Hispanics Archives - Pavement Pieces

East Harlem businesses preserve culture through Mexican Independence Day festival

Amy Zahn — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 13:33:57 +0000

Artist Daniel Valle poses with one of his handmade masks — a papier mache devil, at the Mexican Independence Day festival in East Harlem yesterday. Photo by Amy Zahn

A blue Mexican wrestler mask swung in the breeze, gently knocking against a brightly painted sugar skull.

Daniel Valle laughed. “This one’s really solid,” he said.

He took the yellow and green skull down from the string that suspended it from the top of his tent. It was just papier mache, but it still produced an audible “thunk” when Valle rapped it on its head.

Valle had just finished setting up a tent full of his handmade masks at a Mexican Independence Day festival in East Harlem yesterday. For local businesses like Valle’s, the festival was about more than honoring the day that Mexico wrested out of Spain’s control over 200 years ago. It gave them the chance to work their missions — connecting with local communities and preserving the culture of their homelands.

“I’m trying to rescue all these Mexican gods,” Valle said, gesturing to his masks. Hanging next to the skull and the wrestler, or luchador, was a mask of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war, and another luchador, this one silver.

Valle’s work is expensive, but it’s intricate, too. One mask can take months to finish, and each is handmade entirely by him. The sugar skull goes for $800. Valle’s work usually hangs in restaurants and galleries, but he came to the festival today to make contact with local communities.

“This is the only chance I get to talk to the people, to see what they like,” he said.

People milled in and out of Valle’s tent, sipping ice cold horchata, a sweet Mexican rice drink. It was only 80 degrees out, but the humidity made it feel hotter.

“Es un dia para celebrar,” or, “It’s a day to celebrate,” said festival-goer Rodrigo Cano as he perused the vendors lining the streets, many of them selling handmade goods like Valle’s. Cano came to the United States from Mexico six years ago, but he still peppers his speech with Spanish phrases.

Like the business owners around him, Cano celebrates Mexican Independence day as a means of staying connected to his culture.

“It’s to don’t forget our tradition, where we come from, especially when you are outside your country,” he said.

Local shopowner Carmelo Reyes stands with his drink cart at a Mexican Independence Day festival in East Harlem yesterday. Photo by Amy Zahn

Just across the street from Valle’s tent is the small, locally owned Agave Deli and Grocery. Owner and longtime East Harlem resident Carmelo Reyes ladled sweet beverages into plastic cups before handing them to customers. Aguas frescas, light fruit drinks, are his specialty — jamaica, horchata and mangonada, a drink made with mango and lime. He learned to make these refreshments working in a restaurant in the 1980s.

Reyes stopped ladling horchata to talk.

“Some people don’t have papers,” he said. He opened El Agave on 116th Street in East Harlem to serve the largely Hispanic community in the area. “They’re afraid to come out on the streets because they think they’re going to deport them.” He hopes events like the Independence Day festival help people feel more comfortable in their communities.

Valle chatted with fellow vendor Antonio Rojas during a lull in business. Much like Valle, Rojas came to the festival to show his handmade art and to do his part to keep traditional Mexican culture alive with figures inspired by Mayan, Aztec and Toltec culture.

“It’s to try to make alive our past, our ancestors,” he said. “It’s important because with the passing of the years, a lot of stuff has been lost.” Rojas makes a mold for each piece, which can take over a month to complete.

“Every single one of them has a different meaning,” he said, showing off intricately carved Aztec and Mayan calendars. The calendars laid next to skulls and a Pyramid of Kukulkan, a well-known landmark from Chichen Itza in the Mexican state of Yucatan.

Just feet away sat Valle and his masks.

“Don’t let it die, all this culture,” Valle said.

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El Taller Latino-Americano faces eviction

Nidhi Prakash — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 13:23:59 +0000

by Nidhi Prakash

It’s not quite an art gallery, not quite a language school, and not quite a music venue.

But El Taller Latino-Americano is a little bit of all those things, and most of all it has become a cultural institution on the Upper West Side over the last two decades. With rising rents, it’s about to be driven out of the area.

“Despite the fact that we are a not-for-profit educational organization, the rent which we engage in with the landlord is commercial,” said Bernardo Palombo, a founder of El Taller.

It’s expected to rise from $8000to $22,000 per month next year.

“What for us is human space is for others mathematics and numbers,” said Palombo.

This is not the first time Manhattan’s property market has forced them to move.

El Taller: language, culture and community on 104th Street from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

They started out on 19th Street and 7th Avenue almost 35 years ago, before moving a little further uptown, then across to the basement of a Russian cathedral in the Lower East Side. They’ve been in their current space on 104th Street and Broadway for the last 22 years.

“Now we are here, and probably next year we will be in Canada, because the whole history of gentrification pushes people to el norte, so we are going to el norte again,” said Palombo.

He has a plan for El Taller – to develop an urban garden, community kitchen, centre for immigrants’ rights and a three-penny university – if he can find a way to stay in the building.

The three-penny university would include workshops from current and former Columbia University professors and community members.

“Dona Maria, a Puerto Rican woman who lives next to my house, will teach handy 22 point crochet,” said Palombo, “And the younger characters that are selling drugs in the avenue will teach texting to the old farts like me.”

El Taller has submitted the proposal to two different arts foundations, suggesting they buy the building and help expand the organization.

But if the rent rises as expected, it is likely Palombo and El Taller will have to find a new home for these big ideas to unfold.

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GOP Primary: “DREAMers” mobilize Latino vote

Joann Pan and Alexa Asperin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 03:26:09 +0000

A group of young “DREAMers” intends to throw a wrench into the November election plans by waking up a sleeping giant – American Latinos.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus – a group of Latino members of U.S. Congress – and supporters of the national Dream Act stood in the shadow of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on April 19 to launch the “Su Voz, Mi Voto” campaign.

Undocumented students and their allies will walk door-to-door in their home states telling their personal stories to people who will listen. “DREAMers” looking to pass the Dream Act want to motivate thousands of their Latino neighbors to use their votes as legal citizens to bring in a candidate who will support the immigration reform bill.

Republican front-runner Mitt Romney is known for his anti-immigration stance, while President Barack Obama supports the DREAM Act but has failed to follow through with the passage of the bill first introduced in 2001. The legislation would help qualified individuals go to college or enlist in the military with a path to citizenship they otherwise would not have. In 2010, the National Dream Act reached the U.S. Senate, but was defeated by a Republican filibuster.

Latinos and immigrants – legal and undocumented – want to make their voices heard at the polls. The “Su Voz, Mi Voto” campaign is backed by the DRM Capitol Group, a lobbying firm dedicated to driving campaigns for the adoption of the Dream Act, and the iDREAM organization.

“We’re here to send a strong message to both parties that the Dream Act doesn’t belong to any party,” said Cesar Vargas, 28, DREAMer and managing partner of DRM Capitol Group. “We’re fighting for our community, our families – not for any political party. We want to send a message to end deportation and for them to act and take leadership,” he said.

Today, the Republican primaries hit five northeastern states –- New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island. Romney is expected to pick up most of the 209 delegates up for grabs, bringing him much closer to the end goal of 1,144 delegates by November – his ticket to contest for the White House.

While Romney celebrates another primary sweep, dreamers are hoping to leverage 22 million Latino votes toward the more promising candidate.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez of New York wants to see 22 million Hispanic Americans at this year’s polls -– a 25 percent increase from 2008.

“We will hold accountable those who have failed to support these main policies,” Velazquez said.

She added that it wasn’t a surprise that Obama has a 40 percent lead against Romney among Latino voters.

“We will be out there reminding our Latino voters, our Latino community and immigrants in general who stood with us on this important issue,” she said.

In 2008, 19.5 million Latinos were eligible to vote, but half did not cast ballots, because they were not registered or did not turn out.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a councilmember from Chicago and chairman to Immigration Task Force Chairman said it’s an “altruistic” and “noble” task to utilize a vote for group that would be otherwise unheard.

“It’s going to take the hard work of individuals like the ones standing here with us, knocking on doors and getting neighbors who are eligible to vote to get registered,” he said.

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Port Richmond confronts racial tensions

Jonathan Walczak — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:56:38 +0000

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.”

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