Eduardo A. de Oliveira, a Brazilian-born reporter for New England Ethnic News and a Feet in 2 Worlds contributor, appeared this morning on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, New York Public Radio, to describe the scene in the battleground state of New Hampshire.
You can listen to that segment of the show here.
Speaking today on PRI’s The World Aswini Anburajan talks about the reasons so many first-time immigrant voters showed up at the polls today in New York City.
Press play to listen to her conversation with The World host Lisa Mullins or click here to visit the show’s page.
[audio:http://64.71.145.108/audio/1104086.mp3]GREENPOINT, NY – Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, Polish Daily News and FI2W reporter
A long line of voters crowded around P.S. 34 on Norman Avenue in Greenpoint, a predominantly Polish neighborhood in Brooklyn. The line was at times so long –in the morning at any given moment there were around 300 voters– that some people just gave up, saying they would have to come back later. Others were hoping that their employers would understand and would not punish them for coming late to work.
“I’ve never seen anything like that here,” said Krystyna Holowacz, a Greenpoint activist, while waiting for her turn to vote. “Usually it takes five to ten minutes to cast a vote in Greenpoint. Today it’s more than one hour.”
Some voters were very excited to take part in this historic election, others looked very serious and described their participation as a duty.
Older Polish immigrants stood in line among numerous young Americans who have recently moved to this increasingly trendy neighborhood. And while election fever has strongly held the country in its grip for a long time, among Polish residents of Greenpoint this was a new phenomenon.
In the past, Polish immigrants, while deeply involved in their home country’s politics, were barely interested in the American electoral process. This year, however, despite differences in their opinions on who should be the next president, Poles were showing up at polling sites in much larger numbers than in previous years, with a new feeling of empowerment.
FI2W reporter Aswini Anburajan interviewed Polish voter Darius Gieczeweski in Manhattan. He voted for the first time in a U.S. presidential election this morning.
[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/fi2w_DariusG.mp3]
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.
All three voters talked with passion about the Democratic presidential candidate, declaring adamantly that voting for a Republican would just continue the current administration’s policies.
They also spoke with first hand knowledge of the recent economic crisis, saying that friends’ businesses had suffered tremendously.
Stores have closed in Jackson Heights and the ethnic restaurants that made the area famous in New York have seen their customer-flow dwindle to a trickle. Undocumented immigrants are the first to be hit, said Hidalgo, and she argued that problems in the economy ripple upward.
Polls are open for a few more hours in New York, and the lines are long and getting longer. Though the election hasn’t come to an end, and the votes haven’t been counted, at least in this part of New York people already seem to be celebrating.
John McDowell sat in his lawn chair at the Kemeny voting center in Detroit. He passed out Obama literature and smiled at the young people who came to vote.
“I’m one of the ones who can really appreciate voting,” McDowell said.
McDowell is originally from Louisiana but moved to Detroit in the 1960’s. He said he voted for the first time in 1955, but that was a humiliating experience.
“I was asked what party I belonged to and I told them Democrat,” he said. “They asked me to spell Democrat… I got one letter wrong, so they refused to register me.”
McDowell went home and looked up the word in the dictionary, swearing to never get it wrong again. He went back to the polling place, spelled the word correctly and registered to vote.
“I was lucky,” he said. “Some black people were asked to recite the Constitution.”
As McDowell told the story, 18-year-old Eric Ford stood by and listened. Ford was voting for the first time and said he was excited to make a stand and vote for change. He said that at his age he’s already worried about his future. “I look out here now and it’s scary,” he said.
Ford politely shook McDowell’s hand, then went inside to vote.
After early morning lines in most locations, where people voted before heading out to work, a steady stream of voters showed up at polling stations across this city where Barack Obama lives, and where he voted early morning before heading to a final campaign event in Indiana.
In Latino and African American neighborhoods, the sense of history, or just the need for change seemed to be on the minds of many.
Julia Morales, a precinct worker at the Rudy Lozano Library in the Latino neighborhood of Pilsen, said that about fifty people were lined up by 6 AM. She said it has been years since she has seen so much interest in an election. “More than ever,” she said.
Azalea Paramo, 19, voted at a polling place inside Taquería Los Comales, near the entrance to La Villita, the popular name for this neighborhood. She voted for Obama.
“I like what he stands for. I expect him to do everything he said. I am in college, so I am interested in the help he can give us to make higher education more affordable and available,” said Paramo, who is taking courses in massage therapy.
In the Division neighborhood, where Puerto Rican flags adorn windows and businesses, Angel Green voted at the St. Mark Catholic Church. His choice: Obama.
Why?
“Because I am poor,” said Green. “If I was rich I would vote for McCain. It makes no sense for the poor to vote for McCain.”
Wenda Desauguste outside a polling site in South Florida.
Something had to be done with those boys. As their parents voted inside a local church, the boys, about seven of them, ran around the parking lot and in an adjacent lot — impatient.
Wenda Desauguste, 25 and a football coach, stepped up. Within minutes, the boys were on the ground doing push-ups, spinning wheels and other exercises.
Desauguste said she and four other friends came to the church, at North Andrews Avenue and Northeast 13th Street, to vote — some of them for the first time.
“Who are we supporting, guys?” she asked the boys.
“Obama, Obama,” they said, puffing, while they continued with their exercises.
By then, the boys were sweating. The sun had burst through by mid-afternoon, after a temperate morning, and it now beat down on the few voters waiting outside the polling location.
Nelson Garache, 32, and Joseph Beautelus, 48, were also waiting there.
Throughout New York City there have been reports that voters have been asked to show identification, in violation of New York election law.
Laura Matthews, a second year law student at the City University of New York, said that voters in Jackson Heights were asked to show ID and were told it was because of the difficulty of understanding their names.
Matthews said the other main problem in immigrant neighborhoods was the lack of interpreters, and that voters for whom English is a second language felt pressured at the polls to try and get through the materials quickly.
Unlike in Harlem, however, poll watchers are thronging the election sites checking to see that voters’ rights weren’t violated.
Students like Laura are volunteering through the Asian American Legal Defense Fund.
Coming from Manhattan, you can feel the difference as you step off the subway platform at 72nd St. and Broadway in Queens.
A primarily ethnic community, Jackson Heights is home to, among many others, Colombian, Asian and South Asian immigrants.
Outside the polling place at P.S. 69, Spanish-language TV stations are interviewing voters. There are signs posted everywhere to let voters know interpreters are available, and the soundtrack of the street is a mix of languages.
Voters stream in and out of the polling site, pausing to talk to neighbors and the occasional reporter. Some people are just hanging out by parked cars, immigrants who can’t vote but are fascinated by the unfolding process of American democracy.
On this Election Day, Chinatown in Manhattan is not hustle-and-bustle as usual. Stores see smaller crowds due to the closure of government offices and schools. The unlikely busy places turned out to be the polling sites where a higher-than-ever turnout rate is observed.
There were no long lines at polling sites in Chinatown this morning. Voters were evenly spread throughout the morning. Voters reported they had no problems with the voting machines or language service at the sites. The local Board of Elections had allocated about 700 Chinese translators across the city.
At one of the rich pockets of votes in Chinatown, Confucius Plaza housing complex, poll workers said they saw more people coming out to vote. Stephen Chan, a translator on the site, told me that there were probably 30 percent more voters in the morning session than at comparable times in previous presidential elections.
Eddie Chao, a community advocate, has been watching the election since 6 AM. He estimated over 500 votes had been cast by 11 AM. He said this site recorded about 1,080 votes in the 2004 presidential election. “It should well exceed this record today,” Chao said.
Retirees and stay-at-home moms constituted the majority of people who voted during the day. I saw seniors in wheelchairs and housewives holding grocery bags come in to vote.
Justin Yu, president of Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also a resident of Confucius Plaza, estimated there is a 50-50 percent split between Barack Obama and John McCain supporters among local voters. The site home to most of Chinatown’s Republicans.
On the other side of Chinatown at P.S. 1, there were many first-time voters – new immigrants from Fukien province. Most voters here were concerned about the economy. Obama seemed to be better received among them.
Fukienese immigrant Ms. Chen, who declined to give her first name, voted while her 11-year-old daughter observed. She told me she believes the Democratic Party is more democratic and friendly to new immigrants and that’s why she voted for Obama.
“I want to give him a chance,” she said. “I certainly want him to fix the economy.”
Ellen Liu, 19, also voted for the first time. She never hesitated to vote for Obama. Asked how it felt to cast her first vote, she said: “Not what I expected, I thought at least the voting machine should be more high-tech than this.” New York State uses old-style voting machines.
Liu also said she was disappointed that the high publicity of the presidential election overshadowed the rest of the race.