Mott Haven Herald

Mott Haven immigration festival mixes culture and politics

Posted on 11. Aug, 2010 by Joe Hirsch.

Immigrants and U.S. citizens filled Brook Park on July 24, defying record heat to celebrate Latin American heritage and to voice their anger over Arizona’s controversial law aimed at finding and punishing undocumented immigrants.

At the second annual Festival of Immigrants in the South Bronx’s biggest community garden between 140th and 141st Streets on Brook Avenue, over a hundred came to feast on quesadillas, see and hear Latin American music and dance, and to share their opposition to the Arizona law.
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Mott Haven mural depicts immigrants’ dream

Posted on 10. Aug, 2010 by Toyin Adebanjo.

Last summer, a colorful mural titled “Y yo ya estaba! I was already here!” took shape on the parking lot wall of Iglesia Evangélica Española, the Bronx Spanish Evangelical Church on the block of East 156th Street between Tinton and Union avenues.

Artist Virginia Ayress invited residents and members of the congregation to pick up paint brushes and help create a work she hoped would start conversations about immigrants at a time of heated debate about the nation’s policies toward those who arrive from other countries.

In an interview, Ayress said she wanted to educate the public about the history of immigration, including the violence that accompanied the settling of the nation. “Native Americans were the first ones here, were killed and then other groups came,” she said. (more…)

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Mercy Center throws lifeline to Mott Haven families

Posted on 09. Aug, 2010 by Toyin Adebanjo.

Heidy Rios knows what it’s like to be poor. Born and raised in the Bronx, for a time she had so little money that she and her children lived in an apartment that had no stove or refrigerator. She kept food cold by putting it on the windowsill during the winter.

She remembers being fearful and embarrassed when she went to job interviews. She didn’t know how to turn on a computer, let alone use one.

Then, one day when she dropped her children off at St. Pius V School on East 144th Street, Rios found a flyer advertising the services of Mercy Center, which was headquartered at the school at the time. (more…)

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In the news, July 26-August 1

Posted on 26. Jul, 2010 by editor.

Beginning a string of three homicides in seven days, 18-year-old Troynisha Harris was killed by a man who jumped from a Lincoln Town Car and plunged a knife into her neck on July 24. Harris and a friend were sitting on a stoop on 166th Street at 3:30 a.m. when the attacker struck. When Harris’s companion struggled with him, he stabbed him in the stomach, then fled. On Saturday, police released video of the attack in an effort to find the killer.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m. Sunday a man was shot and killed at 681 Courtlandt Avenue in Melrose, the Daily News reported. Police did not identify the victim, who was in his 20s, and whose bodies was riddle with bullets, they said.

A well-known resident died Wednesday, four days after he was beaten and stomped by thieves who stole his cell phone. Surveillance cameras caught the attack by four men, who beat and kicked Juan Lopez, 54, as he was returning to his home on Cauldwell Avenue. “There wasn’t one person in the neighborhood who didn’t know my father,” his daughter Melissa Lopez told the Daily News. “Nobody can believe that anyone could do such a brutal thing to my father.”

Former waitresses at a Mott Haven strip club have filed suit in federal court, charging that were groped, had to fend off sexual demands from their bosses and had their tips stolen. “They degraded us, they insulted us. They touched us,” Jasmine Felipe, 26, of the Bronx told the Daily News about working at Sin City, the club on Park Avenue and East 138th Street that bills itself as “New York City’s # 1 Strip Club!”

When Congress voted to spend $37 million Tuesday to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rep. Jose Serrano, who represents Mott Haven and Hunts Point, voted No. Serrano called for an end to the Afghanistan war, and said e U.S. forces should leave Pakistan unless Congress gives specific authority for them to be there. “I believe that sending forces to Afghanistan after 9/11 to root out the terrorists, their supporters and their training camps was the correct move. Nine years later, I believe that it is past time to end our involvement in that nation, because it is clear we are stuck in a quagmire and not on the road to peace or victory,” he said after the vote, which won approval for President Barack Obama’s policy 308-114 with many Democrats voting against the expenditure while Republicans voted with the White House. If military involvement in Pakistan were to be put to a vote, Serrano said, he would vote No again.

Every year, police forces across the country hold a one-day summer event called “National Night Out” to bring police officers and community residents together to discuss local issues and concerns outside the tense environment of precincts and meeting rooms. This year’s event in Mott Haven will take place in St. Mary’s Park on St. Ann’s Avenue on Tuesday, August 3rd, where officers from the 40th precinct will be present. Among this year’s featured events, high school students and adult volunteers from the United Playaz organization will stage an event to promote the need for peaceful conflict resolution among young people. The event is scheduled to run between 3 and 8 p.m.

Brook Park in Mott Haven was the scene for the second annual Festival for Immigrants on July 24, as hundreds gathered to hear activists speak out against Arizona’s controversial new law, which many feel discriminates against Latinos. There were musical and dance performances, including the Mexican traditional dance troupe Cetilizli Naucampa, which performs dances based on the Nauhatl traditions. Speakers called on the public to join a planned protest against the Arizona Diamondbacks when they visit Citifield in Queens to play the Mets on Friday, July 30.

The Bronx Culture Trolley will make its next run on Wednesday, Aug. 4, with a number of stops in Hunts Point and Mott Haven, including 52 Park, The Point CDC, Bronxartspace, LDR Studio Gallery and the Bruckner Bar and Grill. The free ride begins at Longwood Art Gallery, Hostos Community College, 450 Grand Concourse at East 149th Street.

Cecil Joseph, who was briefly the interim Bronx Borough President when his boss Stanley Simon was indicted for corruption in the mid 1980s, has opened a new McDonald’s across from Lincoln Hospital. After heading the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, Joseph, who grew up in the Patterson Houses, turned entrepreneur, forming a company to acquire fast food franchises.

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Melrose eatery is more than a restaurant

Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Carla Candia.

A Puerto Rican man in his 60s stormed into Coqui Mexicano, the restaurant on Brook and Third Avenues recently. He was offended by eatery’s name. “That is wrong,” he said. “The Coqui is not from Mexico; it is from Puerto Rico.”

Indeed, the coqui is a little frog commonly found in Puerto Rico, and the visitor’s reaction when he saw the name of the place is not the first of its kind that Diego and Nazario have witnessed. “Puerto Ricans feel offended because the coqui is from Puerto Rico,” said Danisha Nazario, 35, who owns the restaurant along with Alfredo Diego, 39.

Offended national pride aside, however, Melrose residents as well as those who work in the area have adopted the little restaurant, which opened two years ago. And as far as its owners are concerned, the name is a symbol of the fusion of cultures represented on the restaurant’s menu. (more…)

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A taste of a Mexican city on a Mott Haven street

Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Carla Candia.

Whenever Sabino Sanchez feels homesick, instead of boarding a plane to Puebla, Mexico, he goes to La Fiesta Mexicana in Mott Haven and has a Cemita.

The Cemita, a sandwich filled with avocado, chipotle chili, an herb called Papalo, Oaxaca cheese and chicken or meat, is one of the Mexican city’s typical treats. (more…)

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South Bronx Action Group says “We’re still here”

Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Juan DeJesus.

For 40 years the South Bronx Action group helped tenants who lived in Mott Haven, Melrose and Port Morris. Then in February, the organization lost its home.

Forced by cuts to its funding from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to leave the offices on East 149^th Street where its staff had counseled tenants on housing and citizenship issues, South Bronx Action did what many individuals do—it moved in with a relative. (more…)

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Mexican children find place to learn in Mott Haven

Posted on 07. Dec, 2009 by Christina Herrera.

Guadalupe Herrera breathed a sigh of relief as she looked at the walls filled with children’s paintings in the basement of St. Pius V Church on East 145th Street.

Finally, she can help her son Victor, a first-grader at P.S. 179 at 140th Street, with his schoolwork, she said in her native Spanish.

“I used to pay $25 dollars a week to have someone translate my kid’s homework from English to Spanish in order for me to help him,” she said.

Mexicans are the fastest-growing immigrant group in New York City, and many parents who speak only Spanish face the same dilemma of how to help their children succeed in English-speaking classrooms.

The Mott Haven church has become the headquarters for an organization that works to help these families. MASA, the Mexican-American Students Alliance, provides mentors who help children with homework and school work and helps parents build bridges to their children’s schools.

In the program, children get help with homework and take art classes. For older students, there are workshops to help them prepare for college. Parents have access to ESL classes.

Although MASA welcomes students from any ethnic background, its focus from the beginning has been helping children who are either immigrants from Mexico or the U.S.-born children of Mexican immigrants.

Mexicans have the highest high school drop-out rate in the city, according to Francisco Rivera Batiz, a professor at Columbia Teachers College. Close to 60 percent of Mexican New Yorkers aged 25 years or older had not completed high school in 2000, more than double the percentage of New Yorkers generally.

The school system itself is partly to blame, believes Angelo Cabrera, a founder of MASA. “Our guess is because they have a Spanish surname or because their parents don’t speak the language, they are put in schools with very limited resources,” he said.

“We cannot change their legal status or change their financial situation, but we change their education,” said Cabrera. “We are not looking for outstanding students; we are trying to help out those who are flunking out.”

Martha Castellanos’ 8-year-old son Rony was one of those children. Last year Castellanos got a call from Rony’s teacher telling her he was going to be left back. That spring, at the Cinco de Mayo Festival, she heard an announcement about MASA. She’s been bringing Rony and his 4-year-old brother David to St. Pius V ever since. Now Rony participates actively in spelling bees and has won many achievement awards, which are displayed on the walls of MASA.

All the classes and workshops are conducted by volunteers who serve as mentors.

The program looks for “college students or high school students who are college bound, interested in the well-being of the community” says Gregory Tull, 23, the coordinator of volunteers.

Margarita Verastegui teaches art. Originally from Spain, she has been a volunteer for a year and a half. Through art, she says, “Kids develop a different type of skill sets. They are more confident as well.” Mothers joined Verastegui in art class last Christmas to teach their children how to make piñatas.

Parents also work to help the program as a whole succeed. Last September 15, MASA parents celebrated Mexico’s Independence Day by putting together a sale of typical Mexican food to help raise funds for arts and crafts materials.

Fernanda Rico, a psychology student from Iberoamericana University in Mexico City who is currently doing a four-month internship with MASA, believes the parents’ involvement is a mark of success.

“They come here and you see them put up the tables, tidy up and clean. That is a testament of them wanting to be here,” she said.

“Something is working here. Part is the help with school work, part of it is a sense of belonging to MASA, and that’s something very valuable.”

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

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Alliance is an organization born in protest

Posted on 07. Dec, 2009 by Christina Herrera.

By Cristina Herrera Borquez
Cristina@motthavenherald.com

MASA was unofficially born in 2001, in response to the drastic changes in immigration policy after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11. When the City University of New York and the State University of New York declared that undocumented immigrant students would have to pay out-of state-tuition, even if they had lived in New York for years, students launched protests.

One of their leaders was Angelo Cabrera, an undocumented student who immigrated to the United States when he was 15 years old from Puebla, Mexico. After meetings, rallies and a hunger strike that lasted four days, in August 2002, Gov. George Pataki signed a law revoking the tuition provision.

From that protest grew MASA. Realizing that the number of Mexican students enrolling in college was disproportionately low, its founders decided to create a support system for struggling students.

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

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Searching for work on a Mott Haven street corner

Posted on 28. Nov, 2009 by editor.

By Carla Candia
carla.candia@journalism.cuny.edu

Dozens of day laborers dressed in ripped jeans and worn t-shirts stood on the corner of East 141st Street and Jackson Avenue in the Bronx one morning this Fall.

The wind was blowing, and many workers wore sweaters and had their hands tucked in their pockets. They were eating sandwiches and drinking coffee provided by an evangelical group called Together in Misericordia.

“We see their needs and want to help them,” Ramon Mendez, a member of the religious organization, speaking in Spanish, as did all those interviewed for this story.

These days the men who wait for contractors to hire them for the day need all the help they can get. Things have been slow at “La Parada,” which means “The Stop.” (more…)

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