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....April 13, 1:05 PM |
| Chasing Their Dreams: Queens’ Illegal Immigrants Hope For Freedom
By ANDREW MOESEL Around this time of year, Paulo, a Jackson Heights resident, would be a good person to know – a trained accountant, he could probably help you with your taxes.
But these days, the only thing he’s likely to help you with is your empty plate. Growing up in Peru, Paulo took several years of accounting classes in his late teens, but when his family received two-year visas to work in the United States, he abandoned the courses and went to America in search of opportunity. After all, “there are no jobs in my country,” Paulo said. Paulo found good work at restaurants, busing tables and helping in the kitchen at upscale Manhattan eateries. Two years came and went, but Paulo stayed, joining the ranks of 11 million other people in the U.S. without legal residency status. That was four years ago. Depending on what side of the political aisle one sits, Paulo became “an illegal alien,” to some, “an undocumented worker,” to others, the face of a debate over immigration policy that has raised tempers in Washington and filled streets across the country with zealous protesters. The fate of Paulo and others like him remains uncertain and widely disparate: under different pieces of legislation, he could wake up one morning either a citizen or a felon. Federal officials, now in recess, are deadlocked primarily along partisan lines and have thus far failed to craft a compromise between the two. Paulo takes these lofty political concerns in stride, not angry, not terribly worried, just simply hoping that one day he and his friends can prosper in this country the way countless others have in the past. In short, he just wants to live his life. Coming Out Of The Shadows If the goal of immigration is to assimilate foreigners into American culture, Paulo represents a model example. He works hard at his job, sometimes putting in long hours, but his free time is spent eating out, drinking at bars and hanging out with friends in popular New York establishments. For the last several months, he has been dating a Jewish woman from New York – over a recent dinner, the two couldn’t appear happier. An attractive man with light brown skin and closely cropped hair – which he cuts once a week – Paulo still speaks with a thick accent but communicates well in English. He agreed to be interviewed about his experiences as an undocumented immigrant on the condition that his full name be withheld. Almost everyone he works with at his job lacks legal status, Paulo said. Some people talk about the immigration issue, he says, but most, like him, don’t discuss it much. In fact, he says that while in New York, he doesn’t worry about his situation at all; there are so many illegal immigrants here, and people are so accepting of the fact, he says, that it just seems normal. When he travels, however, he does grow a little nervous. His apathy seems unusually common in this city, which, despite having one of the largest foreign-born populations, hasn’t rallied the number of immigrants to its marches and protests as other municipalities in Texas, California and Chicago. New York has been slow to mobilize with the rest of the country because, unlike other communities with one or two prominent ethnicities, the city literally has hundreds of groups that must coordinate with one another, said Nydia Lugo-Spahr, event coordinator for the Queens Hispanic Chambers of Commerce. The region also lacks a unifying leadership figure to serve as the inspiration, she said. But if a rally at City Hall on Monday serves as an indication, immigrant New Yorkers may have shed their reluctance and adopted a more proactive stance. Organizers estimate that more than 125,000 people flooded the streets, painting Broadway in a sea of fluttering flags, mostly stars and stripes, but many showing shades of blue, yellow, red green, orange and blue. Javier Figuroa, a Colombian immigrant who has legally lived here for 25 years, hoisted a mammoth American banner on a pole nearly 10 feet high as he marched down the street, waving it with the husky arms earned in his construction job. “This is a great day to show the politicians we will fight for our rights,” Figuroa said. “We are working hard, and we deserve to have residence. Jason Flores-Williams used a different, more subtle way to express his views on immigration: a black and white photo of his grandfather, hair neatly combed and wearing a ruffled suit, who traversed across the Rio Grande decades ago to provide a better life for his family in East Los Angeles. Although he has since passed away, Flores-Williams said the framed picture symbolized his presence. If his grandfather was still here, “He’d be pretty pissed off at the Bush Administration, but he’d be very proud of the people here today.” |
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