Economy
Small Businesses On The Edge In Bay Ridge
Melanie Lefkowitz |
In an excerpt from the City Limits magazine investigation of small businesses in New York, a look at the holdouts along increasingly chain-ganged 86th Street.
Education
A 'D' For Details: Should The City Release Teachers' Ratings?
Helen Zelon |
As a businesswoman prepares to take over the city’s schools, New York’s teacher rating system—itself borrowed from the business world—stirs controversy.
Charles Schumer
Immigrant Youth Get Politically Active, Spurred By Proposed Law
Kristofer Rios |
Even as speculation mounts that Democrats will retrench in the face of historic Republican gains in the House, some immigrant youth plan to continue demanding greater rights.
Economy
The Holdouts
Melanie Lefkowitz |
“If it doesn’t start doing something soon, I’m going to be out of business after 26 years.”
News
From Africa To New York, The Perils and Rewards of Immigration
Amy Berryhill |
When you are swimming in the river … you get to the middle … and you cannot go back and you cannot go forward. That is how I see an immigrant. — Ramatu Ahmed, African Community Organizer
ARTS and CULTURE
Hasidic Rapper Promotes Racial Harmony In Crown Heights
Chris Giblin |
DeScribe is not the world’s first or most famous Hassidic rapper, but he is looking to obtain a higher level of recognition for his positive sound.
Bronx
Immigrant Unemployment Lower Than Natives' In NYC
Lauren Raheja |
A report released Monday found that during the recession immigrants experienced lower rates of unemployment than U.S. natives.
Bronx
Did Environmentalist Back Arizona's SB1070?
Kelly Virella |
New York-based community groups have taken up a national campaign to fight Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal immigration law by targeting a local foundation supporting environmental causes.
Justice
High Hopes For Paterson's Immigrant Pardon Panel
Chris Giblin |
At a recent city council hearing, local immigrants and their advocates spoke with restrained optimism about Paterson’s new panel, which held its first meeting the last week of May. By: Chris Giblin
At a hearing conducted last week by the City Council’s Immigration Committee, city officials and residents spoke with restrained optimism regarding Gov. Paterson’s recently created immigrant pardon panel. The panel – designed to review the pardon requests of ex-convicts facing the threat of deportation – held its first meeting on Monday, May 24th, according to Paterson’s Director of Communications, Morgan Hook. A pardon from the panel – the first of its kind in the country – would prevent an ex-convict’s deportation by wiping his criminal record clean.Mark Maynard, a Guyanese immigrant who testified at the City Council’s hearing, said he is worthy of such a pardon. Maynard testified that he emigrated to the United States at the age of nine, was convicted of armed robbery in 2000, and is now facing the threat of deportation.
Bronx
Making Their Way
Curtis Stephen |
For Tasnim Huque, the past few months have been full of surprises. Her Muslim parents, who immigrated to New York City from India’s sprawling eastern city of Calcutta in the late 1980s, are gradually allowing the 18-year-old to show some independence. While there’s little inhibiting most seniors at Hunter Science High School in Manhattan from attending the prom— except, perhaps, the cost of limos, gowns and tuxes— Huque was certain that she’d be missing it for a different reason: her 6 p.m. curfew. But her parents recently told her that she could, in fact, attend.“They even bought me a nice Westernized dress,” she says excitedly. And that’s not all she’s excited about.
