Reporter’s Notebook: Conn. Priest Shows How to Earn the Trust of an Immigrant Community

FI2W reporter Aswini Anburajan produced a radio piece for NPR’s Latino USA on Father James Manship, a Roman Catholic priest in New Haven, Conn., who teaches his immigrant parishioners how to stand up for their civil rights, and who has been in the news in the past for being arrested in a confrontation with local police officers. Here, Aswini narrates how she managed to produce the piece, which aired on Latino USA and which you can listen to below.

By Aswini Anburajan, FI2W contributor

If you think that ethnic reporting isn’t critical to knowing a community, read on. This is the first piece I’ve done for Feet in 2 Worlds that hasn’t been on Indian Americans. The basis of FI2W is to get reporters to write about their own communities, but even I didn’t realize why this is so important until I delved into a project for Latino USA.

My piece was originally supposed to be on the economic life of a day laborer or someone new to the country, undocumented and trying to establish a life in the U.S. That piece remains undone. Being an Indian American with some high school Spanish under my belt, I thought it would be a cake walk. Call some social service agencies, reach out to immigrant coalitions, and I could “break in.”

Manship in 2008 visited with family and friends of his Connecticut parishioners, in the province of Morena Santiago, in the rainforest regions of Ecuador. (Photo: Courtesy J. Manship - Click for more images)

Four months later, I had to think again. Without truly knowing a community, or having cultural or language associations with them, I found it impossible to get through and talk to individuals who were undocumented. It wasn’t that every door I knock on was slammed in my face. Most of the time, people pretended they weren’t home. This ranged from individuals I knew with ties to the Latino community to social service agencies.

Immigrant Business Owners on Staten Island Struggle Against the Recession: FI2W Reporter Aswini Anburajan on WNYC

By Aswini Anburajan, FI2W reporter

Immigrant business owners have breathed new life into the North Shore of Staten Island, New York’s least populated and least diverse borough.

Feet in 2 Worlds partnered with WNYC, New York public radio, to produce a profile of Victory Boulevard, one of Staten Island’s major thoroughfares, for the Main Street NYC series, which examines the recession’s impact on neighborhoods across the city.

You can listen to the story by pressing play below or visiting WNYC’s web site .

The history of Victory Boulevard is like that of a lot of American Main Streets.

It was once part of a thriving downtown area until the development of suburbs drew the middle class community away from an urban center, and left areas like the northern end of Victory largely abandoned.

However, immigration to Staten Island over the past ten years has revitalized this part of the Island, which has stores that represent virtually every corner of the globe. While immigrants were once one out of ten residents in Staten Island in 1990, they are now one out of four residents. Ten percent of these immigrants own their own businesses, but the recent economic downturn has left many business owners struggling.

A&C Beauty Supply is a store that serves the Island’s African community, largely made up of Liberian and Senegalese immigrants.

Its owner, Adam, who is from Senegal, says that he noticed the downturn more than a year ago. Customers who were once avid purchasers of wigs and hair care products, now barely enter. On the day I stopped in, Adam had no customers in his store.

Kelvin Hanaf is the owner of Island Roti, a Carribbean takeout joint that serves food from his native Trinidad.

When I spoke with him he was at his wit’s end. “No one’s coming in,” he complained, saying that he would usually see weekend traffic start to pile into his store on a Thursday afternoon.

He joked that customers are cutting back so much that if they want to eat chicken roti they order a roti and cook their own chicken. Hanaf has cut prices by 50 cents on every item, and says that he just can’t afford to take the prices any lower.

Mosen Ibrahim also complains that penny pinching by the Island’s residents has taken a toll on his business. Moe’s Cafe, which he started five years ago, is one of the few places on Staten Island where you can find Mediterranean food and other dishes from Ibrahim’s native Egypt.

He was lured to Staten Island for the same reasons that many immigrants came — affordable home prices, the chance to start a business on the cheap and a small immigrant community from his native country. However, since the downturn Ibrahim has had to turn to his bank to stay afloat. They extended his mortgage, but he doesn’t mince words on what business is like right now. “Times are tough,” he said. “They’re tough for everybody but for the food business, when 80 percent of the people stop eating outside…” He trailed off with a laugh.

So who is doing well on Victory? Some of the haircutting salons like Against Da Grain Barber Shop report that even in a slow economy you still have to look good. This is one of the few stores on Victory that was crowded with customers the day I visited.

A hair braiding salon, named after its owner, Bissou, also reports that business is slowly picking back up. “A few months ago we were sitting here doing nothing,” Bissou, a Senegalese immigrant, told me, “So I can say that business is getting a little bit better.”

The one success story on Victory Boulevard, and perhaps for the future of immigrant-owned businesses on Staten Island, is Tulcingo Travel, a Mexican paquetería that facilitates the shipping of remittances and care packages between the United States and Mexico.

Immigrant entrepreneurs usually cater to their own communities, and in recent years the Mexican population on Staten Island has spiked, providing store owners who serve this community a buffer in these tough times. A Tulcingo worker told me that business had dropped off for about two months when the crisis first hit last fall, but things are back to normal now.

Could this bright spot on this struggling street mean that there is a silver lining to this crisis after all?

Cleared Of Charges, Conn. Priest Accuses Police of Racial Profiling and Harassment Against Hispanics

By Aswini Anburajan, FI2W reporter

Father James Manship, outside the New Haven courthouse. (Photo: New Haven Independent)

No sooner had prosecutors in Connecticut dropped charges of disorderly conduct and interfering with police activity against Rev. James Manship, than the Roman Catholic priest announced a campaign to have federal authorities look into charges of racial profiling and harassment of Hispanics by East Haven, Ct. police.

On the night of his arrest, Manship, of St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in New Haven, had been videotaping police at a local store owned by Ecuadorean immigrants who had complained that police harassment of Hispanic customers had caused fear in their community and a sharp drop in business.

Manship videotaped police officers as they removed license plates from the walls of My Country Store. The owners claimed the plates were just there for decoration, while officers argued that the store owner had illegally bought them.

Officers told Manship to stop videotaping, and when he didn’t, they arrested him. The officers later claimed that Manship had been holding an “unknown shiny silver object,” which caused them to fear it was a gun, according to The New York Times.

However, a fifteen-second video clip released by Manship’s lawyers shows an officer asking Manship, “Is there a reason you have a camera on me?”

Connecticut Back in Crosshairs of Immigration Debate: Priest Arrested For Videotaping Police

By Aswini Anburajan, Feet In 2 Worlds reporter

James Manship in court. (Photo: New Haven Independent)

Father James Manship of St. Rosa of Lima Catholic Church in New Haven, Conn. pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of disorderly conduct and interfering with police. Father Manship was arrested by police in nearby East Haven after videotaping town police officers who he claims have been harassing Latino immigrants for a period of several months.

The case once again puts Connecticut at the center of the debate over the treatment of undocumented immigrants. In 2007 New Haven became the first city in the nation to offer ID cards to undocumented residents, allowing them access to municipal services. The Elm City Resident Cards have drawn sharp criticism and court challenges. In communities near New Haven, some say the hostility toward Latino immigrants goes even further.

“My arrest is the tip of a toxic iceberg of racial profiling by East Haven police,” Manship told reporters at a press conference following his court hearing.

On February 19th, police ordered owners of My Country Store, a Latino-owned market in East Haven, to remove license plates that they had used to decorate store windows, claiming they were inappropriately using government property.

Manship, who was in the store, began to film the officers, who then arrested him, claiming that they believed the priest was holding a weapon. (The New Haven Independent’s website has the police report.)

Best Picture? Slumdog Millionaire Sparks Heated Debate Among Indians About Their Country’s Image: News Analysis From FI2W

By Aswini Anburajan, Feet in Two Worlds reporter

It was easier with Gandhi. Now that’s a movie a country and its people can love, wrap their arms around, and shout praise to. Love, peace, and Satyagraha (nonviolent resistance) — they roll off the tongue with an easy lilt that represents the best of what India has to offer.

Not the case with Slumdog Millionaire. There’s the ambiguity. What does it mean? There’s the connotation. The only other compound word that begins with “slum” and easily comes to mind is slumlord. It doesn’t quite inspire you to go out and change the world.

A scene from Slumdog Millionaire

On the surface it appears that India is celebrating the success of Slumdog Millionaire, the unlikely independent, low-budget film that swept the Oscars. Thousands crowded the airport in Mumbai to greet the cast upon their return from the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. The evening news in the U.S. beamed back images of the film’s youngest stars riding the shoulders of the crowd, their small hands clutching golden statuettes to shouts of “Jai Ho,” the title of A.R. Rahman’s Oscar-winning song from the movie.

But the post-Oscar celebrations and the Western embrace of Slumdog Millionaire mask a heated debate over the movie among Indians around the world.

Listserves for Indian American groups, such as the South Asian Women’s Collective in New York and South Asian Sisters in San Francisco, are brimming with comments about the film and links to blogs written by amateur and professional writers who either praise or condemn the film’s depictions of corruption and poverty. The South Asian Journalist Association (SAJA) has held four webcasts to date to discuss the implications of the movie and the heated controversy it has generated. Rediff.com, the largest Indian news website, has an entire page dedicated to international coverage of Slumdog.

The arguments range from the right to tell the story – India seen at its worst through British eyes doesn’t help the film’s cause – to charges that the film’s producers and British director Danny Boyle exploited the young children in the movie, plucked them from the slums, paid them little and failed to provide additional compensation when the film shot to global prominence.

News Analysis: Geithner’s Problems Refocus Attention on Undocumented Gardeners and Housekeepers

Aswini Anburajan, FI2W contributor

Democrats and Republicans alike appear to have little stomach to derail the nomination of Tim Geithner, President-elect Obama’s pick for Secretary of Treasury, despite his failure to pay $43,000 in taxes on time, and his hiring of a housekeeper who briefly lacked proper work papers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dismissed Geithner’s troubles this week as “a few little hiccups” in the nomination process.

Does political dismissal of Geithner’s troubles reflect a change in attitudes toward issues like the hiring of undocumented workers?

Little attention has been given to Geithner’s hiring of the worker, whose legal papers expired while she was employed him. Instead pundits and papers have focused on the irony that the man who will lead the Internal Revenue Service can’t figure out how much he owes in taxes.

Geithner (Getty Images/Wall Street Journal)

Geithner’s hiring of a housekeeper whose work papers expired should be noted, not as a criticism, but as a reality that the 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country are interwoven in the American workforce.

Geithner isn’t the first public official in this situation. In the presidential primaries, as Republican Mitt Romney campaigned around the country promising to crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the Boston Globe revealed that undocumented workers had been part of the landscaping firm hired by the Romneys.

Two of President Bill Clinton’s nominees for attorney general, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were both disqualified for hiring nannies that were undocumented and for not paying social security taxes on their wages.

Two Bangladeshis and An Argentinean Walk Into A Polling Place …

Mohammed, Khandkar and Sandra talk to Aswini Anburajan outside P.S. 69 in Jackson Heights.

JACKSON HEIGHTS, NY – Aswini Anburajan, FI2W reporter

Only in New York City, and especially only in Queens, would this reporter find herself surrounded by three loqacious voters of such different origins — two Bangladeshi men and one Argentinean woman – all eager to break down the reasons why they were voting for Barack Obama.

Mohammed Rahamatullah and Khandkar Haque are good friends and six-year residents of Jackson Heights. They list healthcare and changing world opinion about the U.S. as their top reasons to vote. Haque says that this is his first presidential election. He’s been a U.S. citizen for less than a year.

Rahamatullah joked that the world cares so much about this election that his brother called him from Bangladesh last night to remind him to go to the polls.

Sandra Hidalgo, originally from Argentina, is a 35-year resident of Jackson Heights. She calls McCain “ugly,” says she’s sick of the Republican Party and declares that Obama is the best choice for Latinos. She raised the issue of immigration and questioned –like a Polish voter in Harlem did earlier today– why some people who had been in the country for years couldn’t apply for legal residency.

threevoters

Listen to Aswini Anburajan’s conversation with Sandra Hidalgo, Mohammed Rahamatullah, and Khandkar Haque.

Morning in Spanish Harlem: A Fifty-Something, Voting for the First Time

Voting in Brooklyn, by Elisbrown/Flickr.

NEW YORK, By Aswini Anburajan, FI2W Reporter

Lexington Ave. Running through Spanish Harlem is pretty quiet this morning, it looks like almost any other day. But voters are lined halfway down the block at the community center on 120th and Lexington. Small signs saying “vote aqui” and “vote here” line the wrought iron fences around the apartment buildings to guide the crowd.

Many here have voted before, but among the first timers there are a number of older African Americans.  Carl Duck is in his fifties and says “it’s time to make a change.”

Originally from North Carolina, Duck said he was one of the few in his family that hadn’t voted before. When his relatives heard he was headed to the polls today, they told him, “it was about time.”

To Duck, the economy is issue number one.  A homecare worker, he was recently laid off.

Tamar Owens and her rambunctious seven-year old daughter Oprie were also at the polls. Oprie shouted into the mic that “Obama!” was who she told her mom to vote for. Mrs. Owens only started voting in the past three years. She says its time to vote for change and that Obama represents it.  Though she’s African American she’s quick to stress that’s not the reason she’s voting for Obama.

“Its exciting to vote for a person that’s real. That’s real by heart by soul,” she said.

First-time or old-time, all the voters here seem to share a desire for “change.”

Why the Republican Party Should Embrace Immigrants

By Feet in Two Worlds reporter Aswini Anburajan

Of all the questions and fascinating possibilities raised by the 2008 election, one of the least pondered has been this: Will immigrants and ethnic minorities as a whole ever find a home in the Republican Party?

To put it another way, will the Republican Party embrace minority voters? Or do the desires of these voters and the GOP platform differ too widely to build a relationship between the two?

Here’s why this question matters: demographics. By 2050 the United States will be a majority minority nation, per projections by the Census Bureau. The impact of that demographic shift is already being felt politically, most significantly in the West where Latino voters have allowed Democrats a chance to win in states where they have struggled to be competitive in recent presidential elections.

A study from the William C. Velasquez Institute found that without Latino support in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, Obama’s lead in those states would either disappear or fall within the margin of error.

Latinos and Asians, especially those who are immigrants or the children of immigrants, are either solidly Democratic or trending that way. Newly naturalized voters are also voting Democratic. In this election that might make sense for several reasons: immigrant voters want change. Many voters, who aren’t white, also feel a kinship with Barack Obama. The closest we’ve come to such an ethnic identification may be John F. Kennedy and Irish Americans in the sixties.

But what about future elections? Will these voters be voting Democratic in 2010 and 2012 too?

The answer is most likely yes, for three reasons. First, and most important, is the problem minority voters have with the Republican brand. Republican opposition to immigration reform and movements like the Minute Men have reinforced the idea that the GOP is hostile to voters who aren’t white.

The second reason these voters may continue to vote Democratic is because the Democratic Party reached out to them in 2006 and again in 2008. The Obama Campaign in particular has focused on creating a grassroots army of Latino voters in the West, and has well-coordinated fund-raising programs throughout the country with Asian donors, many of whom are immigrants or the children of immigrants. These voters have now participated – and will most likely continue to participate – by running for office, working on future campaigns, and lobbying for their issues. If Democrats continue to be open to these voters and the issues they care for, then it’s likely that they will continue to vote Democratic.

Third, a study by the Immigration Policy Center says that children of immigrants will be a crucial voting bloc, not just in this election, but in future elections as well. Many of these children were born in the United States to undocumented parents. Their political identity, for better or for worse, may be shaped by what happens to their parents and their legal status.

It was reported in the past month that conservatives, regardless of who wins the White House, are planning a strategic retreat in Virginia after the election to decide on the future of a party that has already been badly damaged. The goal some conservatives have said is to see how the party can rebuild a national grassroots network in the way they did after the Carter victory.

But who will that new party and grassroots movement include?

A recent article by Pat Buchanan on RealClear Politics argued that with Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, they would pass immigration reform and flood the country with new citizens, all of whom would vote Democrat and leave regions, such as the West, completely out of reach of Republicans.

But perhaps Buchanan is suffering from a little inside –the-beltway myopia. The converse of that argument is that a flood of new citizens could provide both parties a pool of new voters to choose from. These voters, unlike those who have been born and raised in the United States, don’t have an ingrained party identification or set of stereotypes to associate with either Democrats or Republicans. This argument that was underscored by a recent survey of Indian American voters conducted by the Campaign for America’s Future.

Latinos were seen as Republican voters in 2004, won over by Republican outreach efforts that stressed a shared vision of the American dream and similar social values. Many Asian Americans also voted Republican, motivated by the desire for lower taxes and the message of personal responsibility. It’s only been in the past four years that these ethnic groups have made a significant shift to, or back to, the Democratic Party.

Rather than shy away from immigrant voters, the Republican Party, with its emphasis on conservative social values and the power of individual entrepreneurship, could win these voters over with the right arguments. In terms of sheer population their strength as a party may depend upon it. But they must be willing to demonstrate that the GOP is open to immigrants. Support for comprehensive immigration reform would be a step in that direction.

Who Won the Vice Presidential Debate?

If you can win a debate without answering a majority of the questions asked, Sarah Palin hit a home run. The Republican Vice Presidential nominee kept the debate on her own turf, returning to issues she felt comfortable talking about – energy, small town values, and taxes – and avoided delving into the nitty gritty of policies either foreign or domestic.

Asked about the subprime mortgage crisis, she went back to energy policy and taxes. Asked about whether she thought the Bush Administration had handled the Israel-Palestinian conflict well, she latched onto moderator’s Gwen Ifill’s mention of a two-state solution, limiting her comments to a policy issue that’s part of the colloquial dialogue about the Mideast and is widely approved of by all parties.

Palin also won on emotional appeal. She was likeable. She was funny and warm from the start. One of the best unexpected moments - she greeted Joe Biden at the start of the debate with a, “Can I call you Joe?”

She smiled broadly as she said over and over that Biden and Obama were too focused on the past, criticizing Bush’s record rather than offering better policies of their own. She seemed nice, next-door, homespun, even on the attack. But then didn’t we already know that about her?

Does that make someone worthy of being president? If Palin was expected to pass a commander in chief test, I wonder if voters felt she could step into those big shoes. The mention of Vice President Cheney’s use of his office made one think back to 9-11, when he played a significant role in helping govern the country. Could Palin do that?

That’s why Joe Biden won the night too. He showed a fluency with subjects and topics that make those uncomfortable with Barack Obama’s experience feel that there are people around him who would help him answer the 3AM phone call. Palin did not, but maybe that was never in Palin’s job description to begin with.

The nice thing as a viewer of this debate: It was civil. It was polite. It was nice to not see two candidates claw into each other for ninety minutes. But that raises another question.

Palin didn’t answer the questions. She made some mistakes. And Biden didn’t take the opportunities to go after her, as Palin at times attempted to do with him. It makes you wonder about the role of sexism, and did Biden treat her like any other opponent? Maybe that reflects the political manipulation of this campaign’s narrative. The McCain campaign turned questioning Palin about her past experience into charges of sexism. Would pushing Palin on the issues, calling her out about not answering the questions have been seen as Joe Biden unfairly going after her? It wouldn’t if he had been on stage with Hillary Clinton, as he often was during the primaries. Perhaps it’s experience-ism that was being practiced here, trying to purposely not show up someone who lacks knowledge of the issues.

To sum it up. No fireworks. No YouTube moments. Instead, a civil exchange on politics that will be remembered more for the hype that preceded it than what actually transpired over 90 minutes.