To the Editor:
Re “The Villains of Long Island,” by Carla Sosenko (Opinion guest essay, May 17), about growing up in Nassau County on Long Island:
This article brought back nostalgic memories of growing up in Massapequa. I am indeed a Nassau girl. We moved from Douglaston, Queens, to Massapequa in the early 1960s, after the potato farms of the South Shore of Long Island were cleared and suburban developments flourished.
My awakening arrived after I moved to New York City to complete my education at Columbia University. It was with a slow burn of realization that I began to understand the environment that I grew up in. Massapequa was divided by ethnic — Jewish, Italian, Irish — and racial areas. There were no Black students at my high school. Each group lived in its own enclave. Even so, as children, we shared one another’s cultures and activities and attended one another’s church and synagogue events.
My awakening to a wider and more integrated world came only when I moved to New York City. I believe that my social conscience was formed in the glorious streets there.
I look back on those times with nostalgia and a deep love of the city. But once a Nassau girl, always a Nassau girl!
Ann Heft Gainesville, Fla.
To the Editor:
Carla Sosenko is distressed about being a girl from Nassau County. Her problem is having grown up on the South Shore of the county rather than the North Shore.
As a North Shore product, I did not feel envy of those who lived in “urbane” New York City, nor the “fabled mansions” of the Hamptons, as Ms. Sosenko did. Yes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Groucho Marx and Andy Kaufman (my high school friend!) lived in Great Neck. And we all knew that the North Shore, with its private beaches, was a privilege our South Shore friends, with their public beaches, could not enjoy.
In contrast with Ms. Sosenko, my North Shore friends and I had no need to feel left out of the Big Apple’s allure nor the glitz of the East End. We just viewed them as our playgrounds away from home.
Richard J. Gerber Lake Peekskill, N.Y.
To the Editor:
As a fellow Long Island and Nassau County native, I recognized the Long Island that Carla Sosenko describes, though it in no way describes the Long Island in which I was raised.
I grew up in the unincorporated village of Lakeview, just a few miles from the border with Queens. This is the community in which a Black builder associated with the creation of Levittown was able to buy a home and live. (Sales to Black people were prohibited in Levittown.) A racially mixed community in the 1960s, but largely Black, Lakeview was part of the first school district on Long Island to desegregate (Malverne), thanks to the activism of parents.
Lakeview is adjacent to other racially and economically diverse communities such as Uniondale, Freeport, Hempstead, Baldwin, Roosevelt, Valley Stream and Long Beach. Very few rich, antisocial characters were over in this part of Nassau, but lots of hard-working folks trying to earn a living.
Nassau County, with its diversity and segregation, is a microcosm of New York. The story of Long Island cannot be told by any single community.
Holly Delany Cole Oakland, Calif.
A Question of Honor at Stanford
To the Editor:
Re “We Arrived on Campus at the Dawn of ChatGPT. What Was College For?,” by Theo Baker (Opinion guest essay, May 17):
What Mr. Baker reported about widespread cheating at Stanford absolutely floored me. In one survey, 49 percent of 849 computer science majors who responded said they would rather cheat on an exam than fail, meaning that only 51 percent passed the honor code test.
I have “honor” engraved into my United States Naval Academy class ring from 1965. We lived by the honor code because our lives depended upon it. Imagine if a young ensign did not laboriously check all the sea valves in the engine room before a submarine dived, but said he did, and the sub went down. Yes, honor was beaten into our brains, and we live by it to this day.
I fault the leaders at Stanford for not improving or enforcing their honor code. Either a school believes in the unequivocal value of ethical behavior in its educational program, or it doesn’t.
I sure am glad I chose the Naval Academy over Stanford in 1961. Who would want to be an alumnus of a school full of cheats?
Mitch Henderson Warren, R.I.
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