All posts by Jonathan Walczak

Port Richmond confronts racial tensions

Lourdes Cuesta, 37, works the register at a small grocery store she and her husband own in Port Richmond, a neighborhood on the northern tip of Staten Island. Cuesta came to the neighborhood 21 years ago, one of the first of many Mexican immigrants who flooded the area. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

Twenty-one years ago, Lourdes Cuesta, then 16, ran across the border separating Arizona and Mexico, guided by a smuggler and protected by a blanket of darkness.

The pair navigated the desert terrain for three hours until they reached a car that would take Cuesta to Port Richmond, a neighborhood on the northern tip of Staten Island.

The trip took only eight days, Cuesta said. Now, it takes illegal immigrants at least a month, if not more, to make the same journey.

Cuesta, who grew up in Puebla, Mexico — a large city east of Mexico City, with a population of about 1.5 million — arrived at a time when Hispanics, mainly Puerto Ricans, made up only 15 percent of Port Richmond’s population. Blacks constituted about a quarter of all residents, U.S. Census data shows.

“In that year, there weren’t a lot of Mexicans here,” said Cuesta, 37, who runs a small grocery store with her husband on Port Richmond Avenue. “When you saw some Mexican here, you’d feel comfortable and happy.”

By 2000, Hispanics made up 23 percent of the population, while blacks made up 20 percent, a five percent drop from 1990. The trend has only accelerated since then, neighborhood residents and business owners said, as Mexican immigrants continue to flow into the area.

The changing racial demographics of the neighborhood has led to tensions between blacks and Hispanics, some say, culminating in a series of attacks on immigrants this year. The most publicized attack took place in April, when four teenagers beat and robbed Rudolfo Olmedo, a 26-year-old Mexican man, as he walked home from work at 4:30 a.m.

The attack, which was caught on camera, took place about 500 feet down the street from Cuesta’s store.

“Everybody is scared of something happen, but me, no,” Cuesta said. “Maybe if you work midnight.”

Cuesta said she thinks some of the attacks that have been described as hate crimes can better be explained through the prism of alcohol.

“Sometimes people drink and something happen, and then everybody say, ‘Oh, no. It’s because he’s Mexican — that’s why it happened to him,’ ” she said.

Barber says business is down

Shortly before noon on a recent weekday, the owner of Pop’s Barber Shop sat gazing out the window of his shop, a few blocks from Cuesta’s store.

David Fowle, 44, who opened the shop in 1999, said business has dramatically slowed in recent months, dropping about 50 percent.

“There was news truck all over the place, police on every corner,” Fowle said, describing the aftermath of several high-profile attacks on immigrants. “You can’t walk. It slowed business down. Nobody wanted to come into Port Richmond.”

David Fowle, 44, the owner of Pop's Barber Shop in Port Richmond sits in his store as he waits for customers. Business dropped 50 percent after a series of attacks on Mexican immigrants this year, Fowle said. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

Now, with business so slow, Fowle helps pass the time by watching “The Price is Right.”

While some people are afraid, Fowle, who is black, said he hasn’t personally witnessed animosity between blacks and Hispanics here, something Cuesta echoed.

“I see the blacks interact with the Mexicans. Everybody speaks,” he said, still gazing out the window. “I don’t see a lot of the racial tensions they say there is. I don’t see it.”

A Mexican man walked by as he finished speaking.

“See, here goes my Mexican friend right here,” Fowle said, waving and calling out to the man.

Immigrants scared of police, residents say

Fowle and Cuesta both said they think the threat to immigrants has been exaggerated by the media, and the increased police presence has scared immigrants just as much, if not more, than the attacks.

“They scared because they immigrants, and there’s a lot of police,” Cuesta said. “Sometimes, someone asks me if the police going to take him, because the TV comes on and says something about police taking immigrants, or something like that. It’s just because they don’t know exactly what happens with the police.”

Jack Ryan, a Staten Island priest who helps run several nonprofits and affiliated groups that assist immigrants and work to alleviate racial tensions, said a “significant number” of immigrants have not reported attacks in recent months because they are afraid of the police.

But the NYPD and the district attorney have worked hard to foster trust with the immigrant population, and community efforts to address the underlying cause of the attacks seem to be working, Ryan said.

“In terms of publicly known incidents, it seems as though in the last six or seven weeks, the number of incidents has gone down,” he said.

Tensions do exist, Ryan said, but they are just as likely to arise because of tough economic conditions as racial differences.

“The major cause right now is you have a longstanding, severe economic downtown, where a vast number of people, especially working-age and young working-age males from different groups, are unemployed or underemployed,” Ryan said. “And that always creates tension and problems.”

Ryan moved to Staten Island in 1994 from Upstate New York. For the past nine years, he has worked for El Centro de Hospitalidad, now known as El Centro del Inmigrante, a nonprofit that offers various types of assistance to immigrants and day laborers.

The organization’s office is directly across the street from Fowle’s barbershop. “I have no problem with them, me personally,” Fowle said. “I know everybody over there.”

About a dozen day laborers and two mothers with young children in strollers milled about the center as Fowle sat in his shop about 100 feet away. Three young men sat watching a movie on a large-screen television while another man strummed a guitar in the corner. Some just sat staring at the walls.

When national political leaders and pundits use inflammatory rhetoric in arguments against illegal immigration, these are the people who really suffer, Ryan said.

“If you have a verbal climate that dehumanizes any group, when you have language or rhetoric that puts these people seemingly beyond the pale or less than another group, this type of rhetoric can destabilize our society,” he said. “And (the attackers) somehow manage to take comments and, at times, form a rationale why it’s OK to beat up people.”

Like Cuesta and Fowle, Ryan said too much has been made of racial tensions and the attacks, and too little has been said about the majority of residents who get along and interact on a daily basis. Most here were repulsed by the attacks, he said.

“Any attempt to blanket Staten Island as Archie Bunker land,” said Ryan, referring to the bigoted character from the old TV show ‘All in the Family,’ “is untrue. It’s categorically untrue.”

NYC Marathon: Music fuels runners, band says

Yolanda Rodriguez and a member of her band, The Dfenderz, waits for runners to pass by in the New York City Marathon on Sunday. Rodriguez said she hoped the band's music provided a much-needed boost for runners. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

Shielding her hands from the chilly morning air, Yolanda Rodriguez pulled on a pair of black gloves as her six-member band, The Dfenderz, settled into a comfortable spot on a South Bronx street corner this morning.

The group waited to play their music — a mix of pop, rock, blues and funk — for runners participating in the New York City Marathon.

A runner herself, Rodriguez said she knows the most important fuel is often not food or water, but music.

“For the runners, hopefully they hear not only the cheers from their supporters and the crowds and everything, but maybe they hear the music,” she said. “When you’re running, it’s great to put on your music. It’s a nice inspiration to continue.”

Rodriguez said the group chose to stake out a spot in the South Bronx, at the corner of East 137th Street and Alexander Road, because the surrounding community is historic, she used to work at a nearby hospital, and many of the good spots in Manhattan are taken early.

“It’s a very historic community because a lot of the early community activists started here — the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords Party,” Rodriguez said.

Community members, however, have had mixed reactions to the marathon crossing through the area, she said. Some are grateful, but others are annoyed.

“It interferes with a lot of the flow of your Sunday — going to church, etcetera,” she said. “But some people really applaud it and what it brings to the community.”

Rodriguez was born in Hell’s Kitchen, grew up on the Upper West Side and currently lives in Chelsea, where she works as a playwright and author.

When she was 12, she wrote her first song.

“It was called ‘It Depends on the Weather,’ ” she said, laughing. “It was commenting on when it rains — how I feel when it rains, how I feel when it’s sunny.”

None of the band members, herself included, have run in the marathon before, although this is their third year playing music for the runners and surrounding crowds, Rodriguez said.

“We’d have to start our training like a year before to try,” she said. “But it’s nice being here, regardless, as a musician.”

The Border Project: “Minuteman movement” at crossroads

Glenn Spencer, 73, points to a section of fence that separates Arizona and Mexico. Spencer runs American Border Patrol, a group that patrols the border using small planes and thermal-imaging cameras. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

HEREFORD, Ariz. – Standing on his front porch, about 1,000 feet from the Arizona-Mexico border, Glenn Spencer looks south as storm clouds gather and a cool breeze stirs across the darkening desert.

Spencer, 73, runs a civilian border patrol group that claims 12,000 supporters. But today, he stands alone, his eyes scanning the horizon as a light rain begins to fall.

Then his seven German shepherds start to bark.

“What’s wrong?,” he yells, turning to them. “Didn’t I tell you we were having visitors today?”

Spencer, in a dark blue polo shirt and a cream-colored baseball cap, walks to a piano in his living room and sits down. His face hardens in concentration, and his fingers move swiftly over the piano’s keys.

One by one, the dogs lay down, comforted by the music.

“There we go,” he says as he rises, smiling. “It works every time.”

Border patrol volunteers diverse, leaders say

Since March, when the most famous civilian border organization, the “Minutemen,” disbanded, smaller groups like Spencer’s American Border Patrol have jostled for donor dollars, volunteers and the chance to influence the future of the civilian border patrol movement.

Though they are often portrayed as one-dimensional racists and dangerous vigilantes, the movement’s volunteers come from all walks of life – retired grandmothers, active duty soldiers, people with a wide variety of political beliefs and even Latinos.

Like Spencer, they have complex personalities. Some volunteer for groups like American Border Patrol, which flies missions over the border in small planes and uses heat-sensing cameras to detect illegal immigrants.

Others, however, resort to more aggressive tactics.

Some members of one new group, U.S. Border Guard, which patrols an area 60 to 80 miles north of the border, carry machine guns and grenade launchers.

The group’s leader, Jason “J.T.” Ready, who the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a neo-Nazi, says volunteers on patrol in early October even chased drug smugglers for 30 hours at one point.

For his critics, Ready, 34, has a defiant message.

“If they don’t want people out there who are controversial, then come secure the border and those people won’t be out there,” he says. “I’ll send them home to a barbecue or something.”

Rancher death, Arizona law fuel revival

Several events this spring, all in rapid succession, helped fuel a revival of the civilian border patrol movement.

On March 23, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, as the group was officially known, announced it was disbanding.

Four days later, Robert Krentz, a rancher in Cochise County, Ariz., the same county as Spencer, was shot and killed, allegedly by an immigrant or drug smuggler.

“There’s no political way to spin people with fully automatic weapons and grenades from another country bringing in drugs and shooting at you,” Ready says. “There’s just absolutely no excuse for that.”

In April, a month after Krentz died, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB 1070, a controversial law that once again thrust illegal immigration into the national spotlight.

Krentz’s murder and the controversy in Arizona served as rallying cries for a new batch of border volunteers. And with the dissolution of the Minutemen, they have increasingly joined smaller groups or started their own organizations.

Groups confront accusations of racism

In order to grow and in pursuit of mainstream influence, leaders like Spencer and Pat Byrne, executive director of the Patriots Coalition, say they’ve had to overcome the perception that their groups are motivated primarily by racism and xenophobia.

Spencer, who notes that he once ran a company with Native Americans and counts many Jews as friends, and Byrne, who says his group includes Latinos, seem especially sensitive to charges of bigotry.

“Our group chaplain was a guy named Gomez,” Byrne says. “Got a Villanueva. Got some real great guys in Houston who are Hispanic.”

Moderate leaders like Byrne and Spencer are quick to distance themselves from people like Ready, who has been labeled a neo-Nazi, though he disputes the term.

“To me, that’s like calling a black person a nigger,” Ready says. “I don’t think you’d do that. But it seems to be socially acceptable to call someone a neo-Nazi.”

Personal beliefs aside, Ready says he welcomes all volunteers into his group.

“I don’t care if you’re a Black Panther or a neo-Nazi,” he says. “It’s about patrolling the border. And if that means having so-called neo-Nazis on the border, I’ll utilize anybody.”

Volunteers share common goal, but diverge on methods

While the groups share a common goal, leaders like Spencer and Byrne complain they are often clumped together, even though they have very different, nuanced methods.

Spencer – who founded American Border Patrol in 2002, and whose ranch is dotted with all kinds of gadgets – has a $100,000 thermal imaging camera in his yard that can spot humans from five miles away. To demonstrate the power of the technology, he hops on his computer, brings up a live image and zooms in on several white blobs walking a mile away on the Mexican side of the border.

“Cows,” he says.

But Byrne’s group, the Patriots Coalition, has taken a different route than Spencer’s technology-centered approach, or Ready’s heavily armed patrols, by focusing on finding a political solution.

Volunteers hold rallies, lobby politicians, picket locations where day laborers congregate and, in some instances, photograph people coming in and out of Mexican consulates.

“It makes them crazy,” Byrne says.

On Veteran’s Day, Byrne, who served in the Marines in the 1950s and ’60s, puts on his Marine Corps League costume, “a real cool costume with all kinds of medals and crap,” he says, and confronts politicians at parades.

“Because they can’t mess with a six-foot five-inch, 250-pound Marine on Veteran’s Day, right?,” he says, laughing.

Glenn Spencer, president of American Border Patrol, points to video taken by his $100,000 thermal-imaging camera of what he says are drug smugglers climbing over the border fence. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

Immigrants, volunteers face more danger

The proliferation of smaller, locally-organized groups has endangered immigrants, says Jennifer Allen, executive director of the human rights group Border Action Network.

“There are no checks and balances, a way to control and contain them, and the potential for egregious acts of violence is much greater,” she says.

Between 1999 and 2005, when the civilian border patrol movement really took off, Allen says her organization documented about 1,000 cases of immigrants who were detained by what she calls “vigilante groups.”

“In some of those instances, people have been shot at, they’ve been kicked, they’ve had their hair pulled out, they’ve been verbally and physically abused,” she says. “The implication, the consequence of groups setting out and patrolling along the border is that, indeed, Latinos are huntable prey, are less than human.”

Border volunteers, too, face increased danger, as Mexican drug cartels wage an ongoing war.

The Border Patrol says it has warned the groups of the dangers they face.

Eric Cantu, a spokesman for the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol, says the groups are “completely independent” of the agency, and it “has nothing to do with them,” although Spencer, Byrne and Ready all dispute that.

Thousands protest illegal immigration with small flags

Spencer, having calmed his dogs and attended to a brief emergency – “The camera may have been hit by lightning,” he says – walks to a large golden Hummer parked in front of his ranch.

As he traverses the short drive to the aptly named “Border Road,” which parallels the border, he apologizes for the dirt-caked interior of the vehicle.

Border volunteers are more energized than at any point in the past five years, Spencer, Byrne and Ready say. But they are also aware that the civilian border patrol movement is at a crossroads.

So far, the movement has succeeded in its main goal, they say – drawing national attention to illegal immigration – but it remains to be seen if volunteers will be as successful now that they have splintered into smaller groups.

After briefly chatting with a passing Border Patrol agent, Spencer hits the brakes and jumps out. Navigating over small puddles of caramel-colored mud, he points to hundreds of small, weather-worn American flags tied to a section of the fence.

“There were 13,000 of these,” he says. “People sent them from all over for me to put up.”

The messages attached to these flags hint at the boiling discontent that motivates thousands to volunteer their time and donate money to civilian border patrol groups.

“We Americans have had enough,” one says. “Stay on your side of the border.”

Glenn Spencer, president of American Border Patrol, plays the piano in his living room to calm his seven German shepherds. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

Thousands protest Ahmadinejad near U.N.

A protester wearing a mask of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds up a replica of a nuclear bomb. Thousands gathered Thursday near the United Nations to protest Ahmadinejad as he spoke there. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

Surrounded by skyscrapers and a looming blue sky, a young protester climbed onto a security gate a block from the United Nations and began swishing a replica of a nuclear bomb through the air.

The man, who wore a mask of Iranian President Mahmoud Admadinejad, was one of thousands who gathered Thursday morning to protest the controversial leader as he spoke at the U.N.

Ali Safavi, a spokesman for the groups who organized the event, said their demands are simple.

“For one, telling Ahmadinejad he has no place at the United Nations representing the people of Iran,” Safavi said. “He should instead be put on trial by an international tribunal for the crimes he and his regime have perpetrated against the people of Iran.”

Protesters waved Iranian flags and held up photos of opposition candidates.

Dramatic representations of what they called Ahmadinejad’s cruelty were scattered around Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, on 47th Street and First Avenue, including a young man who stood, covered in fake blood, with a noose around his neck.

Next to the simulated hanging, a speaker boomed sounds of people screaming and in pain.

“I have a very tight connection with the political activists in Iran and also the student movement,” said Roya Teimouri, 50, who moved to the United States in 1975. “So most of them are in prison, and things don’t look good. They’re being tortured.”

Two hours into the rally, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani addressed the crowd, amid cries of “U.N., U.N., listen to this — Ahmadinejad is a terrorist.”

“All you are here today to cry out to the world to stand with you and your brothers and sisters who are oppressed by the brutal regime in Iran,” Giuliani said.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Giuliani said the United States needs to demonstrate its strength and be tough on Iran.

“The bullies take advantage of weakness,” he said. “The tyrants feed on acquiescence.”

Other speakers included former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

Security was tight around the Midtown hotel where Ahmadinejad was staying, and also around the United Nations. Groups of police officers hurried gawking tourists along, and some streets were entirely blocked off.

President Barack Obama was scheduled to speak at the U.N. later in the day.

Safavi, the spokesman, said organizers wanted to emphasize how important it is for the world to support internal opposition in Iran.

“One does not need to be confined to the dichotomy of war or a tyrannical regime,” he said. “The international community, and in particular the United States, ought to look to the main opposition and the people in Iran.”

Safavi said Iranian-Americans from 35 states came for the protest.

One of them, Firouz Daneshgari, a professor at Case Western University, addressed the crowd on behalf of a group of Iranian-American professionals.

Asked later what he would tell Ahmadinejad if he could speak to him, Danesghari, who lives in Ohio, answered quickly.

“I would tell him, ‘Go to hell,’ ” Daneshgari said. “You don’t represent us. You’re a murderer, personally — through your system, you have killed thousands of people, and you don’t deserve to represent Iran.”

Tensions high on 9/11 anniversary

A supporter of the proposed Park51 Islamic cultural center reads from the Quran two blocks from Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2010. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

As Americans marked the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a man in a dark-blue polo shirt pulled out a Quran two blocks from Ground Zero, ripped out clumps of pages and lit them on fire.

He was instantly mobbed by the press, and police officers moved in less than a minute later, whisking him away as charred pieces of paper fluttered off in the wind.

It was a visceral sign of how several controversies — including a proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero and a Florida pastor’s plan to burn hundreds of Qurans — politicized a solemn anniversary.

At the corner of Park Place and Church Street, where the unidentified man burned the Quran, crowd members debated demonstrators, including a supporter of the Park51 cultural center. When several people challenged him, he called them fascists and kept speaking.

“It’s not a crime to hate the people who killed your loved ones,” a passing firefighter called out.

Earlier in the day, dignitaries, including Vice President Joe Biden, attended a ceremony in Zucotti Park. For several hours, family members read the names of the dead, sometimes crying as their voices boomed through loudspeakers.

Thousands of people gathered across the street to mark the occasion amid high security, flags and protesters. For most of the morning, a Mennonite church choir sang Christian songs behind the crowd.

“It’s a sacred place because of all the deaths here, and we just wanted to come and share love and peace with the people who are mourning here,” said Doreen Kurtz, 24, a member of the church who wore a long, flowing dress and a prayer cap.

Jimmy Bacolo, 62, center, a Staten Island resident and opponent of the Park51 Islamic cultural center, speaks to a reporter across the street from the 9/11 memorial on Sept. 11, 2010. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

Although Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who had planned to burn Qurans, called off the burning, emotions still ran high, in part because a final resolution has yet to be reached regarding the proposed cultural center.

Several blocks surrounding Ground Zero were cordoned off, with volunteers in orange caps limiting entrance to family members of the dead, dignitaries, law enforcement and some members of the press.

Jimmy Bacolo, 62, a Staten Island resident and Vietnam veteran, said he is still angry about the attacks, and is especially incensed by the center.

“There is no such thing as ‘forgive and forget’ when you take a civilian aircraft with civilian people and use them as weapons,” Bacolo said. “Had I been in the White House on 9/11, the whole Middle East would have been incinerated — every one of them, men women and children.”

Ayesha Khan, a documentary filmmaker and Manhattan resident, said this is the first time she’s been in the city on Sept. 11 in nine years.

“I don’t want to be here,” said Khan, a Muslim. “It’s too painful. But this is too important. They need to understand I’m a New Yorker, too.”