This year’s winning essays and poems are works of imagination and thoughtfulness.

Please join us in celebrating the twelve CUNY undergraduate student authors, and in thanking the dozens more who submitted work to this contest.

Labor history includes an enormous range of subjects—economic and social problems; cultural and artistic visions; issues of immigration; environmental concerns; conflicts based on race, class, and ethnic identity, crime and corruption, anti-labor campaigns; ideals and ideology, and much more.

Within these broad contest parameters, the 2011 student works display a remarkably consistent focus on experiences of immigration. We hope our readers are moved, as we have been, and that these young authors continue to express themselves eloquently and often.

Background

The CUNY/Labor Arts essay contest is dedicated to expanding and revitalizing the study of work and workers at CUNY, and is open to any undergraduate attending a CUNY senior college.

We would like to thank all of the students who submitted work for the 2011 contest, and to congratulate the authors of the prize-winning essays and poems featured in this exhibit.

The contest was made possible this year through the efforts of The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation and Don Rubin; Lehman College/CUNY and Dean Deborah Eldridge, Dean Timothy Alborn, and Professor Terrence Cheng; and LaborArts and Rachel Bernstein, Henry Foner, and Evelyn Jones Rich.

Special thanks go to Professors Salita Bryant (Fiction); Nicole Cooley (Poetry); and Vincent DiGirolamo (Nonfiction) for their time and effort in selecting the winning essays and poems.

The photographs of students were all taken by photographer Gary Schoichet at the Awards Ceremony, held at the CUNY Graduate Center on May 24, 2011.