Council Member Francisco Moya (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)
The Latino population in Queens has exploded over the last two decades, and it is prompting a coming of age in Latino political representation in the borough. If current trends continue, Queens may become another center of Latino political power in the City of New York, alongside the Bronx.
The rise of Latino political representation in Queens began in 2000 when Hiram Monserrate became the first Latino elected to a position in the borough, beating an incumbent for a Democratic district leader position. One year later, he became the first Latino from Queens to be elected to the City Council. While acknowledging his eventual conviction, one cannot ignore Monserrate, for in many ways he paved the way for other Latinos to win and hold local office.
Many of them, including former City Council Member Julissa Ferreras and current State Senator Jessica Ramos, were once members of his staff. Others, like the late Jose Peralta, were not only allies of Monserrate but Monserrate lent them his once effective organization for their electoral pursuits and eventual victories. To be clear, both Ferreras and Ramos disavowed Monserrate after his conviction. Peralta ran against Monserrate after his scandals and beat him in a special election for the State Senate seat that had once belonged to him.
As Latinos have increased in number in the overall and voting populations, the number of Latino elected officials has likewise increased. In addition to the names already mentioned, Francisco Moya (who is up for re-election and is facing a formidable challenge from Ingrid Gomez), Catalina Cruz, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, and of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have all won legislative seats representing Queens. Other Latinos have won positions as Democratic district leaders in the borough.
The ramifications of this growth among Latinos will again be felt in this year’s elections — all of city government is on the ballot in this month’s primaries and the fall general election, with many competitive City Council races in Queens and across the five boroughs, as well as the races for mayor, comptroller, public advocate, and borough presidencies.
It is quite possible that the number of Latino elected officials in Queens will increase by as much as five (though I anticipate a gain of three), as the demographic changes in some City Council districts have tilted heavily from majority white to majority Latino.
In the 22nd Council District, based in Astoria, Tiffany Caban is a favorite for the seat left vacant by Council Member Costa Constantinides, who was term-limited but resigned recently due to family reasons and another job opportunity. Interestingly, this district is not majority Latino, though Latinos make up a quarter of the Democratic electorate, according to L2 voter data. Caban’s strength lies in the fact that she comes to the race off an incredible run for district attorney, where she barely lost to Melinda Katz in a recount, and thus has considerable name recognition and other advantages. Furthermore, Caban is a darling of the progressive left, many of whom reside in this district. Together, this makes her a serious contender for the seat and therefore increases the possibility of another Latina being elected in the borough of Queens.
Further west, we come to the 25th Council District, the seat currently held by outgoing Council Member Danny Dromm, who is term-limited. This district, covering Jackson Heights and Elmhurst, has seen one of the largest increases in the Latino population in the entire borough, making it now a majority-Latino district. Of the Democratic electorate, an estimated 41% is Latino. The next closest group is Southeast Asians at 20% of the Democratic electorate. Four of the eight candidates running in the all-important Democratic primary are Latinos: Liliana Melo, Manuel Perez, Alfonso Quiroz, and William Salgado. Of the four, Melo and Quiroz have received over $140,000 in public matching money, significantly boosting their campaigns. This race is one to watch.
Another Council district with a rapidly increasing Latino community is Queens’ 26th, covering parts or all of Sunnyside, Woodside, Long Island City, Astoria, and Dutch Kills. Its current occupant, Jimmy Van Bremer, is term-limited and thus cannot seek re-election to the Council. White voters only outnumber Latinos by an estimated 1,125 Democratic voters. Considering the trend of continued growth among Latinos, it is likely that in the next few years this district will also become majority-Latino. Two of the 15 candidates are Latinos: Lorenzo Brea and Glennis Gomez. Both have received public matching money and are competitive, creating another opportunity to increase Latino representation in the borough.
The 30th Council District is the fourth Queens district presenting Latinos an opportunity to increase representation this year. Covering the neighborhoods of Glendale, Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood, Woodhaven, and Woodside, this district is now majority-Latino. Latinos have a slight edge in the Democratic primary (by just an estimated 61 voters) over white voters in what has been a white-ethnic enclave for many decades. Juan Ardila is taking on incumbent Council Member Robert Holden, who is up for re-election after he lost the Democratic primary in a 2017 bid to unseat Elizabeth Crowley, then defeated her in the general election running on the Republican and other ballot lines.
Ardila has proven to be a solid fundraiser, and like Holden, he has received the maximum in public matching money. Endorsed by Donovan Richards (the current borough president), State Senator Ramos, the Working Families Party, and many progressive groups, elected officials, and labor unions, Ardila has a good chance of defeating one of the few incumbents in this election cycle, at least in the primary.
The last Queens Council district I am looking at in terms of Latino representation is the 32nd. Eric Ulrich, one of the few Republicans in the Council, is the current occupant and is term-limited from running again. Latinos are now the majority of the Democratic electorate, though not a majority of the overall vote. Bella Matias is the only Latina on the ballot and has received over $52,000 in public matching money. If she is able to organize and turn out enough Latino votes in a crowded race, she may surprise some observers, though whoever wins will still have to defeat the Republican nominee in the general election in a district that has more Democrats than Republicans but has elected Ulrich several times.
On primary day and as the votes are counted over the following weeks, my eyes will be focused on Queens. With its sizable and growing Latino presence, Queens may well send even more Latinos to City Hall.
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Eli Valentin is an adjunct lecturer at Union Theological Seminary, a frequent guest political analyst at Univision NY and author of the forthcoming, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Life. On Twitter @EliValentinNY.
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Time to focus on children (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
Children live in poverty at higher rates than any other age group in the United States. Children make up 22% of the United States population and 31% of those living in poverty. Racial inequities are deep and persistent: 71% of America’s children in poverty are children of color.
New York State entered the pandemic with more than 700,000 children living in poverty, 18% of all New York children. Black New York children live in poverty at twice the rate of white peers. Compared to the rest of the nation, New York children are more likely to live in poverty than children in 32 other states. More than 50% of Rochester’s children and just under 50% of Buffalo’s children live in poverty. In New York City, 22.2% of children live in poverty, with Bronx child poverty at 37.1%. By July 2020, the pandemic had pushed an additional 325,000 New York children into poverty or near poverty.
The impacts of child poverty can be severe and lasting and especially devastating for our youngest children who are most likely to live in poverty and most severely affected by it as their developing young brains and bodies are especially sensitive. Young children have the highest poverty rates of any age group in the country and poverty is a strong predictor of negative child outcomes.
While poverty is difficult for anyone, the impact on children can be permanently damaging. Children, especially those under the age of five, whose brains are just developing, need good nutrition, strong and stable parent/caregiver connections, and high-quality early learning experiences to grow and develop, but the odds are against them if they are poor.
This should concern all of us.
For our children experiencing poverty, every day New York fails to prioritize ending child poverty matters. The experience of poverty and trauma in childhood can have long-lasting impacts on development. The stress of poverty can alter the brain development of young children – causing permanent changes in the structure and functioning of the brain. As a result, many children who experience poverty face significant challenges – in the form of poor health, academic obstacles, lower earnings – for the rest of their lives.
This has a detrimental impact on children, and on the future viability of communities. Reactive interventions in the out-years through the provision of public benefits or interaction with the criminal justice system are far more costly than meeting the needs of disadvantaged children and families from the beginning. With the stakes so high, there should be no delay in tackling child poverty.
The federal American Rescue Plan Act is expected to significantly reduce child poverty in New York, and across the nation, in the coming year. However, the plan’s enhanced Child Tax Credit leaves out children without a Social Security number and as a result leaves behind an estimated 72,000 of New York’s children. These same children and families were cut out of the first round of stimulus checks, and the current one, along with many other family supports. The future of the child tax credit enhancement is also unclear.
Without thoughtful, intentional, and additional investments to address child poverty, hundreds of thousands of children will continue to live in poverty. And the income and economic effects of the covid recession will linger for years. But New York’s children can’t put their development on hold.
We know our fellow New Yorkers care about boosting families living in poverty. We know our legislative colleagues are pained to know their residents live in poverty. But child poverty is not going to go away without unified focus and effort.
We won’t get returns on investments we don’t make. As an investment in New York’s long-term future, we must aim to eliminate poverty and mitigate its effects.
Our bill (S.2755/A.1160) will do just that. The Child Poverty Reduction Act -- which just passed the State Senate -- provides New York the tools needed to reduce child poverty. It makes a public commitment to cutting child poverty in half in ten years; requires an annual public report of the effects that any adjustment or reduction by the director of the budget will have on child poverty; establishes the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council to develop a plan to achieve this goal with attention to racial equity; requires regular reporting to hold government to account; and directs the Advisory Council to evaluate policies proven to cut child poverty.
Let’s pass this bill in the Assembly and take on child poverty like the crisis it is.
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New York State Senator Jessica Ramos represents parts of Queens and Assemblymember Harry B. Bronson represents upstate areas including Rochester, Henrietta and Chili. On Twitter @JessicaRamos & @HarryBBronson.
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School in session (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
In 1980, Robert Jackson enrolled his daughter in Kindergarten at P.S./I.S. 187 on Cabrini Boulevard in Washington Heights. He soon noticed that her class sizes were huge, sometimes more than 30 or 35 children. There were no science or art rooms left because the school had been forced to convert them to classrooms. He decided to run for president of the school’s parents association, was elected, and soon thereafter became the head of the Community School Board in District 6.
As School Board President, Jackson decided to do something about the deplorable and overcrowded conditions in his district’s schools and citywide, and in 1993, he formed a coalition of parents, community members, and education advocates to sue the state for more education funding.
This lawsuit, filed in 1995, became known as the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case, and in a landmark 2003 decision, New York’s highest court ruled that the city’s schools had severe and chronic deficiencies due to underfunding by the State of New York.
One of these core deficits was class size, which the justices concluded were far too large to provide children with their right to a sound basic education under the State Constitution.
In their ruling, the Justices noted that “evidence of the advantages of smaller class sizes supports the inference sufficiently to show a meaningful correlation between the large classes in City schools and …poor academic achievement and high dropout rates.” They also found that “tens of thousands of students are placed in overcrowded classrooms...The number of children in these straits is large enough to represent a systemic failure.”
Smaller classes in grades K-3 are a proven, cost-effective method of improving student success. They lead to better grades and test scores and reduce disciplinary problems and teacher attrition. Children assigned to small classes in the early grades are more likely to graduate high school, go on to college, receive a STEM degree, and own their own home. And studies show that smaller classes in the middle and upper grades are correlated with greater student engagement, persistence, and other attributes critical to better outcomes.
Students who reap the most benefit from smaller classes are those from low-income households, along with students of color, those with disabilities, and English language learners. Yet nearly two decades after the CFE ruling, class sizes in New York City public schools have actually increased rather than decreased – especially in the early grades.
Why no progress? In 2007, in response to the CFE ruling, the State Legislature overhauled New York’s school finance system. It enacted a new funding formula, Foundation Aid, promising a massive infusion of new state aid, and a new law, the Contracts for Excellence (C4E) Law, to ensure that the additional funds districts received were spent on programs proven to improve student learning. The law also specifically required the city to develop and implement a plan to phase-in smaller classes over five years.
Although New York City developed such a plan, it didn’t follow through. The result? Class sizes remain excessive, and, in the early grades, have actually increased by about 10%. Large disparities persist across the city, with especially huge classes in schools where the population has grown most quickly – often schools with high concentrations of immigrant and Latino students. Last year, more than a third of all students were in classes of 30 or more.
New York City teachers agree that reducing class size would be the best reform to improve student outcomes, and parents put smaller classes among their top priorities every year on Department of Education surveys. Most principals concur.
In 2018, nine public school parents, along with the Alliance for Quality Education and Class Size Matters, sued the city for not reducing class size according to the C4E law. Yet our lawsuit lost in court, primarily because the years cited in the law to implement a class size reduction plan had lapsed.
The federal government is providing the city’s public schools with $7 billion in additional aid to help them reopen safely and well. In addition, due to the efforts of advocates and a progressive State Legislature, including Robert Jackson, now a State Senator, our schools will receive the additional funding promised by the Legislature in 2007, with $530 million next year, rising to $1.3 billion annually over the next three years.
In recognition of the importance of smaller classes, Senator Jackson and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon have introduced bills in their respective houses that would restart the clock on New York City’s obligation to lower class size. At the same time, the City Council, led by Council Member Daniel Dromm, Finance Committee chair and former middle school teacher, is calling for $250 million to be dedicated towards class size reduction next year.
The past year-and-a-half have been extremely difficult and disruptive for most students, who have spent months trying to learn remotely, staring into screens with only intermittent engagement with their teachers, fellow classmates, and the curriculum at hand. Isolated, bored, disconnected and at times even despondent, they will need the close, in-person support of their teachers more than ever before. It is even more evident now that human relationships are central to children’s emotional and intellectual development, and the strength of those relationships are immensely enhanced in a smaller class. It is past time that our city’s students are provided with the class sizes that have long been promised but never delivered by our elected leaders.
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Leonie Haimson is Executive Director of Class Size Matters. Wendy Lecker is Senior Attorney at the Education Law Center. On Twitter @LeonieHaimson & @Wlecker.
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