The Census and Undocumented Immigrants: FI2W‘s Annie Correal on NPR‘s All Things Considered
Listen to the story about efforts to count undocumented Latino immigrants in Queens, NY.
Tag: Queens
Census Count Going Poorly in New York, Says City’s Immigrant Affairs Chief
A Bloomberg administration official says the number of New Yorkers who have mailed back their completed census forms “is horribly low right now.”
Reporter’s Notebook: The 2010 Census and the Challenge of Undocumented Immigrant Households
Fi2W launches its project on the Census with a radio piece and a live conversation on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show on hard-to-reach immigrant households.
Stimulus Funds Are Not Enough to Fight Foreclosures in New York
Homeowners in Bushwick have seen home prices sink 45% in two years. Hopes for the neighborhood’s revitalization rest on the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2, but its benefits are uncertain.
Luring Ecuadorian Immigrants Back Home: FI2W’s Jelena Kopanja on PRI’s The World
Feet in 2 Worlds reporter Jelena Kopanja produced a piece for PRI’s nationally-syndicated daily program The World about how Ecuador tries to convince its expats to return home.
The Year in Review: New York Ethnic Press Gains Influence And Politicians Pay Attention
In a city where 36% of the population is foreign-born, not reaching out to some 300 ethnic newspapers and magazines seems like an oddly missed opportunity. But recently this has started to change.
Stories
New York’s Number 7 Train, A Journey Through Immigrant America – A Feet in Two Worlds Video
The Number 7 train is nicknamed the “International Express” for the many immigrant communities it connects as it makes its way from the center of the city into Flushing, Queens.
Liu Becomes First Asian Elected to Citywide Office in New York
By Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, Polish Daily News and FI2W reporter
Liu and his son Joey during Tuesday’s victory party. (Photo: Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska)
[* Editor’s note: This article was amended to correct election results in the last paragraph.]
John C. Liu’s victory in the race for New York City comptroller on Tuesday marks the first time an Asian American has been elected to citywide office.
Ever since Liu won the Democratic nomination in a primary runoff on Sept. 29, excitement had been building in Asian neighborhoods — in Chinatown and Sunset Park, but especially in Flushing, Queens, the neighborhood where Liu lives and which he has represented for the last eight years in the city council. People constantly kept stopping him on the street to congratulate him.
“It takes a long time to walk now,” Liu said with a laugh recently.
Liu’s believes that his victory in the general election over Republican rival Joseph A. Mendola, and over three other Democratic candidates in the primary, was no accident. “We won this election in the streets,” he said, referring to his busy campaign schedule, which often included meeting average New Yorkers. Liu, 42, is also extremely meticulous and proper in his relations with people. He pays attention to the details and always returns phone calls from reporters.
New York Congressman Urges President Obama to Go Forward with Immigration Reform
New York Rep. Joseph Crowley. (Photo: Official website.)
Almost two months after the deadline Sen. Charles Schumer had set for himself to introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill on behalf of the Obama Administration, a congressman from New York called on the president to go forward with that initiative.
During a conference call Friday with immigration reform advocates, Democratic Rep. Joseph Crowley, who represents parts of Queens and The Bronx, “stressed the urgency for action on a comprehensive solution to our dysfunctional immigration system,” according to a press release from the New York Immigration Coalition.
“We need to maintain the momentum for comprehensive immigration reform, and I’m glad that we have advocates for reform who are willing to fight for what is best for our nation,” Crowley said, according to the statement.
While Schumer missed his own deadline for introducing a reform bill in the Senate, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) has announced he will soon introduce his own initiative in the House. The bills differ greatly, since the senator’s focuses on a slew of enforcement measures and “a crackdown on illegal immigration,” while Gutierrez’s stresses legalization for undocumented immigrants, family unity and humane enforcement.
Immigrant Neighborhoods in New York Continue to Reel From Mortgage Foreclosures and Job Losses
Photo: The Furman Center
By Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes, FI2W contributor
NEW YORK — Four years ago Jorge Guerrero, a 46-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, realized his dream of buying a house.
“They (real estate brokers) served everything on a silver tray for me,” Guerrero recalled in a phone interview in Spanish. “They told me that because my wife and I had a good income I didn’t even have to use my savings to buy a house, I could get a loan for the full price, rent the upper floor and the basement to pay the mortgage, and refinance to lower the interest rate.”
It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. He bought a house in Jamaica, Queens for $580,000. But things did not go quite as planned. The upstairs tenants failed to pay their rent for months, and Guerrero lost $10,000 in defaulted rents and legal fees.
“And then the whole economy went down and everything changed,” he said.
His wife, an accountant, was laid off from work in September of 2007; Guerrero suffered an accident at his workplace in July that will prevent him from working for at least six months. Today, after four years of making mortgage payments without a single interruption, he still owes $595,000 — $15,000 more than he spent on the house in 2005, while the actual value of the property has plunged to $500,000.
Guerrero’s options, which he explained with the precision of someone who has spent a lot of time researching, are foreclosure, bankruptcy or loan modification. While the latter is his preference, it is not an easy path. (more…)