Latin@s en Nueva York: Draft

I've added more narrative here but this still needs more updating.

An altar dedicated to someone at a housing project in New Haven.

Grand Central Station. When I reached Stamford, Connecticut I took a commuter train into the city. From here I caught the C train into Brooklyn where I stayed with my gracious host, Quito, a photographer now attending grad school at NYU but who I knew from her artistic and political work in Minneapolis where she was co-executive director of the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network.

Quito Ziegler and her room mate Enrique--my NYC hosts. Enrique is from Spain and is a grad student in Geography.


A store in Spanish Harlem, aka El Barrio, Manhattan bridge, the skyline from Brooklyn.


Friend and filmmaker Cristina Ibarra who I know from our days at UT Austin. It turns out Cristina was moving her things into storage as in preparation for attending a month-long writing retreat in upstate New York. So Rafael Melendez, another Tejano living in NYC, and I helped her move on Monday. Cristina was scouting around for another place to live when she returns so we went to Queens where I met her potential neighbor,


Guillermo is from Bogota, Colombia. He has been living in NYC off and on since 1975. He owns a successful foreign car repair shop in Queens. His son is in the process of opening a shop in Miami. He told me his story of coming to to the US alone leaving his family behind for several years until he got settled here. Driven by economic reasons, he came as an undocumented worker through Laredo. It took him 3 times to cross using a coyote. Each experience was harrowing. Eventually he brought his wife and then his children. His children were born in Colombia but they were raised in NYC most of their life and fully identify with life here in the US. He said he misses his homeland but he understands that that is mostly nostalgia. His children and wife all have citizenship status, but his prior record with the INS have caused delays in final approval of his application. He now has several relatives here and has a strong community of Colombianos and other Latinos. We spoke of experiences with racism (stereotypes about Colombians and drugs) and Colombia's economic and political situation and U.S. - Latin American relations. His two children and three grandchildren all speak Spanish, something he and his wife have insisted upon--that they speak Spanish at home and English at school and in public life. Guillermo is in the process of writing a book about his journey to the U.S. While in NYC I finished reading Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario. If you haven't read it, I strongly recommend it to gain a better understanding of the horrific trials youth go through to come to the US on their own--often in an effort to reunite with their mothers who came here but have been unable to save enough money to pay for their passage.


On Tuesday I had a very full day of meetings. My first appointment was in Spanish Harlem with Dina Montes, a Tejana who graduated from St. Mary's University in San Antonio and went to Syracuse to earn her M.A. in journalism. She now works with UNICEF as a writer and editor for their publications unit.

I met with Louis Pagan, the founder of the blog, Latino Pundit: A Blog Born Out of Underrepresentation (http://www.latinopundit.com/). He'd contacted me a few weeks before my arrival in NYC and suggested that we meet. So we met at a coffee shop in Times Square and interviewed each other. Louis is Puerto Rican and white. He grew up in NYC without a strong sense of his Latino identity, but after completing high school his world grew larger and he began exploring his heritage.

Jose Sanchez, professor of political science and director of Urban Studies at Long Island University in Brooklyn.

A view of the harbor and the statue of liberty from the promenade in Brooklyn. Just around the corner is a playground where Jose took me see some of the many Latin American and African immigrant nannys who provide childcare for white children.


After interviewing Jose, I mentioned to him that someone had suggested I go to a park in Washington Heights where one could see the interesting phenomenon of women of color serving as nannies for young white children. A couple of years ago I saw a great play about this by a Latina playwright while in Chicago. Jose told me that one could see the same thing down the street in a park by the promenade. He walked me down there and sure enough it was very, very obvious. I spoke with one woman from Guyana. She was a bit hesitant to talk but told me that she was a mother herself and felt like she was part of the family for whom she provided childcare. I was a bit hesitant to approach others because I didn't want to intimidate them asking questions about their charges. Jose left to go back to his office and I hung around waiting for an opportunity to approach these two Latinas sitting on a bench. They did seem hesitant to talk to me, but they did give me some insight. I'll post some notes on this encounter I took on a recorder below.
Gabcast! Journey Across Our America #4 - Nanny notes




As I left the Promenade I took a shortcut through Albee Square and came across a protest against gentrification. Not only was this one residential building being threatened with eminent domain to build a parking lot, but so were three houses in the area that were part of the underground railroad. The organizational muscle was p;rovided by FUREE. From their website (http://www.furee.org/mission.html)
Families United for Racial and Economic Equality is a Brooklyn-based, multi-racial organization made up of almost exclusively women of color. We are organizing low-income families to build power to change the system so that all people's work is valued and all of us have the right and economic means to decide and live out our own destinies. We use direct action, leadership development, community organizing and political education to win the changes our members seek. Our guiding principle is that those directly affected by the policies we are seeking to change should lead the organization.
I happened to be there while a young Latina was being interviewed, so I captured some of this below.