what he was facing, but he didn’t yet see a way out. As he explains it today, there were three possible destinations for an MS-13 gang member: prison, the hospital or the cemetery.

He may have been living the party life with his brethren, spending time with lots of girls, as he put it. But deep inside, Edwin said, he was consumed by sadness. 

Through the times in and out of jail, the constant demand for loyalty, and growing mistrust of other gang members, he came to feel that no one cared about him and that he didn’t care either.

He had lost the trust of his real family.

"My relatives called me a black sheep and they told me I was going to die in the streets," he said. "At one point I felt so alone . . . I was drinking and doing drugs by myself and I would just start crying and I wanted to kill myself."

A leap of faith

When locked up at juvenile detention facility in upstate Dutchess County, he took well to the discipline. He had to get up early, do his bed, tuck his shirt, walk straight and behave well if he wanted to get out.

He noticed visiting preachers who talked about a new life.

Having no one else, he turned to God.

He found himself looking to the forest through the bars of a small window, crying out for forgiveness.

He eventually moved in with an aunt in Bay Shore to get away. He noticed that a girl he friended on Facebook was posting about her faith.

Edwin asked her where she worshipped. He showed up one day at a Spanish-language service, led by a Salvadoran pastor. Churchgoers greeted him as if they had been glad to see him. He felt their acceptance and returned to other services. As the pastor tells it, Edwin broke down during a retreat.

"I remember the way he cried. He was bawling because his repentance was genuine," the pastor said in Spanish. "The first thing he did was to forgive his parents because he was full of hate for them."

Newsday is withholding the name of the church to protect Edwin’s anonymity.

In joining, Edwin took advantage of what he came to know was an accepted way out in MS-13 culture. He said the gang allows members to leave if they commit themselves to a Christian life and truly start anew. Some call former members like him "calmados" or "calmed ones."

‘[Edwin] was bawling because his repentance was genuine … The first thing he did was to forgive his parents because he was full of hate for them.’ -Pastor at Edwin’s church

His church works to reach young people who are lost, the pastor said. It offers them youth Bible study groups in Spanish, Christian parties featuring reggaetón and hip-hop with uplifting messages, outings to parks, a competitive soccer league. About 60 young people have renounced the street life through the church, the pastor said.

Edwin, among them, is a church leader.

"Many of these young people have lacked father figures, they have lacked love, they have lacked identity," the pastor said. "When they come to the church we know they need us to receive them with open arms, not to be rejected, and that we need to work to help them find their true identity, to let them know that they didn’t come to this world to be violent, but that God has a purpose for them and it’s a good one."

His aunt said Edwin’s transformation has benefited his family and others. He’s become a role model to young relatives, including her 15-year-old son, who started high school this September.

"He didn’t let himself be defeated by vice, by the gangs or by Satan," the aunt, who is 53 and works cleaning houses, said in Spanish. She asked to remain anonymous.

Feride Castillo — co-founder of the nonprofit Empowerment Collaborative of Long Island, which works with youth trapped in the cycle of school truancy, gang involvement and substance abuse — said other programs outside of churches can also help those teens renounce the gang life.

"There are some who are far gone, and we know that because they have committed heinous crimes," Castillo said. "And then there are the guys who want what comes along with being part of a gang, the power, the respect and feeling they want to be a part of something, and those are the ones we can reach." 

They need access to programs, she said, where they can be listened to and where they can start to envision a way forward.

It’s been three years since Edwin found his path.

On a recent Thursday evening, he preached to three girls and seven boys, all Salvadoran teens, gathered in a small living room and kitchenette in a second-floor Bay Shore apartment.

It was a steamy night. The door was open and the sound of rushing cars on Sunrise Highway and the summer crickets out in the yard blended with his voice. He closed his eyes and sought to convey his emotion through a crescendo of prayer.

"Father of glory," he pleaded on the youth’s behalf. "May they keep striving, let them not be lost, let them not be dragged by the currents of this world."

If all you see is a hijab, a turban and a beard, you’re missing the doctor, the businessman and the rabbi underneath.

When Uzma Syed, Bobby Singh, Patricia Mitchell, Matthew Payamps and Anchelle Perl get up in the morning, what they put on their bodies is in large part determined by their faith. What you may not notice is the creativity, emotion and pride weaved in.

These Long Islanders can face misconceptions and in some cases prejudice. But in a time of political divisiveness and harsh rhetoric, faith unites them all.

If you’d like to share your story of faith with us, please email editor@newsday.com.

Within faith there's fashion and freedom

She’s an infectious-disease specialist who runs her own practice, so her lab coat is first to meet the eye. Underneath, she blends trendy and cultural fashion in her attire, plucking inspiration from her favorite style icons and influencers on Instagram. She’s drawn to name brands — Chanel, Kate Spade, Hermès.

The third layer is a long-sleeved shirt and stretchy leggings, and her head is wrapped in a scarf. This part of Syed’s ensemble is dictated by her religious beliefs.

Syed said that in Islamic scripture, “The thought is to conceal your beauty a little bit so you can be a little bit modest in your day-to-day living.” Hence, the covering of her hair with the scarf and the covering of her bare arms and legs.

Syed is Muslim. She said growing up in Syosset, she was raised with her parents’ Indian culture and religion blended into the day-to-day rituals of the Western world. The family used to attend the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury.

She said none of the female members of her family wore a hijab, the traditional head covering that some Muslim women wear to conceal their hair.

In August 2001, when she was 21 and right before she started medical school at the University of New England in Maine, Syed says she felt a need to get more in touch with her spirituality. She didn’t tell her now-husband, Faisal Zakaria, but she decided to start wearing the hijab.

“It was a very personal decision for me,” Syed said. When she put it on, they both said he almost didn’t recognize her.

Syed says she faced an “initial struggle” with wearing the hijab, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when her friends and family told her “to just take off the scarf.” She said they wondered why she would risk “putting a target” on herself.

“It was so emotional in the U.S. and in New York, and everybody was on edge,” she said. “But I have to tell you, the nicest people — my neighbors, everybody that was around me in Maine — would just come to me on a daily basis. ‘Do I need anything? Is anybody bothering me?’ They were always there for me.”

‘The second they see a woman in hijab, they already start formulating some thoughts in the back of their head.’ -Uzma Syed

Now 39 and back on Long Island, Syed is confident in her multifaceted identity. She says there isn’t just one thing that defines all of her.

“We all know that appearance means a lot because people will say don’t judge a book by its cover, but unfortunately the first thing that people see is the first idea they get in their mind,” she said.

“The second they see a woman in hijab, they already start formulating some thoughts in the back of their head.”

Syed said she confronted some of those misconceptions while campaigning for the Syosset school board earlier this year. But she saw the campaign as “another opportunity to educate [the community], for them to see that not every Muslim-American person is bad and you can’t judge everybody by one person.”

Syed also ran because her daughter, Noora, 14, started her first year of high school this fall, and her son, Aydin, 5, just began kindergarten.

She missed getting elected by five votes and says she is considering another run. Until then, most of her time is consumed by her practice, with offices in Syosset and Bay Shore. Since she’s not a surgeon and isn’t required to wear scrubs, she can express herself through fashion, trying different colors, textures and patterns underneath her lab coat.

Syed decided to start an Instagram account in 2014, dedicated to her daily wardrobe along with food and travel. At first, Syed set the account to private. But as she posted photos of her outfits, she realized how much she was connecting with her followers — currently at more than 600.

“People think you’re a doctor and you just go back and forth to work and that’s all your life is really, medicine and work,” she said. “Then you throw in the Muslim woman and the hijab and then there’s another layer that comes in and people assume that you’re this conservative, quiet, shy person who’s not into fashion or anything like that.

“So there were so many barriers that were being broken as people were seeing [my photos], and so many stereotypes that were being broken.”

‘I will, a lot of times, build my outfit around the scarf because it is a statement piece.’ -Uzma Syed

Her scarves are organized by color on two shelves in her bedroom. She has “at least 100” of them, she says — some cotton, some silk, some blends. Syed says hijab is an “extension of [her] clothing.”

“I have a huge closet full of clothing and hijabs because [of] how fashion-driven I am,” she said. “I will, a lot of times, build my outfit around the scarf because it is a statement piece.”

She added that misconceptions people have about hijabs are because they don’t know the meaning behind them.

“People often ask me, ‘Are you wearing a particular color because of a certain mood?’ When I was pregnant with my daughter, people asked me if I’m wearing pink or blue because I’m having a boy or a girl.

“You just get the funniest questions. And the simple answer is it really just has to do with your taste and your fashion sense, and I always have it matching my clothes. So that’s all it is.”

Syed says that even though she and Noora haven’t had the conversation yet, her daughter’s choice of whether to wear the hijab will be hers alone.

“It’s going to be a personal decision for her,” she said. “If she feels like that’s something she’s comfortable with, it’ll be her decision. When she’s ready.”

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Jeans. Shirt. Turban.

In eighth grade, his uncle put him in charge of a women’s footwear store in Hempstead, saying, “This is your store, you’re going to run it.” So in between classes and homework, Singh said he was in charge of hiring and training staff and changing the storefront display on a regular basis.

He said getting into business so early was “a blessing.”

“I’ve worked hard ever since, and I’ve kept the same routine.”

Then, when Singh was 14, his father helped him tie his turban for the first time. It’s part of a traditional Sikh ceremony for adolescent boys, called “dastar bandi.” The uniform look of the turban reinforces the Sikh belief that everyone is equal.

“Usually your uncle, your father, your brother, one of them will tie it for you,” he said. “And your ears hurt, I’ll tell you that. Your ears are very sensitive; they’re very soft, so when you’re putting fabric against it for the whole day, they tend to sore up.”

Singh said his ears stopped hurting after about a year. “They kind of get used to it,” he said, laughing.

Now, at 43, Singh is an executive, fluent in four languages and father of three daughters he described as “princesses.”

Business runs in his blood; Singh said his parents used to run a retail manufacturing company in New Delhi. When he was 11, they emigrated from India to the United States and all worked together for a couple of years at the Roosevelt Raceway Flea Market before it closed in 1995. He calls this his training period for what was to come.

Singh is the CEO of NY Tent Sale, based in Melville. The warehouse store specializes in athletic wear and sneakers, carrying brands such as Nike and Timberland. Singh says he usually works until midnight or later, except for nights he’s playing volleyball.

He’s also a board member at the Plainview Gurudwara, or Sikh temple, which he’s attended since he was 11. He volunteers there, cleaning the parking lot and washing dishes.

‘If you’re stranded anywhere, just look for a Sikh temple… You don’t have to pray, you don’t have to bow down, nothing.’ -Bobby Singh

There are two other Sikh temples on Long Island — in Glen Cove and Hicksville — that collectively serve more than 10,000 Sikhs, according to Mohinder Singh Taneja, a local Sikh leader.

“If you’re stranded anywhere, just look for a Sikh temple,” Singh said. “Just walk in and have a meal, end of story. There are no second questions. You don’t have to pray, you don’t have to bow down, nothing.”

“If you need money, if you’re stranded, ask for help and it will be given to you.”

Among the practices of Sikhism, Singh keeps five articles of faith with him at all times, sometimes referred to as the five Ks: kesh (uncut hair and beard), kangha (a small wooden comb to be used twice a day), kara (an iron bracelet), kachera (an undergarment) and kirpan (a small ceremonial knife).

Each item has particular significance. For instance, the kara serves as a reminder that “this is a hand of my Lord,” Singh said.

Singh provided an example: If someone is walking ahead of you and drops some money on the floor, “I’ll pick it up. The moment I pick it up, the first thing I see is my kara. The moment I see it, I remember this is not my hand, this is the hand of my prophet, my guru or my Lord. So I give it back. This keeps you honest.”

One of the most distinctive marks of a Sikh man is his turban. Singh says he keeps his wardrobe simple: “Jeans, shirt, turban.” And sneakers, of course.

Before heading into work every morning, he chooses one of his 50 turbans to wear. Usually out of the 20 or so colors available, he opts for a black one. Singh says people will ask him whether he sweats underneath the turban — he says he doesn’t, and calls it “airy.”

He’s also often asked if he’s Muslim. Although both Islam and Sikhism are monotheistic faiths, like Judaism and Christianity, there are many differences.

“The first visibility that you’re looking at is a piece of cloth on my head: a turban. You’re looking at a beard right away. And that gives you the immediate perception of who I’m going to be versus who I really am.”

‘[A Sikh man] will give his life before anything happens to you.’ -Bobby Singh

Putting preconceptions aside, Singh says that if you see a Sikh man walking on the street, “you can just start walking right behind him, because by second nature, he is going to protect you. Irrespective of who you are.”

A Sikh man “will give his life before anything happens to you,” he said. “And this is something that we practice, this is something that we teach our kids.”

“This is what I teach my [oldest] daughter every day, that no matter where you are, if you see your friends being oppressed, you have to just stand there like a shield.”

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She didn't have a mid-life crisis, she had a mid-life calling

She had a young daughter, Andrea, and was working part time at a therapeutic nursery school in Manhattan. She had worked for decades as a psychologist and parent educator in the mental health field.

“I realized that I was more and more involved in church and that it was taking over more and more of my life, and I liked it,” said Mitchell, now 68. “And then it became clear to me that I was being called to ordained ministry. So I shouldn’t say this, but I was annoyed.”

“I felt, well, if I’m called to be ordained, that means I have to disrupt my life and go to seminary. And how am I going to do that?”

Mitchell, who grew up in Grace Episcopal Church in Jamaica, Queens, said she “wrestled with that for a long time.” The only person she confided in about it was her priest. Eventually, she said, ”I stopped fighting it.” And off she went to Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University.

During seminary, Mitchell said she worked in a predominantly white community — Greenwich, Connecticut — as part of her field placement. As an African-American woman, she called the experience “a revelation for a lot of people.”

“For a number of people in certain parts of the Episcopal church, it is a novelty just to see a black woman, much less what you do,” Mitchell said.

After she graduated and was ordained, Mitchell began work at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan. In several denominations, like Episcopalism, a clerical collar is a sign of ordained ministry. Even so, Mitchell said she would still sometimes get mistaken for a nun.

Those who didn’t know better would call her “Sister” and wouldn’t take her makeup and earrings into account, even though nuns typically don’t wear either.

“I guess they couldn’t figure out what else would a woman, maybe even a black woman, be doing with this thing on,” she said. “But most people sort of figure out what it is they’re looking at.”

‘I think there are people who take pride in the fact that there is a black female priest on the senior staff of the Bishop of Long Island.’ -The Rev. Canon Patricia Mitchell

Now, Mitchell is the canon for pastoral care at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City. She has been serving in the position for more than a year.

Mitchell said that when people find out that she’s on the bishop’s staff, “Then they’re really sort of taken aback. But it’s good for them to sort of have a little cognitive dissonance, like, ‘Oh, I have to think about this.’”

“Some people have never encountered a black female priest. So I think it’s important in terms of the position; I think there are people who take pride in the fact that there is a black female priest on the senior staff of the bishop of Long Island.”

A lot of Mitchell’s job as canon requires interpersonal skills — offering advice to clergy members, resolving conflicts between parishioners and simply lending a listening ear.

“When I read the position description, I felt it resonated with me. I had not expected anything like that to come along; I was ready for change. I realized that I really felt that that was where I was called to be.”

Being in ordained ministry for 16 years, her outfit is always “already decided for me in the morning.”

‘I wouldn’t say I’m fashion forward. So, fashion middle.’ -The Rev. Canon Patricia Mitchell

Mitchell wears clerical attire, which includes a black shirt and white collar —  and on most days, she says she forgets that she’s even wearing a collar. On the weekends she dresses more casually in jeans and sweaters, but still “conservative, traditional, nothing flamboyant.”

Her favorite stores are Talbots and Chico’s. For clerical wear, she shops at CM Almy and Women Spirit, which cater to clergy and other church officials.

“I wouldn’t say I’m fashion forward. So, fashion middle,” she said with a laugh.

Mitchell says she’s still getting used to life on Long Island. She shares an apartment with a colleague in Mineola during the week, splitting her time with her home in Westchester County. Mitchell is still learning about Long Island and its Episcopal Diocese. “People have been very welcoming and really very lovely,” she said.

She still travels into Brooklyn and Manhattan whenever there’s a clergy member living there who needs her assistance. Mitchell does everything from visiting priests and deacons at hospitals to helping families plan funerals.

“Either going west, going east, depending upon where they were, and just checking up on them,” she said.

“Sometimes, and I know from my background in mental health, just being able to say, ‘I’m really struggling with so-and-so.’ They’re not necessarily even looking for a solution from you, and many times you don’t have the solution. But having some place where you can unburden yourself is very helpful.”

She added that the most rewarding part of her job is just being able to help others, particularly the church leaders. “Priests and deacons are people, too,” she said. “To whom do they go?”

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'What you see is what I was born with'

Perl, 64, believes a key part of his religious duties is to help those “who fall between the cracks.” He’s been visiting rehabilitation centers, hospitals and prisons for years, offering spiritual guidance to those struggling with drug addiction.

Perl, who has been leading his congregation since 1976, has felt close to this cause for a long time. Narcan, or naloxone, is a nasal spray that can be used to treat a known or suspected opioid overdose. He holds the trainings at the synagogue.

“It’s a very important thing to me — to help people who perhaps fall over the edge, and for us to be there to welcome them and to know they have someone they can turn to to make a difference,” he said.

“I’ve never lost faith in anyone, whoever they may be.”

Perl identifies as Hasidic, a subgroup of Orthodox Judaism that focuses on mysticism — in particular, achieving an authentic and direct relationship with God. Because of this characterization and its emphasis on personal happiness, Hasidism was considered revolutionary as a movement within Judaism during the 18th century.

Perl has lived in Mineola for more than 40 years. He and his wife, Bluma, raised eight children there. He grew up in a religious home in London. His father, a Holocaust survivor, always dressed “extremely modest” around the house. This would include formal, dark-colored clothing, and the tallit — or prayer shawl —  on the Sabbath and holidays.

“A staple of Jewish life is modesty, so how we walk and how we interact with people speaks volumes of why we dress a certain way and how we present ourselves,” Perl said. “We’re all God’s children and therefore must live in a dignified, modest manner.”

‘I see it as kind of like a soldier. A soldier has to wear his uniform whether it’s hot, whether it’s cold.’ -Rabbi Anchelle Perl

Perl wears the same type of attire every day — “darker, more conservative-looking clothes” — including a suit and jacket and wide-brim hat over his yarmulke.

He sees the garments as “a reflection of humility.” He believes that as a person, “you have to be colorful. You have to be vivacious and caring in life about other people. It’s not about the clothes.”

As part of Orthodox Jewish observances, Perl is careful to never trim his facial hair: “What you see is what I was born with.”

“I see it as kind of like a soldier. A soldier has to wear his uniform whether it’s hot, whether it’s cold.”

He’s able to find common ground with people of different faiths through this self-expression. Between that and a shared belief in God, he’s able to easily relate to people of all religions.

“Each of us has a role, each of us has a mission, each of us were created by God, and if everybody looked like me or dressed like me, it would be a very boring world,” he said.

Perl says he’s “inspired” when he sees people of different affiliations and backgrounds coming together for a common cause. This feeling has been especially relevant to him lately.

Since the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, an anti-Semitic crime that claimed the lives of 11 people in October, Perl has been trying to bind members of his congregation even closer together, including making security improvements at the synagogue.

“In a time like this where there’s so much darkness, we must respond by increasing our light,” he said.

He’s carried this sentiment into the holiday season, encouraging his congregation to “think about the families in Pittsburgh who have lost family, or think about your own family you’ve lost — what gift were you planning to give if that person was with you?”

Since that loved one is no longer alive, Perl is asking his congregation to “now take that gift that you would give to a loved one and give it to some charity or someone next door, give that gift to someone else.”

Celebrating Hanukkah is difficult when faced with so much loss, Perl says. “We’ve learned to be silent. We even have a precedent in our Jewish history when Aaron the High Priest lost his sons and so he remained silent.”

But Perl thinks the best way to cope is by addressing that loss — reminiscing, sharing stories of the past and going forward with compassion. These were the themes he addressed in his first sermon after the Tree of Life tragedy.

“To respond by building, by moving forward, by really going to action and filling the void that was created on whatever level it may be — that’s how I approached it,” he said. “If one individual can create a havoc, then how much more so can an individual create positive energy?”

Sermons are perhaps the most important part of Perl’s job, and he sees them as an opportunity to connect with his community. For Perl, what makes a great sermon is “if a person walks away knowing that they can make a difference.” Sincerity is important, too — if the rabbi is into it, he says, the congregation will follow.

When he can, he tries to keep it light and upbeat —  and he’s not above poking some fun at himself.

“One of the reasons why I have a long beard is in case my job doesn’t work out, I’m on standby for ‘Duck Dynasty.’”

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Just have faith

On the field, the 17-year-old is poised — he runs with confidence and carefully placed steps.

On the stage, he says he doesn’t get jitters — singing comes naturally, whether he’s performing at school or in his car.

At St. Anthony’s, a Roman Catholic college preparatory school in South Huntington, you can find Payamps dressed head to toe in a clean-cut ensemble. The mandatory uniform for the junior and senior boys: a white collared shirt, gold tie, black sweater vest, blazer, pants and black lace-up shoes. The girls wear similar white button-ups and dark blazers, but with gray skirts and tights.

What sets the students of St. Anthony’s apart from one another are their lapels — they can express individual interests through pins on their blazers. The pins can be from campus clubs or groups that they’re in, or they can bring in other buttons and badges to wear, as long as they’re appropriate for school.

Payamps has four pins on his blazer. The first represents his involvement in the campus ministry. The decision to attend St. Anthony’s was a very personal one for Payamps. He lives in West Hempstead and went through elementary and middle school in that district with his older brother, Alex.

Alex went on to attend West Hempstead High School, but Payamps said that after eighth grade, he wanted to pursue a different path.

‘I wanted to strengthen my faith. As a kid I was Catholic… but I didn’t really know too much about it.’ -Matthew Payamps

“I wanted to strengthen my faith,” he said. “As a kid, I was Catholic, and I guess that’s what I’ve been around mostly, but I didn’t really know too much about it."

Payamps’ father is from the Dominican Republic and his mother is from Paraguay. Growing up, they said a lot of prayers together in Spanish, he says.

“I thought coming to a Catholic school, I’ll be able to learn about it and experience different things that I probably wouldn’t have been able to at a public school.”

The second pin, a small winged foot, was given to him in middle school for being on the track team. He says at first he only took up running to stay in shape for baseball and basketball season. But then he fell in love with the rush and wound up running track full time.

“I feel like with running, as much as you put into it is as much as you’re going to get out of it,” he said. “If you’re going to train hard, you’re going to get results and I think that’s a great way to look at your sport and life as well.”

Payamps’ work has paid off — he’s one of the top runners on Long Island and is ranked 24th in the state as of November, according to speed ratings on tullyrunners.com, which provides information and analysis about New York State runners. He also recently won the Catholic High School Athletic Association intersectional cross-country championship.

“I couldn’t imagine representing another school on my chest,” Payamps said.

Another pin on his blazer and a point of pride for Payamps is the National Honor Society. As a senior with a 99.29 percent weighted GPA, he remembers the first day of his freshman year with a knowing grin — going from public to private school, he wasn’t sure what to expect.

“During the homeroom prayer, I had no idea what was going on,” he remembered. “I heard Brother Vincent [on the loudspeaker] who actually does the prayer every morning… and I had no idea what to do.”

Now, Payamps welcomes incoming freshmen as part of a club called Friar Faithful. “That’s a big part of our faith,” he said, “being open to new people.”

‘I definitely think [my spirituality is] growing on me as I go along.’ -Matthew Payamps

The final pin on his blazer signifies the Gregorian Schola — St. Anthony’s advanced choir, made up of 60 juniors and seniors.

“I think a lot of people think that I’m a runner and they know me for that and they think, ‘Oh Matt, he runs,’” he said.

“But I think if people knew what I like to listen to or that my favorite artist is Michael Jackson… I don’t know, I think that’s a fun fact about me and what I like to do.”

Payamps, a tenor, says his favorite place to sing is his car. The roughly 45-minute drive from West Hempstead to South Huntington provides plenty of performance time. “I can just yelp out whenever and as loud as I want, so it’s fun,” he said.

Looking back, the commute was worth it for Payamps. “I definitely think [my spirituality is] growing on me as I go along — I guess as I went along through St. Anthony’s,” he said.

His next uniform will have “Georgetown University” across his chest. Payamps is looking forward to running track and learning more about the Catholic faith while attending the Jesuit college in Washington, D.C., next fall.

‘As time goes along you get used to it and realize: I go to St. Anthony’s, this is what I have to wear, and be proud of that.’ -Matthew Payamps

But every day until then, whether he’s at school or around his community in West Hempstead, he feels good with the man in the mirror.

“I don’t feel too different having my uniform on around other people in West Hempstead,” he said. “As a freshman, I think that maybe it might feel a little uncomfortable, but I think just as time goes along you get used to it and realize: I go to St. Anthony’s, this is what I have to wear, and be proud of that.”

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Story by Rachel Weiss. Photographs and video by Tulika Bose.

Produced by Anahita Pardiwalla and Heather Doyle.

Perl, 64, believes a key part of his religious duties is to help those “who fall between the cracks.” He’s been visiting rehabilitation centers, hospitals and prisons for years, offering spiritual guidance to those struggling with drug addiction.

Perl, who has been leading his congregation since 1976, has felt close to this cause for a long time. Narcan, or naloxone, is a nasal spray that can be used to treat a known or suspected opioid overdose. He holds the trainings at the synagogue.

“It’s a very important thing to me — to help people who perhaps fall over the edge, and for us to be there to welcome them and to know they have someone they can turn to to make a difference,” he said.

“I’ve never lost faith in anyone, whoever they may be.”

Perl identifies as Hasidic, a subgroup of Orthodox Judaism that focuses on mysticism — in particular, achieving an authentic and direct relationship with God. Because of this characterization and its emphasis on personal happiness, Hasidism was considered revolutionary as a movement within Judaism during the 18th century.

Perl has lived in Mineola for more than 40 years. He and his wife, Bluma, raised eight children there. He grew up in a religious home in London. His father, a Holocaust survivor, always dressed “extremely modest” around the house. This would include formal, dark-colored clothing, and the tallit — or prayer shawl —  on the Sabbath and holidays.

“A staple of Jewish life is modesty, so how we walk and how we interact with people speaks volumes of why we dress a certain way and how we present ourselves,” Perl said. “We’re all God’s children and therefore must live in a dignified, modest manner.”

‘I see it as kind of like a soldier. A soldier has to wear his uniform whether it’s hot, whether it’s cold.’ -Rabbi Anchelle Perl

Perl wears the same type of attire every day — “darker, more conservative-looking clothes” — including a suit and jacket and wide-brim hat over his yarmulke.

He sees the garments as “a reflection of humility.” He believes that as a person, “you have to be colorful. You have to be vivacious and caring in life about other people. It’s not about the clothes.”

As part of Orthodox Jewish observances, Perl is careful to never trim his facial hair: “What you see is what I was born with.”

“I see it as kind of like a soldier. A soldier has to wear his uniform whether it’s hot, whether it’s cold.”

He’s able to find common ground with people of different faiths through this self-expression. Between that and a shared belief in God, he’s able to easily relate to people of all religions.

“Each of us has a role, each of us has a mission, each of us were created by God, and if everybody looked like me or dressed like me, it would be a very boring world,” he said.

Perl says he’s “inspired” when he sees people of different affiliations and backgrounds coming together for a common cause. This feeling has been especially relevant to him lately.

Since the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, an anti-Semitic crime that claimed the lives of 11 people in October, Perl has been trying to bind members of his congregation even closer together, including making security improvements at the synagogue.

“In a time like this where there’s so much darkness, we must respond by increasing our light,” he said.

He’s carried this sentiment into the holiday season, encouraging his congregation to “think about the families in Pittsburgh who have lost family, or think about your own family you’ve lost — what gift were you planning to give if that person was with you?”

Since that loved one is no longer alive, Perl is asking his congregation to “now take that gift that you would give to a loved one and give it to some charity or someone next door, give that gift to someone else.”

Celebrating Hanukkah is difficult when faced with so much loss, Perl says. “We’ve learned to be silent. We even have a precedent in our Jewish history when Aaron the High Priest lost his sons and so he remained silent.”

But Perl thinks the best way to cope is by addressing that loss — reminiscing, sharing stories of the past and going forward with compassion. These were the themes he addressed in his first sermon after the Tree of Life tragedy.

“To respond by building, by moving forward, by really going to action and filling the void that was created on whatever level it may be — that’s how I approached it,” he said. “If one individual can create a havoc, then how much more so can an individual create positive energy?”

Sermons are perhaps the most important part of Perl’s job, and he sees them as an opportunity to connect with his community. For Perl, what makes a great sermon is “if a person walks away knowing that they can make a difference.” Sincerity is important, too — if the rabbi is into it, he says, the congregation will follow.

When he can, he tries to keep it light and upbeat —  and he’s not above poking some fun at himself.

“One of the reasons why I have a long beard is in case my job doesn’t work out, I’m on standby for ‘Duck Dynasty.’”

She had a young daughter, Andrea, and was working part time at a therapeutic nursery school in Manhattan. She had worked for decades as a psychologist and parent educator in the mental health field.

“I realized that I was more and more involved in church and that it was taking over more and more of my life, and I liked it,” said Mitchell, now 68. “And then it became clear to me that I was being called to ordained ministry. So I shouldn’t say this, but I was annoyed.”

“I felt, well, if I’m called to be ordained, that means I have to disrupt my life and go to seminary. And how am I going to do that?”

Mitchell, who grew up in Grace Episcopal Church in Jamaica, Queens, said she “wrestled with that for a long time.” The only person she confided in about it was her priest. Eventually, she said, ”I stopped fighting it.” And off she went to Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University.

During seminary, Mitchell said she worked in a predominantly white community — Greenwich, Connecticut — as part of her field placement. As an African-American woman, she called the experience “a revelation for a lot of people.”

“For a number of people in certain parts of the Episcopal church, it is a novelty just to see a black woman, much less what you do,” Mitchell said.

After she graduated and was ordained, Mitchell began work at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan. In several denominations, like Episcopalism, a clerical collar is a sign of ordained ministry. Even so, Mitchell said she would still sometimes get mistaken for a nun.

Those who didn’t know better would call her “Sister” and wouldn’t take her makeup and earrings into account, even though nuns typically don’t wear either.

“I guess they couldn’t figure out what else would a woman, maybe even a black woman, be doing with this thing on,” she said. “But most people sort of figure out what it is they’re looking at.”

‘I think there are people who take pride in the fact that there is a black female priest on the senior staff of the Bishop of Long Island.’ -The Rev. Canon Patricia Mitchell

Now, Mitchell is the canon for pastoral care at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City. She has been serving in the position for more than a year.

Mitchell said that when people find out that she’s on the bishop’s staff, “Then they’re really sort of taken aback. But it’s good for them to sort of have a little cognitive dissonance, like, ‘Oh, I have to think about this.’”

“Some people have never encountered a black female priest. So I think it’s important in terms of the position; I think there are people who take pride in the fact that there is a black female priest on the senior staff of the bishop of Long Island.”

A lot of Mitchell’s job as canon requires interpersonal skills — offering advice to clergy members, resolving conflicts between parishioners and simply lending a listening ear.

“When I read the position description, I felt it resonated with me. I had not expected anything like that to come along; I was ready for change. I realized that I really felt that that was where I was called to be.”

Being in ordained ministry for 16 years, her outfit is always “already decided for me in the morning.”

‘I wouldn’t say I’m fashion forward. So, fashion middle.’ -The Rev. Canon Patricia Mitchell

Mitchell wears clerical attire, which includes a black shirt and white collar —  and on most days, she says she forgets that she’s even wearing a collar. On the weekends she dresses more casually in jeans and sweaters, but still “conservative, traditional, nothing flamboyant.”

Her favorite stores are Talbots and Chico’s. For clerical wear, she shops at CM Almy and Women Spirit, which cater to clergy and other church officials.

“I wouldn’t say I’m fashion forward. So, fashion middle,” she said with a laugh.

Mitchell says she’s still getting used to life on Long Island. She shares an apartment with a colleague in Mineola during the week, splitting her time with her home in Westchester County. Mitchell is still learning about Long Island and its Episcopal Diocese. “People have been very welcoming and really very lovely,” she said.

She still travels into Brooklyn and Manhattan whenever there’s a clergy member living there who needs her assistance. Mitchell does everything from visiting priests and deacons at hospitals to helping families plan funerals.

“Either going west, going east, depending upon where they were, and just checking up on them,” she said.

“Sometimes, and I know from my background in mental health, just being able to say, ‘I’m really struggling with so-and-so.’ They’re not necessarily even looking for a solution from you, and many times you don’t have the solution. But having some place where you can unburden yourself is very helpful.”

She added that the most rewarding part of her job is just being able to help others, particularly the church leaders. “Priests and deacons are people, too,” she said. “To whom do they go?”

She’s an infectious-disease specialist who runs her own practice, so her lab coat is first to meet the eye. Underneath, she blends trendy and cultural fashion in her attire, plucking inspiration from her favorite style icons and influencers on Instagram. She’s drawn to name brands — Chanel, Kate Spade, Hermès.

The third layer is a long-sleeved shirt and stretchy leggings, and her head is wrapped in a scarf. This part of Syed’s ensemble is dictated by her religious beliefs.

Syed said that in Islamic scripture, “The thought is to conceal your beauty a little bit so you can be a little bit modest in your day-to-day living.” Hence, the covering of her hair with the scarf and the covering of her bare arms and legs.

Syed is Muslim. She said growing up in Syosset, she was raised with her parents’ Indian culture and religion blended into the day-to-day rituals of the Western world. The family used to attend the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury.

She said none of the female members of her family wore a hijab, the traditional head covering that some Muslim women wear to conceal their hair.

In August 2001, when she was 21 and right before she started medical school at the University of New England in Maine, Syed says she felt a need to get more in touch with her spirituality. She didn’t tell her now-husband, Faisal Zakaria, but she decided to start wearing the hijab.

“It was a very personal decision for me,” Syed said. When she put it on, they both said he almost didn’t recognize her.

Syed says she faced an “initial struggle” with wearing the hijab, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when her friends and family told her “to just take off the scarf.” She said they wondered why she would risk “putting a target” on herself.

“It was so emotional in the U.S. and in New York, and everybody was on edge,” she said. “But I have to tell you, the nicest people — my neighbors, everybody that was around me in Maine — would just come to me on a daily basis. ‘Do I need anything? Is anybody bothering me?’ They were always there for me.”

‘The second they see a woman in hijab, they already start formulating some thoughts in the back of their head.’ -Uzma Syed

Now 39 and back on Long Island, Syed is confident in her multifaceted identity. She says there isn’t just one thing that defines all of her.

“We all know that appearance means a lot because people will say don’t judge a book by its cover, but unfortunately the first thing that people see is the first idea they get in their mind,” she said.

“The second they see a woman in hijab, they already start formulating some thoughts in the back of their head.”

Syed said she confronted some of those misconceptions while campaigning for the Syosset school board earlier this year. But she saw the campaign as “another opportunity to educate [the community], for them to see that not every Muslim-American person is bad and you can’t judge everybody by one person.”

Syed also ran because her daughter, Noora, 14, started her first year of high school this fall, and her son, Aydin, 5, just began kindergarten.

She missed getting elected by five votes and says she is considering another run. Until then, most of her time is consumed by her practice, with offices in Syosset and Bay Shore. Since she’s not a surgeon and isn’t required to wear scrubs, she can express herself through fashion, trying different colors, textures and patterns underneath her lab coat.

Syed decided to start an Instagram account in 2014, dedicated to her daily wardrobe along with food and travel. At first, Syed set the account to private. But as she posted photos of her outfits, she realized how much she was connecting with her followers — currently at more than 600.

“People think you’re a doctor and you just go back and forth to work and that’s all your life is really, medicine and work,” she said. “Then you throw in the Muslim woman and the hijab and then there’s another layer that comes in and people assume that you’re this conservative, quiet, shy person who’s not into fashion or anything like that.

“So there were so many barriers that were being broken as people were seeing [my photos], and so many stereotypes that were being broken.”

‘I will, a lot of times, build my outfit around the scarf because it is a statement piece.’ -Uzma Syed

Her scarves are organized by color on two shelves in her bedroom. She has “at least 100” of them, she says — some cotton, some silk, some blends. Syed says hijab is an “extension of [her] clothing.”

“I have a huge closet full of clothing and hijabs because [of] how fashion-driven I am,” she said. “I will, a lot of times, build my outfit around the scarf because it is a statement piece.”

She added that misconceptions people have about hijabs are because they don’t know the meaning behind them.

“People often ask me, ‘Are you wearing a particular color because of a certain mood?’ When I was pregnant with my daughter, people asked me if I’m wearing pink or blue because I’m having a boy or a girl.

“You just get the funniest questions. And the simple answer is it really just has to do with your taste and your fashion sense, and I always have it matching my clothes. So that’s all it is.”

Syed says that even though she and Noora haven’t had the conversation yet, her daughter’s choice of whether to wear the hijab will be hers alone.

“It’s going to be a personal decision for her,” she said. “If she feels like that’s something she’s comfortable with, it’ll be her decision. When she’s ready.”

In eighth grade, his uncle put him in charge of a women’s footwear store in Hempstead, saying, “This is your store, you’re going to run it.” So in between classes and homework, Singh said he was in charge of hiring and training staff and changing the storefront display on a regular basis.

He said getting into business so early was “a blessing.”

“I’ve worked hard ever since, and I’ve kept the same routine.”

Then, when Singh was 14, his father helped him tie his turban for the first time. It’s part of a traditional Sikh ceremony for adolescent boys, called “dastar bandi.” The uniform look of the turban reinforces the Sikh belief that everyone is equal.

“Usually your uncle, your father, your brother, one of them will tie it for you,” he said. “And your ears hurt, I’ll tell you that. Your ears are very sensitive; they’re very soft, so when you’re putting fabric against it for the whole day, they tend to sore up.”

Singh said his ears stopped hurting after about a year. “They kind of get used to it,” he said, laughing.

Now, at 43, Singh is an executive, fluent in four languages and father of three daughters he described as “princesses.”

Business runs in his blood; Singh said his parents used to run a retail manufacturing company in New Delhi. When he was 11, they emigrated from India to the United States and all worked together for a couple of years at the Roosevelt Raceway Flea Market before it closed in 1995. He calls this his training period for what was to come.

Singh is the CEO of NY Tent Sale, based in Melville. The warehouse store specializes in athletic wear and sneakers, carrying brands such as Nike and Timberland. Singh says he usually works until midnight or later, except for nights he’s playing volleyball.

He’s also a board member at the Plainview Gurudwara, or Sikh temple, which he’s attended since he was 11. He volunteers there, cleaning the parking lot and washing dishes.

‘If you’re stranded anywhere, just look for a Sikh temple… You don’t have to pray, you don’t have to bow down, nothing.’ -Bobby Singh

There are two other Sikh temples on Long Island — in Glen Cove and Hicksville — that collectively serve more than 10,000 Sikhs, according to Mohinder Singh Taneja, a local Sikh leader.

“If you’re stranded anywhere, just look for a Sikh temple,” Singh said. “Just walk in and have a meal, end of story. There are no second questions. You don’t have to pray, you don’t have to bow down, nothing.”

“If you need money, if you’re stranded, ask for help and it will be given to you.”

Among the practices of Sikhism, Singh keeps five articles of faith with him at all times, sometimes referred to as the five Ks: kesh (uncut hair and beard), kangha (a small wooden comb to be used twice a day), kara (an iron bracelet), kachera (an undergarment) and kirpan (a small ceremonial knife).

Each item has particular significance. For instance, the kara serves as a reminder that “this is a hand of my Lord,” Singh said.

Singh provided an example: If someone is walking ahead of you and drops some money on the floor, “I’ll pick it up. The moment I pick it up, the first thing I see is my kara. The moment I see it, I remember this is not my hand, this is the hand of my prophet, my guru or my Lord. So I give it back. This keeps you honest.”

One of the most distinctive marks of a Sikh man is his turban. Singh says he keeps his wardrobe simple: “Jeans, shirt, turban.” And sneakers, of course.

Before heading into work every morning, he chooses one of his 50 turbans to wear. Usually out of the 20 or so colors available, he opts for a black one. Singh says people will ask him whether he sweats underneath the turban — he says he doesn’t, and calls it “airy.”

He’s also often asked if he’s Muslim. Although both Islam and Sikhism are monotheistic faiths, like Judaism and Christianity, there are many differences.

“The first visibility that you’re looking at is a piece of cloth on my head: a turban. You’re looking at a beard right away. And that gives you the immediate perception of who I’m going to be versus who I really am.”

‘[A Sikh man] will give his life before anything happens to you.’ -Bobby Singh

Putting preconceptions aside, Singh says that if you see a Sikh man walking on the street, “you can just start walking right behind him, because by second nature, he is going to protect you. Irrespective of who you are.”

A Sikh man “will give his life before anything happens to you,” he said. “And this is something that we practice, this is something that we teach our kids.”

“This is what I teach my [oldest] daughter every day, that no matter where you are, if you see your friends being oppressed, you have to just stand there like a shield.”

On the field, the 17-year-old is poised — he runs with confidence and carefully placed steps.

On the stage, he says he doesn’t get jitters — singing comes naturally, whether he’s performing at school or in his car.

At St. Anthony’s, a Roman Catholic college preparatory school in South Huntington, you can find Payamps dressed head to toe in a clean-cut ensemble. The mandatory uniform for the junior and senior boys: a white collared shirt, gold tie, black sweater vest, blazer, pants and black lace-up shoes. The girls wear similar white button-ups and dark blazers, but with gray skirts and tights.

What sets the students of St. Anthony’s apart from one another are their lapels — they can express individual interests through pins on their blazers. The pins can be from campus clubs or groups that they’re in, or they can bring in other buttons and badges to wear, as long as they’re appropriate for school.

Payamps has four pins on his blazer. The first represents his involvement in the campus ministry. The decision to attend St. Anthony’s was a very personal one for Payamps. He lives in West Hempstead and went through elementary and middle school in that district with his older brother, Alex.

Alex went on to attend West Hempstead High School, but Payamps said that after eighth grade, he wanted to pursue a different path.

‘I wanted to strengthen my faith. As a kid I was Catholic… but I didn’t really know too much about it.’ -Matthew Payamps

“I wanted to strengthen my faith,” he said. “As a kid, I was Catholic, and I guess that’s what I’ve been around mostly, but I didn’t really know too much about it."

Payamps’ father is from the Dominican Republic and his mother is from Paraguay. Growing up, they said a lot of prayers together in Spanish, he says.

“I thought coming to a Catholic school, I’ll be able to learn about it and experience different things that I probably wouldn’t have been able to at a public school.”

The second pin, a small winged foot, was given to him in middle school for being on the track team. He says at first he only took up running to stay in shape for baseball and basketball season. But then he fell in love with the rush and wound up running track full time.

“I feel like with running, as much as you put into it is as much as you’re going to get out of it,” he said. “If you’re going to train hard, you’re going to get results and I think that’s a great way to look at your sport and life as well.”

Payamps’ work has paid off — he’s one of the top runners on Long Island and is ranked 24th in the state as of November, according to speed ratings on tullyrunners.com, which provides information and analysis about New York State runners. He also recently won the Catholic High School Athletic Association intersectional cross-country championship.

“I couldn’t imagine representing another school on my chest,” Payamps said.

Another pin on his blazer and a point of pride for Payamps is the National Honor Society. As a senior with a 99.29 percent weighted GPA, he remembers the first day of his freshman year with a knowing grin — going from public to private school, he wasn’t sure what to expect.

“During the homeroom prayer, I had no idea what was going on,” he remembered. “I heard Brother Vincent [on the loudspeaker] who actually does the prayer every morning… and I had no idea what to do.”

Now, Payamps welcomes incoming freshmen as part of a club called Friar Faithful. “That’s a big part of our faith,” he said, “being open to new people.”

‘I definitely think [my spirituality is] growing on me as I go along.’ -Matthew Payamps

The final pin on his blazer signifies the Gregorian Schola — St. Anthony’s advanced choir, made up of 60 juniors and seniors.

“I think a lot of people think that I’m a runner and they know me for that and they think, ‘Oh Matt, he runs,’” he said.

“But I think if people knew what I like to listen to or that my favorite artist is Michael Jackson… I don’t know, I think that’s a fun fact about me and what I like to do.”

Payamps, a tenor, says his favorite place to sing is his car. The roughly 45-minute drive from West Hempstead to South Huntington provides plenty of performance time. “I can just yelp out whenever and as loud as I want, so it’s fun,” he said.

Looking back, the commute was worth it for Payamps. “I definitely think [my spirituality is] growing on me as I go along — I guess as I went along through St. Anthony’s,” he said.

His next uniform will have “Georgetown University” across his chest. Payamps is looking forward to running track and learning more about the Catholic faith while attending the Jesuit college in Washington, D.C., next fall.

‘As time goes along you get used to it and realize: I go to St. Anthony’s, this is what I have to wear, and be proud of that.’ -Matthew Payamps

But every day until then, whether he’s at school or around his community in West Hempstead, he feels good with the man in the mirror.

“I don’t feel too different having my uniform on around other people in West Hempstead,” he said. “As a freshman, I think that maybe it might feel a little uncomfortable, but I think just as time goes along you get used to it and realize: I go to St. Anthony’s, this is what I have to wear, and be proud of that.”

Even your lifespan can be local.

Researchers have long said that health disparities are heavily influenced by where you live. New data from the National Center for Health Statistics show just how much your neighborhood can impact the length of your life. Long Island details appear in the map below.

The Associated Press analyzed life expectancy and demographic data from 2010 to 2015 for 65,662 census tracts, which are geographic areas that encompass roughly 4,000 residents, and found that certain demographic qualities — high rates of unemployment, low household income, a concentration of black or Native American residents and low rates of high school education — correlated with life expectancy in most neighborhoods.

An increase of 10 percentage points in the unemployment rate in a neighborhood translated to a loss of roughly a year and a half of life expectancy, the AP found. A neighborhood where more adults failed to graduate high school had shorter predicted longevity. A neighborhood with a larger percentage of black residents can have a lower life expectancy because blacks historically have had a lower life expectancy than whites. In 2011, life expectancy for white men nationally was 76.6 years while for black men it was 72.2 years, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The AP chose these demographic markers because they had large correlation with life expectancy. However, other demographic factors not included in the analysis may also exist that affect life expectancy at the local level. For example, American Indian and Alaska Native populations have a significantly higher mortality than other races in the United States.

New York State had the largest range for life expectancy among its neighborhoods, spanning 34.5 years. The places with the highest and lowest estimates are both in New York City. Children born between 2010 and 2015 in part of the northern half of Roosevelt Island have an estimated life expectancy of 59 years; a child born 6 miles away in Chinatown in lower Manhattan can expect to live 93.6 years. On Long Island, a tract in North Bellport had the lowest life expectancy, 73.2 years, while Shelter Island had the highest, 92.9 years. You can read more about the Long Island numbers here.

In one North Carolina neighborhood — Fearrington Village in Chatham County — a child born between 2010 and 2015 can expect to live 97.5 years, the highest estimated lifespan for any neighborhood in the U.S. A child in part of Stilwell in Adair County, Oklahoma, can expect 59 years on average, the nation’s lowest. The AP analysis also found discrepancies among states.

Life expectancy in Hawaii topped all other states at 82 years. Mississippi’s estimate of 74.9 was the lowest, followed closely by West Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma and Kentucky.

The AP analyzed 88.7 percent of all U.S. census tracts. Maine and Wisconsin were excluded because some of their death records lacked home addresses of the deceased. The data is part of a new partnership between the National Center for Health Statistics, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS), and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Through the collaboration, researchers used six years of death records and demographic data to create a longevity estimate for nearly every census tract in the country.

In recent years, the United States has seen overall life expectancy decrease, from 78.7 years in 2015 to 78.6 years in 2017. Experts have pointed to opioid addiction and an increase in suicides as the main reasons.

Every morning Sarah Dukes blinks open her eyes in her Cedarhurst home and decides which wig she’s going to wear.

“I have one that’s a ponytail wig for when I’m exercising or when it’s really hot outside,” she said. “I have an everyday one, I have a more dressy one…  It’s fun for me; there are different lengths, different colors.”

For married Orthodox Jewish women, the Talmud dictates covering the hair is as an obligation to convey modesty. How it’s covered is at the discretion of the community, so some Orthodox Jewish women wear scarves or hats to conceal their natural hair, while others wear wigs.

Dukes, a mother of six, also covers her elbows, upper arms, shoulders and collarbone, usually in soothing colors like yellow and turquoise. Anything from the knee and above is hidden by a long skirt.

“I think that sometimes people look at us — especially in the summer — and they feel bad for us,” said Dukes. “‘Oh, how are you wearing long sleeves? It’s summer.’ Covering your hair, you’re not able to wear shorts.”

But for Dukes, what she puts on every day is no different than what police officers, soldiers and news anchors wear.

“Everyone has a uniform or something that they wear that identifies who they are, and they’re proud of it. Sometimes it’s definitely inconvenient to wear certain things or to cover certain things, but it also comes with a sense of pride.”

Dukes, 35, is a Hasidic Jewish woman. She’s a musician with a passion for piano and used to work as a mental health counselor. She grew up in North Carolina as one of four children — two sisters and a brother — to parents originally from South Africa. They came to the United States in 1980, and the family became more religious as the kids got older.

“Slowly we started keeping more kosher, so we went to Burger King or McDonald’s and ate it on the stoop of our house because we didn’t want to bring it into our kosher house,” Dukes said. “We slowly started learning more and becoming more religious.”

’[Women] are princesses, and princesses have certain dress codes.’ -Sarah

Dukes remembers a time in her life when she sported shorts and short sleeves regularly. “I didn’t follow all of the laws of modesty,” she said. “It wasn’t until I was about 12 or 13 and I was learning more and more about the religion and then went away to Yeshiva [University], and I learned about it and began appreciating the different laws and the reasons behind it.”

Now, Dukes calls her personal style “casual, but classy.” She gravitates toward soft colors and chunky costume jewelry to “embellish” her outfits. “It shows character.”

“In Judaism, we believe that women are respected and valued,” she said. She paraphrases a verse in Psalms and refers to women as “daughters of the king.”

“So in essence, we are princesses, and princesses have certain dress codes.”

Another way Dukes expresses herself is through music. In addition to teaching her the customs and traditions of Judaism, her parents also showed her how to play the piano. She started when she was 6, but after a year or two, Dukes says she got bored and wanted to quit.

“My parents refused to let me stop,” she said with a smile. “And they said, ‘We don’t care, you don’t have to practice, but you have to sit by the piano every day for 20 minutes.’ They made me sit there! I was a stubborn girl and I refused to practice.”

Dukes started to just play around on the keys, pushing her sheet music aside. That’s when she realized she didn’t need it at all — she could make up her own melodies. She wrote her first song when she was 8, called “Elephant in Tights.”

“And once that happened, the piano was like a magical device for me. It was a place I turned to anytime I needed to express myself or release something.”

Music is both a passion and a career for Dukes, even as it’s still a source of her insecurities sometimes. The thought of producing an album was “scary” for her at first, she says, but her family and friends encouraged her.

“I always kind of shoved the idea aside, appreciating their support but feeling like I knew better,” Dukes said. “And then at some point I realized that it doesn’t really make sense for everyone to be wrong and for me to be right. It makes so much more sense for everyone else to be right and for me to be wrong.”

’I realized that God gave me a gift and I’m not using it.’ -Sarah

Dukes went on to release two albums of her compositions, all written by her and performed by pianist Yaron Gershovsky. Her first album, “Finding Forever,” consists of pieces she composed in high school that she calls “pure and innocent.” Her second album, “Life Sometimes,” is full of compositions she wrote after getting married and having children. Her melodies are dreamy and precise, often building up to a powerful climax.

“I realized that God gave me a gift and I’m not using it,” she said.

“I realized through this whole process that really what people appreciate is something that comes from the heart.”

Dukes says she’s working on another album and is releasing a new single called “Triumph” “within the next few weeks.” When she struggles with self-doubt, she leans on support from her friends and family.

She added that the way she dresses reminds her of her faith, and that makes her proud.

“If I’m feeling insecure, I do have to kind of turn inward and reflect on the fact that [my music] isn’t for myself; I can’t be selfish with this,” Dukes said.

“My feelings are valid. Everything that comes out of me is valid. And there’s no reason to put that down at all.”