Not everyone can say they had a first job like Abou Sow. At 11 years old, he began working at his uncle’s slaughterhouse in Jamaica, Queens. He learned how to slaughter animals according to halal standards — one pass of a clean knife blade across the animal’s throat. Sow, now 26, quickly learned the method and continued working for his uncle throughout high school. Since then, he has pursued other careers (at one point he contemplated becoming an MMA fighter) but eventually found his way back to the meat industry. To him, it’s art. 

As a Catholic school student who wore the same mandated uniform everyday, the only way Sarah Sukumaran could show off her personality was when she changed into sneakers to play basketball. Sukumaran, who hails from Elmhurst, Queens, grew up in a place where sneaker culture runs deep. After school, Sukumaran and her friends would play basketball, which gave her a chance to survey others’ sneaker preferences.  She liked the shoes her male friends wore the most: Foamposites and Uptempos. But when she was a child, those were considered “guy sneakers,” so she stuck to Air Max Plus and Air Max 95, which she still collects today.