New York City’s slowly declining unemployment rate has stalled at 8.7 percent since March, leaving more than 340,000 New Yorkers currently searching for work. According to the New York State Department of Labor, more than half of the unemployed New Yorkers are either Hispanic or black. Pedro Mercado is one of the roughly 140,000 Hispanics [...]
October 25, 2011 Two Egyptian activists led hundreds of American protesters on a march out of Zuccotti Park on Monday, walking past the police barricades on Wall Street for the first time since protests began about six weeks ago. It marked a peculiar show of solidarity between a movement born out of decades of oppression [...]
Sitting in her new airy room in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Jill, 26, recalls the days when she lived in an illegal basement in Ridgewood, Queens. Cell phone signals did not exist, bath towel always had a rotten smell, and everyday was a challenge making herself invisible to other tenants in the three-storey building. “I didn’t feel [...]
Lu Hong, a 25-year-old nursing student at SUNY Stony Brook, migrated to the U.S. in 2004 from the eastern Zhejiang Province, China. Hong’s father, a Chinese businessman with a U.S. green card, spends two months a year in America and focuses the rest of the year on his booming construction business in China. After the [...]
BROOKLYN—She fought. She fought from high school to high school. Until Patice Ratliff started receiving counseling at her sixth high school, Brownsville Academy, she didn’t understand why fighting was always her first instinct. “Counseling is not just ‘oh my God, I’m going insane,’ counseling is something different,” said Ratliff, 17, standing outside of Brooklyn Criminal [...]
New York—Even when the parents of PS 184 Shuang Wen School (SW) won the battle against the City Department of Education (DOE) back in 2009 to keep charter schools and traditional public schools from sharing buildings, they knew it was only a temporary truce. As the size of the three existing charter schools in District One [...]
As the doors to room 219 open, the sound of third graders “bouncing” and “scooting” overpowers the voice of Beyoncé. Twenty-two children have their eyes fixed on the dance instructor, who is simultaneously relaying dance steps while jumping herself. This is Jamee Schleifer’s dance studio at New York City’s Public School 253. A rarity among [...]
Some of the most famous names of Russian descent are associated with ballet, such as Tchaikovsky, Irina Baronova and Mikhail Baryshnikov. But for today’s generation, Karina Smirnoff or Anna Trebunsnkaya often come to mind first, Russian dancers famous for their ballroom dance moves on the popular ABC show Dancing with the Stars. Smirnoff and Trebunsnkaya [...]
Charity Elder, Gabi Menezes and Carey Fox were NYU News and Documentary students when the 9/11 attacks took place. The days and weeks after the attack they were out in the streets of New York City reporting for their stories. Elder is the supervising producer of CBS, The Early Show, Menezes is the former Bureau Chief [...]
EAST FLATBUSH—Laparkan Trading, a company founded to provide an alternative shipping service for Caribbean immigrants in North America, enjoys consistent business in the densely populated Caribbean neighborhood of East Flatbush, despite tough economic times. When customers enter Church Avenue’s bustling, compact office filled with boxes, barrels and other customers, the atmosphere is familiar and comfortable. [...]
With the economy in a tailspin, businesses everywhere are trying to find ways to increase revenue – even if it means relocating their entire operation. Small-business owner Marvin Cochran is the exception. For the past five years, Cochran and his “Rudy’s Hobby and Art Supply” store have experienced a steady 10 percent decline in revenue. [...]
NEW YORK — Chinatown bar owners are skeptical about the Business Improvement District’s expected boost to tourism given the area’s sedate nightlife. With over 200 Chinese restaurants, street markets and cultural novelty stores, Canal Street has always been Chinatown’s anchor for tourism. However, the majority of these stores close their doors by 8 p.m., leaving [...]
There was nothing Egyptian about the two-block stretch in Astoria, popularly known today as Little Egypt, before Ali El Sayed opened Kabab Café in 1989. At that time, it stood out with its Arabic writing on the window, in a neighborhood that was predominantly American, Greek and Italian. Instead of ham and cheese sandwiches or [...]
A new breed of illegal vendors is hitting the streets of Brighton Beach. In the wake of a long wait to get vending licenses in New York City, some military Veterans are taking advantage of a special program that gives them licenses and they are illegally renting them to hopeful vendors. Day after day, this [...]
For Linda Alperin, 62, each day working at the Brooklyn Women’s Exchange is a pleasant holiday. Having volunteered at the charity consignment shop for 27 years, Ms. Alperin shares its missions of sustaining American handcrafts movement and providing a means of support for needy crafters. And for her, it is just like Christmas each time [...]
Making Kimchi, a traditional Korean pickled cabbage dish, is tough; selling it in New York and making a profit is even more challenging, especially in the midst of what analysts are now calling an economic double dip recession. With restaurant sales in the city down by 2.9 percent last year according to the National Restaurant [...]
Older Tibetan Americans stay away from the Mid-Term elections as they say they have already cast their votes for their candidates in the preliminary election of the next prime minister of the Tibetan government in exile.
NEW YORK — Amateur street singers continue to preserve the art of Cantonese Opera with their annual performance for the elderly in Chinatown. It’s 9:30 a.m. and Si-Lian Ling, 59, is backstage piling make-up on her face. She and nine other Cantonese Opera singers from the Street Musical Club are three hours away from their [...]
Jaime Erin Murphy, 26, and Renee Danielle Smith, 25, began The Murphy/Smith Dance Collective in January 2011 when they received the New Stage Artist Residency from the Kelly-Strahorn Theater in Pittsburgh, PA, for their piece “Much More Than Bones.” The group was honored when they were selected to perform their piece at the DUMBO Dance [...]
BROOKLYN—Every night for three months, eager players in Ablib Steel Orchestra practiced for the most important weekend of the summer: Labor Day. As media reports mounted about the violence at the West Indian American Day Carnival Parade, some parade participants felt the good in the annual event was lost and worried that the parade’s future [...]
Members of the East Flatbush community, largely Caribbean immigrants, were shocked by a recent spat of burglaries at the Sesame Flyers Youth and Cultural Center, a non-profit that caters to children and families in the Brooklyn area. The organization, entering its 28th year of operation, is a staple in the Caribbean community. Sesame Flyers’ band [...]
When Said Abdel Moneim’s 1992 Jeep broke down last week by Union Square while towing a roadside food stand to its overnight parking lot, it took him five hours to figure out a way to bring both trucks back to Astoria, Queens. In a heartwrenching spectacle, Mr. Abdel Moneim, 71, slid under his car and [...]
Most people know what first generation and second generation means when it comes to immigration. For the Chinese, first generation immigrants are those who come to the U.S. and become a citizen usually in their 30s or 40s. Second generations are their children — those who are born in the U.S. with immigrant parents. But [...]
Many first generation Chinese restaurant owners believe that the only key to success is through hard work. Through the decades, new restaurant businesses were started and nurtured by that mindset. As long as you work hard and provide quality food, customers will come and your business will grow by word of mouth. The rules [...]
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