Brendan Anderson has lived at Occupy Wall Street for six days and noticed more people visiting every day. Photo by Chris Palmer

The anti-corporate, disenfranchised spirit of the rally resonated with Stewart. Though he had a job, he had been unable to pay his bills for a few months, and he couldn’t find extra work where he lived, in Pueblo, Colo.

So he made a decision: he quit his job and headed to Occupy Wall Street.

“I told my friends, ‘You only live once,’” the 34-year-old said.

He was unhappy at work and the protest inspired him to take action.

“I figured if I was going to be depressed, going nowhere, it’d be better to come here, to New York City,” he said.

Stewart, who arrived in Manhattan this morning after spending 50 hours on a series of Greyhound buses, is one of a legion of new additions to the 3-week-old Occupy Wall Street movement, which is growing both in New York City and across the world.

“There are twice the amount of people here (today),” said Brendan Anderson, of Midland Beach, Staten Island. The unemployed 22-year-old has spent six straight days in Zuccotti Park and nodded emphatically when asked if the scene was different now from when he first arrived.

“Everyday it’s growing,” he said.

Eric Seligson, who volunteers with the library at the occupation site, said that there were thousands of people at the site this weekend. Photo by Chris Palmer

“If the cops thought (the arrests) would discourage people, they were wrong,” he said.

Kristin Schall, who was arrested on the bridge on Saturday, agreed.

“Getting arrested hasn’t deterred anyone,” she said. “It makes me want to protest more.”

Schall, 27, a student at Brooklyn College who lives in Pelham Bay in the Bronx, has visited two or three times a week since the movement launched September 17. She said there are more people at the site each times she visits.

“It seems to be growing every day,” she said.

That growth has been fueled in part by an amalgam of different visitors to the Occupy Wall Street site. In addition to new protesters, the site has received media members, celebrities, tourists, activist groups and politicians in recent days.

“Today is absolutely hopping,” said Lynn Rosen, 64, of Canarsie, Brooklyn.

Rosen was volunteering with a group seeking petition signatures against hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a drilling procedure used by natural gas companies to extract gas from rocks deep beneath the earth’s surface.

She freely admitted that the reason her group chose to visit Occupy Wall Street was because of the amount of people at the park.

“I thought it was going to be a real hype-filled site,” said Rosen, who also was promoting a book she authored. She wandered the park with a clipboard and leaflets in hand, talking with anyone who would listen, and she noted that her efforts so far had been “very successful.”

Another visitor hoping to engage with protestors was Republican City Councilman Daniel J. Halloran III. While defending the availability of jobs in his home district of northeast Queens, he bemoaned corporate greed and answered questions from a swarm of interested observers.

“Corporations need to be broken up,” he said at one point, motioning towards the skyscrapers that tower over the park. “They’re not monopolies, but they’re monopolistic.”

As more guests and observers visit Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, the Occupy Wall Street movement is also picking up steam in other cities. Similar encampments have sprouted up in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., and multiple trade unions, including the Transport Workers Union, the United Federation of Teachers, and the Service Employees International Union, will participate in an Occupy Wall Street march tomorrow.

Kristen Carter, 46, a tourist visiting the site from Rhinebeck, N.Y., said that the more support the movement received, the more likely it was that change would occur.

“I think it’s coalescing,” she said.

And Stewart, who plans to search for work in New York while living at the occupation site, hopes that all of the increased attention leads to real change.

“The more solidarity we can get, the more support, the better,” he said. “’Til then, we’re just a bunch of hippies in a park.”

A collection of guns, including the military-grade 7.62mm SKS assault rifle, lie tagged in the Crime Scene Investigation offices in North Philadelphia on Dec. 11, 2010, waiting to be used as evidence against two men accused of killing Police Sergeant Steven Liczbinski during the 2008 attempted robbery of a Bank of America in Port Richmond, Philadelphia. Comprehensive statewide gun policies could potentially make it harder for felons and those without permits to buy and sell such weapons by cracking down on an illegal process known as straw purchasing. (Meredith Bennett-Smith / Pavement Pieces)

PHILADELPHIA – Like a sheriff without a badge, outgoing Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell called his career-long quest to stem the gun violence in his state “an abject failure” and “a lost cause” in a conference call earlier this month with Philadelphia reporters. In the Wild West of Pennsylvania state politics, Rendell acted as if the masked robbers had ultimately overrun the general store.

One thing is for sure, however, whether you’re a cowboy or a bandit, you will not have trouble obtaining a firearm in the state any time soon.

Despite municipal homicide rates that are double or even triple the national average, Pennsylvania continues to be one of the easiest places in the country to illegally buy a gun, thanks to a General Assembly too cowed by the state gun lobby to pass reform legislation, said State Representative David Levdansky.

“We have a legislature that is risk averse to do anything that would offend the NRA,” he said.

In 2008 Levdandsky ran up against the politics of gun reform first hand, when he was asked by Governor Rendell to sponsor the Lost and Stolen Amendment. Lost and Stolen is a law that would require gun owners to report their lost or stolen firearms, thereby both absolving themselves of responsibility and cutting down on the black market business of selling “lost” guns for a profit on the street.

Levdanksy, who is white and an avid deer hunter from Westmoreland County in the 39th District, was tapped to prove to the outlying counties that the amendment was in fact a reasonable, “common sense” law that did not infringe on anyone’s 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. But Levdansky’s calls fell on mainly deaf ears, and the law was voted down despite support from the Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association and Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association.

“You have what I call the gun rights extremists,” Levdansky said, “Who take the position that they will accept nothing at all. … [They] want to use any piece of legislation that is introduced as a political motivating tool.”

A spokesperson for the NRA-ILA, the branch of the National Rifle Association committed to legislative lobbying, denied the effectiveness of Pennsylvania’s proposed gun bills, stating that they have no impact on cutting down crime, and instead exit merely to make life more difficult for licensed gun owners.

CeaseFirePA, founded in 2007, is now attempting to create some political clout of its own in an effort to finally challenge the NRA for control over Pennsylvania’s guns. Joe Grace, the organization’s Executive Director, said that while he’s disappointed Lost and Stolen did not succeed, the act of even brining it to a vote represents dramatic progress.

“It was the first vote on a gun bill in ten years,” Grace said. “Then we really got to work.”

In the intervening two years, CeaseFirePA has pushed cities across the state to pass their own versions of the state bill, and today 47 different municipalities have some kind of similar ordinance on the books.

“There’s never really been a sustained viable alternative to the gun lobby,” Grace said. “That’s what we’re seeking to build.”

Grace said the issue highlights the regional divide between Pennsylvania’s urban and rural districts.

“Folks couldn’t get the issue out of Philly,” he said. In fact, Harrisburg, the state capital, has the highest per capita murder rate in Pennsylvania, and statewide more than 1,200 people die annually from gun-related incidents.

Grace denied that race played a significant part in the political wrangling.

“It is true that a disproportionate number gun homicides involve people of color,” Grace said, “In fact, young men of color. But I think the issue doesn’t really play itself out [in the state capital] as a quote on quote racial issue.”

Racial issue or not, Representative Levdansky does not share Grace’s relative optimism on the subject. Voted out of the Senate in November, Levdansky sees a long uphill battle for gun control advocates following the election of conservative gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett into the statehouse.

“I think the prospects are dire at this point,” he said, echoing Rendell’s own gloomy predictions.

Corbett has already publicly stated he would sign into law the so-called “castle doctrine” bill if it passed across his desk. Such a bill would expand citizens’ right to shoot in self-defense, a right they already have in Pennsylvania. Governor Rendell vetoed just such a bill in November, believing it would encourage a potentially tragic, “shoot first, ask questions later” sort of mentality, he said.

As the legislature remains paralyzed, guns continue to flood into the state, with more than 4,000 people barred from obtaining a Pennsylvania weapons permit carrying instead a legal permit from a less restrictive state like Florida.

A section of border fence divides Santa Cruz County, Arizona, from Nogales, Mexico. Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada opposes SB 1070. Photo by Nick DeSantis

TUCSON, Ariz. — Jim Sharpe doesn’t like to play the role of ranting radio host at 5 a.m. He says it’s too early to be an “angry white dude.”

But on July 7 – the day after the Department of Justice sued Arizona, seeking an injunction against SB 1070, the state’s controversial immigration law – he couldn’t help himself.

“I was on the air talking about how hurt I was,” said Sharpe, a personality on KFYI-AM in Phoenix. “It felt like the beginning of a boxing match, when you’re trying to size up what your opponent can do and he punches you hard in the nose.”

Sharpe decided to punch back.

When a caller suggested filing a countersuit against the federal government, he took the idea to a group of local attorneys, who hatched a plan to defend SB 1070 in court.

A week later, Sharpe joined forces with Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Buz Mills to form Border Sheriffs, an organization that raises legal defense funds for Dever and Babeu.

Since its launch, Border Sheriffs has aggressively criticized the federal government for not doing more to enforce existing immigration laws. But the group’s opponents argue that the sheriffs are engaging in an opportunistic campaign to raise their own profiles at the expense of immigrants.

Three months after their organization’s founding, Dever and Babeu find themselves caught in the center of two contentious legal battles.

The first lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, named all of Arizona’s sheriffs as defendants. The complaint attempted to block SB 1070 on constitutional grounds.

The second, filed by the DOJ, argued that SB 1070 usurped the federal government’s power to regulate immigration. On July 28, Judge Susan Bolton agreed, and issued a preliminary injunction against the most controversial parts of the law.

After Bolton’s ruling, Dever’s new attorneys sprang into action, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals cleared him to join the fight against the injunction.

Dever, 59, a 30-year veteran of Cochise County law enforcement, united with Border Sheriffs because he believes SB 1070 is a much-needed deterrent against illegal immigration.

He knows he doesn’t have all of the time and resources needed to solve Arizona’s immigration problem, but he’s not satisfied with federal efforts, either.

“The federal government has been very slow to address the crime and the disruption of quality of life in Cochise County,” he said. “So we’ll do what’s necessary.”

He also accused Democrats of using the immigration debate for leverage at the polls. The Department of Homeland Security refuses to enforce immigration laws because the agency sees political gain in catering to the immigrant community, he said.

“It’s purely political, since most people in power are Democrats,” Dever said. “They just want the electoral support of a certain voting mass.”

Sharpe echoed Dever’s accusation, and said that politicians on the left view the immigrant population as “undocumented Democrats.”

Critics of Border Sheriffs allege that the group is defending a flawed law using dubious tactics. Dan Pochoda, legal director of the ACLU of Arizona, pointed out that Dever and Babeu were named in the ACLU lawsuit only as a formality, and did not have to pay their own legal fees. He called the defense fund launched on their behalf “unnecessary.”

“They’re not being sued personally,” he said. “They’re just trying to raise money for the sake of raising money and raising their profile.”

Dever responded to Pochoda’s criticism by saying he sought private funding and representation to reduce the burden on Cochise County taxpayers, who cannot afford a protracted legal fight with the ACLU.

Ed Rheinheimer, the Cochise County Attorney, corroborated Dever’s claim.

“We didn’t have the resources to provide him with the representation he wanted,” said Rheinheimer, who approved the sheriff’s request for private counsel. “He’s the only border sheriff taking such an active role, and he has a perspective that might be useful for the court to hear.”

In addition to fielding criticisms from the ACLU, Dever and Babeu are feeling heat from some of their colleagues in law enforcement. Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada opposes the law, and as a result was never asked to join the defense fund.

Estrada is as suspicious of his colleagues’ political ambitions as they are of the Democrats’.

“SB 1070 is a bad law done for the wrong reasons,” he said. “It’s a political football, and I’m not going to say that some people are taking advantage of the attention, but they’re riding the wave.”

Estrada also took issue with Border Sheriffs’ willingness to associate illegal immigrants with criminality. Supporters of SB 1070 use immigrants as scapegoats for bigger economic problems, he said.

“Do you really think these people are going to trek through the desert for days, facing the risks from human and animal predators, just to come here and commit crimes?,” he asked.

Brian Bergin, Dever’s attorney in both lawsuits, maintained that Dever possesses unique expertise on immigration issues. He emphasized that Arizona’s sheriffs are public servants and professionals who enforce the state’s laws fairly.

“I really don’t think 1070 is the boogeyman its opponents make it out to be,” he said. “What we’re after is sensible, parallel enforcement, and a means to bring the current situation into harmony with federal law.”

So far, the Border Sheriffs’ efforts to solicit donations have produced mixed results; Sen. John McCain contributed $5,000 to their efforts on July 16, but a recent $100,000 challenge grant issued by a Colorado volunteer went unmatched as of Oct. 15.

Dever declared that the group’s ultimate goal is to force politicians to take a public stand on illegal immigration.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a senator, or a congressman, or another sheriff — you can’t sit back and be quiet,” he said. “As this case goes forward, people won’t be able to hide from the issue any longer.”

He hopes Border Sheriffs’ efforts will elevate the issue to the highest reaches of the judicial branch.

“This case is going to the Supreme Court, and we want to be there when it does,” Dever said.

Democratic State Rep. Matt Heinz, one of two representatives for Arizona's 26th District, points out the complicated district borders that pieces together the geopolitical landscape of southern Arizona.The Mexican border stretches from the far left side of the map, continuing out of the frame. (Photo by Meredith Bennett Smith)

Sitting in the yellow illumination of her trailer’s porch light, Luz Imelda Ramirez ticks off the opportunities now available to her three daughters, all because of a small piece of paper certifying their birth on American soil. Ramirez, originally from a poor community in Sonora, Mexico, is an illegal immigrant. But her children were born here in Tucson, and therefore are United States citizens. It is a distinction Ramirez does not take lightly.

“Thank god my children are citizens, because they will be able to go to university,” she said. “My oldest has good grades and got a scholarship. That’s why I came here, for my children to have a different life than I had.”

Luz Imelda Ramirez 1 from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

Spread between Tucson’s Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and the beginning of Route 86, Ajo Way is a scrubby stretch of fast food restaurants, graying storefronts and trailer parks. As late afternoon faded into evening , several families gathered in Ramirez’s adopted community, sitting on white plastic chairs, eating tortilla chips and rehearsing just what to say if ever questioned by the Tucson police.

To the dozen or so men and women — all currently residing in Arizona illegally — running a red light is not a minor violation — it can lead to the discovery of their unlawful status, the beginning of deportation proceedings and the destruction of families already living in a state of apprehension and instability.

Arizona Senate Bill 1070, one of the most sweeping and stringent anti-illegal immigration statutes in decades, was just the beginning.

SB 1070’s author, State Sen. Russell Pearce, is now drafting a new law, unperturbed by the immediate federal injunction blocking the bill’s most controversial provisions. His proposed legislation would prohibit hospitals from issuing birth certificates to children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents, a right guaranteed them by the 14th Amendment.

The issue has re-popularized the term “anchor baby,” used by some to describe children born to undocumented parents. Originally coined in reference to young Vietnamese who traveled by boat to the U.S. in the early 1980s and ’90s, the term itself has spawned angry debate. Introduced into today’s lexicon of immigration rhetoric by such high-profile conservative personalities as Ron Paul, Lindsey Graham and Bill O’Reilly, it has infuriated many immigrant advocates who say the term is pejorative and dehumanizing.

Semantics aside, the Grand Canyon State, wielding its frustration with the federal government like a flare gun, seems intent on focusing national attention on immigration reform by any means necessary, including the passage of legislation that critics say outwardly defies the constitution of the United States.

“Here in Arizona, the legislature has a long tradition of completely disregarding not only our state constitution … but certainly disregarding the federal constitution,” said State Rep. Matt Heinz. “(Sen. Russell’s proposed legislation) would be just another in a long line of examples of that body completely disregarding the constitutional rights and privileges of our citizens.”

Tuscon State Rep. Matt Heinz from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

Heinz, one of two Democrats who represent Arizona’s 29th district, lives on a narrow, colorful lane  in the heart of his constituency in Pima County, which includes parts of Tucson and Littletown. Elected in 2008, Heinz is also a practicing physician at Tucson Medical Center.

As planes from the nearby Air Force base roared noisily over his courtyard, Heinz explained the conditions that have recently made his state such a fertile environment for radical immigration reform.

“Arizona is a very proud and independent state, with a bit of a libertarian streak” he said. “That is one of the reasons I love the state, and one of the reasons why we sometimes get in a little bit of trouble.”

In recent years, Arizona’s longstanding belief in the importance of state autonomy has coalesced with an acute frustration at the federal government’s perceived lack of effort to fight illegal immigration. SB 1070 represented a boiling over of these emotions, and the citizenship legislation is an indication the problem is far from resolved.

This frustration with the federal government reaches across party lines.

Representative Vic Williams, a Republican from the 26th district in southern Tucson, campaigned in 2008 on his proud support of the Sen. Pearce’s legislation.

“Our federal government has refused to do anything,” Williams said. “Arizona has changed the national discussion in this country. We have struck a nerve.”

Nerve or not, prohibiting the issuance of birth certificates in U.S. hospitals is in direct conflict with the language of the Constitution. Section One of the 14th Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Some proponents of Pearce’s proposed bill seek to challenge the current interpretation of the amendment. However, established case law protects the rights of all children born in America, said Nina Rabin, director of the Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona. “I think it’s clear that (such a challenge) would be a losing battle,” Rabin said. “I mean, it’s not a realistic thing.”

Williams did not dispute the wording of the amendment. Instead, he argued that its intent was being abused.

“Now we have hospitals that advertise abroad that you can come here to the U.S. and have your child,” Williams said. “You can plan your vacation around it. … I don’t know if that was the original intent of the 14th Amendment.”

So would such legislation, seemingly in defiance of the federal government, pass in Arizona? Heinz certainly thinks so.

“I’ve heard the governor has already signed off on this,” Heinz said. “And ultimately, if something like this gets through our Senate and House, based on what happened this past Senate, I imagine, unfortunately, it will be signed by the governor.”

Williams refused to officially endorse the legislation. But he did point to strong grassroots support for Pearce’s proposed bill among his constituents. If put to a vote, the bill will have “overwhelming support” back home, he said.

Williams should not count on support from Ramirez, who objects to the proposed law on both legal and logistical grounds.

“Well, it’s very unconstitutional, because the children will be neither from the United States nor from Mexico,” Ramirez said. “It will be a problem for them when they grow up, when they’re going to school. What documents are they going to present? It’s just illogical. It’s not like they’re animals without papers.”

Oblivious to a debate that, if enacted retroactively, would dramatically alter his future, a little boy, no more than 3 years old, threw chunks of gravel at Ramirez’s latticework porch, his mouth stained blue by the melting peanut M&Ms he clutched in his hand. His young mother sat a few feet away, watching as volunteers from the immigrant advocacy group Derechos Hermanos led a role-playing exercise. Although initially the adults chuckled awkwardly as they sat in their “car,” the laughter stopped as the “police officer” began to badger both driver and passengers, demanding picture IDs and proof of legal status. The policeman finally ordered the driver and one of the passengers out of the vehicle and radioed “la migra,” the Border Patrol, to come pick them up. The tension among those observing was palpable.

“Really, the worry in the community is that (parents) are going to be taken away from their kids,” Ramirez said. “That they’ll be sent back to Mexico, and their children will be stuck here in the United States alone.”

Luz Imelda Ramirez 2 from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

Their fears are real.

Teresa Guerrero works for the Tucson Unified School District, in the government programs and community outreach office. Every year she sees countless children pulled out of school or forced to live with friends or relatives after their parents get deported. Sometimes mothers or fathers will live in Mexico during the week, only able to visit their children across the border on weekends, she said.

At her Phoenix law practice, Judy Flanagan works with undocumented parents fighting to stay in the U.S. with their children. But she said the reality is cases like these are “next to impossible to win.”

Parents of so-called “anchor babies” cannot file their own citizenship petitions until after the child’s 21st birthday. If the parents stayed in the U.S. illegally for longer than a year following the birth of the child — and Flanagan claimed many do — they will have to wait an additional 10 years before beginning the application process.

Ultimately, Ramirez said illegal immigrant parents want the same things for their children as parents whose families have lived in this country for generations.

“Every mother wants their children to have a better life than they did,” she said.

In the war that is Arizona’s constant struggle with immigration reform, Sen. Pearce is preparing to open up a new front. But as Ramirez looked with satisfaction at the aftermath of the Derechos Hermanos meeting, it was clear the opposition forces were already gearing up for the fight.

“I used to be afraid to say I don’t have documents,” Ramirez said. “But now I’m no longer afraid. Because a piece of paper doesn’t make you any different than me and that’s what I’ve learned at these groups. Because I’m a human being, I have rights.”

For more information:

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_52e0cc70-dba0-11df-9feb-001cc4c03286.html

Almost 200,000 demonstrators gather in the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on March 21. Photo by Elisa Lagos

Tens of thousands of people descended on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Sunday to call on President Obama and Congress to enact immigration reform. Demonstrators carried American flags and signs, and some even held crosses with the names of those who died while crossing the border into the United States.

Nearly 200,000 demonstrators came from across the country, according to rally organizers. Some drove from as far as California or Florida to bring the immigration debate back to the forefront.

“We came in buses from Florida,” Jorge Sierra said in Spanish. “It’s important that Obama know we want (immigration) reform. If not now, when?”

President Obama laid a timetable for immigration overhaul last year when he said his administration would tackle reform by early 2010. Demonstrators in Washington said they want to hold Obama to that promise, but immigration reform has been largely overshadowed by the battle over health care and financial overhaul.

In a video message, the president tried to reassure demonstrators that immigration reform is still a top priority all while the House of Representatives prepared for a vote on the Senate’s health-care bill. The bill passed in a historic vote late Sunday.

“I think they will take (immigration reform) up. Obama’s next step will probably be financial reform, which is necessary, but immigrants are highly important to the economy as well. He can’t ignore the issue,” said Charlotte Jones-Carroll of Maryland.

Maria Cardenas and Jorge Sierra, both from Florida, participate in a large demonstration in Washington, D.C. Photo by Elisa Lagos

The immigration debate last came to a head in 2007 when the country was embroiled in a bitter dispute that gave rise to the Minute Men movement and a 1,951-mile long wall along the U.S.–Mexico border.  There is already an inkling of reform on Capitol Hill as senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) outlined the beginnings of a new bill that would pave a road for illegal immigrants to become citizens. But many of those in favor of reform want more than a path toward legal status — they want the immigration system completely revamped.

“Citizenship is good, but they need to do something to help the children who suffer most when their parents are taken and deported,” said Maria Cardenas of Florida. “They need to find a way to keep families together. You don’t know how those children suffer. You don’t know what they go through.”

The last time the immigration reform legislation passed in Congress was the 1996 Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that made it easier for the government to deport illegal immigrants. But as immigration increased and the number of undocumented workers reached approximately 12 million, reform supporters say the country needs immigration overhaul sooner than later.

If you couldn’t already tell from all the campaign stickers and signs they were lugging down Fulton Street, Sharon Brown and Betty Gray are voting for John Liu as comptroller in Tuesday’s primary run-off.

They support Liu because they think his background in finance and public service would suit the city’s chief fiscal
analyst. And raised by a poor immigrant family, he “knows what it’s like at the bottom,” Gray said.

But one point divides them, as it does for many in their neighborhood: the importance of race in this election.

Liu, who became the first Asian-American city councilmember in 2001, has a shot at bringing similar distinction to
the comptroller post.

“Race has nothing to do with it,” Brown said.

“Actually, it is an added plus,” said Gray, who even got her campaign sign autographed. “It’s nice to see different
faces.”

The two had just come from Friday’s rally a block away at The Lab Banquet Hall in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a predominantly black neighborhood.

With a primary run-off against David Yassky — a white, Jewish city councilman — only days away, this was a strategic campaign stop for Liu, whose success is expected to hinge on support from communities of color. Fifty-one percent of voters in black neighborhoods cast votes for Liu in the first round.

And he rides into Tuesday on a wave of excitement larger than his own campaign. The city’s Asian communities saw unprecedented gains in victories and voter turnout in the primary. Three Asian-American city council candidates won their elections outright in the first round — the most ever.

But many black New Yorkers are relishing this moment, too. They can identify with the city’s fastest growing minority community finally gaining more fair representation in public office.

Herman Merritt, 58, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, who also attended Friday’s rally, compared it to “how African-Americans felt with David Dinkins (the city’s first black mayor) and Barack Obama.” He feels you can’t overstate the importance of race in this election.

And yet others feel they can more than just relate; some feel they might even have a stake in the success.

“His struggle is my struggle,” said Councilwoman Letitia James (D-35), who won her primary on Sept. 15. For the councilwoman, endorsing the Taiwan-born Liu isn’t just political posturing, but repayment to a community who allied with black neighborhoods in the ’60s and ’70s when no one else dared. It was an era of white flight and urban decay that nearly bankrupted the city, James said.

“When no one wanted to invest in our communities,” she said. “Asians were pioneers in opening businesses.”

James also reminded the attendees of the 300 workers, “mostly people of color,” who were laid off at the Administration of Children’s Services earlier that day, and of the need for someone to challenge the mayor as comptroller.

And for a comptroller, there is component of advocacy for minority communities, according to State Assemblyman Nick Perry (D-58).

“You can have an activist comptroller,” said Perry, who spoke earlier at the rally in support of Liu, “someone that highlights every instance where monies might be spent in a discriminatory way in education, employment of city workers and other essential services.”

But for every black supporter of Liu who feels there’s no escaping race in this year’s election, there was someone like Shirley Crosson, from Bedford Stuyvesant, who clings to this ideal of an elusive post-racial America, clutching the gold Jewish pendant around her neck.

“I don’t see color,” Crosson said. “I’m black, and I wear a Mezuzah, hey!”

Small Business owners weigh in on health debate

Frank Macchio’s 2-year-old son tripped and busted his chin open last Friday night. He was bleeding, and Macchio had to take him to get stitches.

Macchio had a decision to make.

Should he take his son to the emergency room, pass off the $1,500 medical bill to his insurance company, but wait hours to been seen? Or should he take him to the doctor’s office down the street, pay $300 upfront, and be in and out in 40 minutes?

Macchio chose the latter option in the interest of time. He didn’t want his son to be in pain any longer than necessary. But, to Macchio, it was a lose-lose situation. He would either be wasting time or money.

“That’s broken,” Macchio said. “This mentality, this system is broken.”

He is referring to the health-insurance industry.

Macchio told the story to a room full of small-business owners during an emergency town hall meeting on health reform at the Bulova Corporate Center in Jackson Heights on Sept. 16.

The meeting was designed to let members of the Queens Chamber of Commerce listen to local medical experts and voice their own opinions about the raging health-care debate.

Macchio, a father and also the owner of Construction Services Company in Whitestone, can’t afford to provide health insurance to his 15 employees. He believes the health-insurance system needs to be revamped, but he doesn’t exactly know how.

“This issue is so huge you can’t ask me that and get one simple answer,” the Queens native said.

Others, such as businessman Joshua Bienstock, who owns Resolve It Inc., said reform has to happen, but not at the expense of small businesses.

“Every time someone is granted a (health-care) right, someone pays for it,” Bienstock said.

Bienstock worries businesses such as his will have to fork over more tax money to help fund a government-run plan.

“I’m a small business, a two-person business,” Bienstock said. “The money is going to come from small businesses that can barely survive in this economy.”

In his speech to Congress a week ago, President Obama promised he would keep costs down for small-business owners who are already paying up to 20 percent more than large companies are paying to insure their employees.

Kenneth Buettner, owner of York Scaffold Equipment Corporation, pays $20,000 per employee for health care each year. He has a staff of 85.

While Buettner, also the vice president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, believes health insurance is a social obligation, he doesn’t know how much longer he can afford to provide coverage to his workers.

“I’m scared to death,” he said.

Business owners in the audience argued both sides of the debate and even offered solutions, though the diversity of opinions given at Wednesday’s chamber meeting in Queens is as diverse as the borough itself. The debate over health reform will likely continue in Queens as more details emerge.

An hour after the town hall meeting ended, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Lobtana, unveiled the Senate Finance Committee’s version of the health-reform package in Washington.

It has a price tag of nearly $860 billion and would require all Americans to buy health care or pay a fine.

Chamber president Albert Pennisi said the organization will hold more forums so members can praise or condemn new subsequent versions of the government’s health-care plan.

“The more people who discuss these issues, the better we are,” Pennisi said.

Harlem residents watch Obama's speech at the Harlem Center for Change. Photo by Elisa Lagos.

Leaning against a table in a small, crowded room in Harlem, Janice Williams watched as President Obama spoke last night about his plan to reform healthcare.

Williams, a retiree from Harlem, stood alongside nearly 50 other area residents who gathered at the Harlem Center for Change at Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 132 street, to hear the President’s speech. The people were as varied as the city itself. In Harlem, a cultural hub of the city’s African American population, blacks, whites, and hispanics all converged to try and make sense of the healthcare proposals.

For these different Harlem residents healthcare reform is not about race, it’s about economics.

“I find if you’re poor enough, no matter what your ethnicity, you can get healthcare, even it’s through Medicaid, ” said Janice Williams, a retiree from Harlem. “It’s the midddle class people who have jobs that can’t afford to go to the doctor. They can’t afford to take care of their kids. If they get sick, they damn near lost their house.”

The latest figures show that 20.9% of African Americans and 33.5% of Hispanics are uninsured, compared to 12.2% of Whites, according to the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation. Still the biggest disparity is not necessarily between ethnicities, but between social classes. The costs of healthcare jumped 81% per person in 10 years. This surge puts a strain on the middle class whose out of pocket costs continue to increase even as average incomes stagnate.

Pauline Cole, a public school teacher, has insurance, but it’s not enough to cover her prescriptions. Her insurance refused to pay for a medication to treat her Fibromyalgia. Williams is left with no choice but to struggle through the pain even as her premiums increase.

“I don’t have the expectation that things are going to be done immediately, but I can’t afford to wait much longer,” Cole said.

Cole is not alone. Insurance premiums are on the rise, forcing many to cut corners on health insurance. Premiums in 2008 averaged $12,298 for family coverage. Premiums are projected to jump 94% in 12 years if costs aren’t reigned in.

The high costs makes it harder for self-employed and especially the growing number of unemployed in the middle class to afford coverage.

That could spell even more trouble for the healthcare system. As the unemployment rate continues to increase because of the recession, so will the number of uninsured.

” I fall into this gap where I don’t qualify for Medicaid but at the same time I can’t afford to go to the doctor right now,” said Esmar Sullivan, who recently lost her job. “I had pretty good insurance back when I was employed.”

But even with decent healthcare, the costs of a prescription in her plan doubled.

“They were able to just double the costs and there was nothing I could do about it,” she said. “I had no other option.”