Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Topics

Topics

Immigrants' Reaction To Tsunami Disaster


When the phone rang at four in the morning in his apartment in Elmhurst Queens, Pichet Rasmee feared the worst. He had just learned from the news about the tsunami that hit across South Asia, including Phuket, Thailand, where his two aunts were on vacation at their family resort.

“I dreaded picking up the phone,” Rasmee said in Thai. “Because I knew bad news was coming.” And it was. His brother was calling to tell him that the tidal wave had completely destroyed their family property in Phuket. Both of his aunts had drowned.

Unable to afford the trip for the funeral in Thailand, Rasmee gathered the day after New Year’s day with hundreds of Thais at the Thavorn Vanaram Buddhist Temple in Queens for a mass ceremony dedicated to tsunami victims.

“There’s not much I could do,” he said, “except donate money.”

Rasmee is not alone. After the news of the disaster reached New York the day after Christmas, immigrants around the city desperately tried to contact their loved ones and started to give donations to help out their homelands.

“The donation box was so stuffed with dollar bills,” Rasmee said, “I had to push my money in.”

According to Choltid Kempetch, a Thai Consulate staff member, the money collected at the Buddhist temple and other fundraising events will be managed by the Thai consulate and will be sent to Thailand’s hardest hit areas. The death toll in Thailand is now at 5,288.

Three other countries with the highest casualties are Indonesia (where the toll is at 94,200), Sri Lanka (30,240) and India (9,675), all of which have a sizeable population of their citizens living in New York. There are 68,300 legal immigrants from India in the city, 5,000 from Sri Lanka, 4,200 from Thailand and 2,800 from Indonesia, according to official figure.

Taniya Gunasekara, a native of Colombo, Sri Lanka, who lives in Spanish Harlem, was anxious when she could not reach her family.

“My sister was on vacation to see my mother in Colombo,” said Gunasekara. “The line was busy. It took me about two and a half hours to reach them.”

Gunasekara’s mother and sister were safe but some of her relatives are among the causalities in Sri Lanka. Like many New Yorkers, she decided to help out by donating her money through a Buddhist temple.

At the Buddhist Vihara Temple on Staten Island, where a large number of Sri Lankan immigrants live, monks are collecting foods, clothes and donations and will ship them to the area most affected.

“People from around the community have come over since the morning, and they drop off goods,” temple member Radha Hettiarachchy told Voice of America. “ I think it brought this community closer together.”

In Queens , New York City’s commissioner of Immigrant Affairs Guillermo Linares, along with other city officials, met on January 6 with representatives of the Jackson Heights Merchants Association, a group of 220 South Asian merchants, to show their support and to express the city's ongoing commitment to helping tsunami-devastated nations.

“This is a tragedy and everyone wants to help,” said the association’s president Shiv Dass. The group has placed more than 200 donation boxes in their members’stores and will ask the city to donate some money to the tsunami relief fund.

Even though most Indians in Jackson Heights are from North India – which was less affected by the disaster-- Dass expected the community to give support to the victims.

“We are going to raise about $40,000 and the money will go directly to the families,” he said. The association will send representative to deliver payments to relief agencies in South Asia.

Some are concerned that the relief fund will not reach the people who need it, especially in Aceh, Indonesia, where a conflict between Indonesian military and separatist rebels have been dragging on for decades. After the tsunami, both sides have agreed to a ceasefire.

“It is important that the international community not only send aid to Ache but to help monitor how things are distributed,” said Robert Jerski, a coordinator of the Indonesian Civil Society Coalition for the Victims of Earthquake and Tsunami. “There is a report that the government has only recently allowed aid to enter”

The coalition also organized a demonstration by Achenese in front of the United Nations in early January to call attention on how relief funds are being distributed.

“I would recommend sending money to local NGOs [non-governmental organization] instead of sending it to major organizations,” said Aceh native Munawar Zanal who lost 20 of his extended family members. “It will get there faster than by going through government bureaucracy.”

 

How To Help:

• Action Against Hunger
• American Friends Service Committee
• American Red Cross
• CARE
• International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent
• International Medical Corps
• International Rescue Committee
• Mercy Corps
• Network for Good
• Operation USA
• Oxfam America
• Save the Children
• Unicef
• World Food Programme

 

An immigrant from Bangkok, Thailand, Chaleampon Ritthichai is the editor of The Citizen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2004: Shorter Lines, Just As Much Frustration


Many immigrants will look back at 2004 as the year when the long lines in front of the immigration office disappeared. That is because appointments can now be made online.

But when the year began, immigrants and their advocates had far higher hopes than just shorter lines. Many thought that there would be an amnesty for undocumented immigrants similar to the one created by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. That did not happen. Here is what did:

Bush’s Guest Worker Program

President George W. Bush unveiled in February his guest worker program that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a three-year work permit if they were sponsored by their employers. They would enjoy other rights as well, such as a guaranteed minimum wage and union benefits.

But immigrant advocates only half-heartedly supported the program. They argued that while the proposal benefits low-skilled workers who are unable to get a work permit through regular channels, it does not offer a path to permanent residency (getting the “green card”) or to citizenship, without which the guest workers will have to leave the country eventually.

”Under the guise of immigration reform, the president has proposed a temporary worker program which does not lead to permanent residency and citizenship and essentially says to the immigrant community ‘work hard, pay taxes, and then get lost,’” said Margie McHugh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.

Ironically, the program also failed to gain support in Congress, because many representatives viewed it as too lenient – a kind of amnesty for undocumented immigrants. The issue faded as the campaign season heated up. Less than three weeks after his re-election, President Bush said he was committed to the program and will "find supporters on the Hill and move it."

Drivers License

The New York Department of Motors Vehicles began crosschecking drivers’ social security numbers with information at the Social Security Administration. In March the agency sent out letters to 112,000 New Yorkers asking them to come in and explain why their social security numbers did not match. Anybody who does not report within 15 days of receiving such a letter risks having his license suspended.

Many believe the new policy is another crackdown on undocumented immigrants, many of whom use fake social security numbers to apply for driver licenses, according to New York Immigration Coalition.

The Department of Motors Vehicles estimated that 300,000 immigrants are likely to lose their licenses. Immigrant rights advocates fear that some immigrants will go on driving without a license or insurance.

"I need my van to bring food here every day,” a Honduran immigrant who has a mobile lunch station in Corona, Queens told Akhon Samoy, a Bengali newspaper. “I have no choice but to drive. This is my living. I don’t care if I have an ID or not.”

Facing the prospect that many immigrants will go on driving without a driver license, the Department of Motors Vehicles in September said it will review a proposal for a limited "One -Year Immigrant Driver Permit" that could allow hundreds of thousands of drivers now facing license suspension to stay on the road legally.

Regulating Immigration Consultants

Governor George Pataki signed in September a new law that would regulate immigration-consulting businesses.

 

Under the new law, immigration service providers can transcribe responses to government agencies; translate instructions and questions from forms, assist in getting documentation. However, they are prohibited from giving legal advice to clients.

But there is sharp disagreement over the role of immigrant assistance service providers, some questioning whether the new laws won't legitimize an occupation that shouldn't really exist at all.

According to a federal law, only attorneys and accredited individuals or non-profit organizations can represent immigrants.

Proponents of the bills argue that regulating, instead of outlawing, immigration service providers, allows some room for legitimate businesses to exist. But lawyers said it is difficult for immigrant assistance service providers to avoid giving legal advice. They are considering constitutional challenges on the ground that these bills go against federal law.

INFOPASS

Following Miami, Dallas and Los Angeles, the immigration agency in New York City implemented Infopass in late July to help curb the waiting line for walk-in cases.

Infopass is an online appointment system that will allow immigrants to make an appointment without going to Federal Plaza themselves.

Because the agency can only take up to about 150 walk-in cases a day, people started to line up earlier and earlier, and the line got longer and longer. According to the agency, 1,400 people visit the New York office on a daily basis.

Within weeks of its implementation, the long line in front of the building disappeared. But critics said Infopass will only change the way people have to wait.

”Instead of waiting three or four hours outside to be told that their case is pending,” said Dan Smulian of the New York Immigration Coalition, “now they will get an appointment online and go in to the building to be told that their case is still pending.”

An immigrant from Bangkok, Thailand, Chaleampon Ritthichai is the editor of The Citizen. 

Looking On The Hopeful Side For 2005


To many New Yorkers who are engaged in the struggle for civil liberties, the signs lately are not so good. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, for example, sits on a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee that used to be called the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights and Civil Liberties. Now it’s just called the Constitution Subcommittee. “They dropped civil liberties,” he said.

“Today our most fundamental rights are in jeopardy,” Anthony Romero, director of the New York-based American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in a recent direct mail appeal.

But some also insist that, as they set their agendas for 2005, they see reason for hope. “At least on the local level, there is no attack that is not being met with resistance,” said New York City Councilmember Bill Perkins, who cites as an example the continued battle by demonstrators arrested at the Republican National Conventionthis summer to recover damages and preserve the right to protest.

Margaret Fung, director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, sees hope locally as well: “The entire nation will be looking to us for our leadership and example.”

Some other reasons they see for hope:

Housing Discrimination

The City Commission on Human Rightsmoves into 2005 with its backlog of cases removed and a more aggressive posture towards new cases, actively sending testers out to uncover human rights abuses, particularly in the real estate market. They recently collected fines in excess of $50,000 in two such housing cases, the first time fines have ever been collected by the agency.

Immigrant Rights

Bryan Pu-Folkes, a City Human Rights Commissioner and director of New Immigrant Coalition Empowerment, thinks it is hopeful “that many communities are responding favorably to immigrants in local elections,” and that local public officials are active in immigrants rights.

Perkins will be introducing a bill into the City Council in 2005 to give resident non-citizens the right to vote in municipal elections, the way they were able to in school board elections if they had children in the schools. “It’s another part of that historic movement toward all people participating in democracy and getting a say in how their tax dollars are being spent,” Perkins said.

At the top of Pu-Folkes’s agenda for next year is protecting the rights of immigrants in New York’s “underground economy,” particularly winning them access to health care and enforcing safety regulations on their jobs.

Gay Rights

While most states now ban same-sex marriage, Alan Van Capelle, director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state gay and lesbian lobby, said, “One of the most hopeful things is that New York remains one of only a handful of states without a Defense of Marriage Act. That allows our conversation about our relationships and the rights connected to them to continue in New York. While other states are regressing, we’re moving forward slowly.” State Senator David Paterson is even talking about pushing a same-sex marriage bill in the state legislature.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who is legally battling City Council legislation to expand domestic partner benefits to those who work for contractors, broke his string of rebukes to gay activists when he followed the lead of State Comptroller Alan Hevesi and called on the city pension boards to recognize employees in the system who marry same-sex partnersin Canada or elsewhere as married.

Abortion Rights

Many anticipate the end of Roe v. Wade, which gave women the right to choose abortion, as President George W. Bush gets to replace United States Supreme Court Justices expected to retire.

But Mary Alice Carr, director of advocacy programs for the New York chapter of the National Abortion Rights Action League/Pro-Choice America, prefers to look for hopeful signs locally: “We’re lucky we have a city and state which regardless of party supports a woman’s right to choose.” She said that in 2005, “we’ll be working with the city to increase access to emergency contraception.”

Death Penalty

Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said, “The good news is that the state legislature has reason to get the message that people are fed up with the lack of democratic process in Albany and the three-men-in-a-room system of governance.” She noted that the assembly has not “jumped to reinstate the death penalty and may refuse to jump on that issue given the massive evidence of discrimination and fallibility in the death penalty nationwide.”

On the other hand, there is just so far these civil libertarians go in looking at the silver lining that is New York. In 2005, Lieberman said, her top priority will have to be “fighting the Bush administration’s assault on fundamental rights that we thought we could take for granted.”

Andy Humm is a former member of the City Commission on Human Rights. He is co-host of the weekly "Gay USA" on Manhattan Neighborhood Network (34 on Time-Warner; 107 on RCN) on Thursdays at 11 PM.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Print Friendly and PDF

Editor's Choice


Gotham Gazette: New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
Gotham Gazette: 
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
Gotham Gazette: 
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Gotham Gazette: 
City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years