Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Topics

Topics

Trouble on the "Immigrant Express"


After three weekends of disrupted service between Woodside and Flushing because of installation of new signaling and track switches, the 7 train resumed local service in February, to the huge relief of commuters and immigrants getting ready for the Lunar New Year celebration. Express service remains suspended until March for the entire line.

Running along 19 miles from Times Square to Flushing, Queens, the 7 train serves 24 stations and nearly 400,000 riders a day. It is known as the "immigrant express" or "international express" because it goes through neighborhoods occupied by people representing more than 150 nations. While politicians and local merchants welcomed the return of the 7 train, many who depend on the subway fault the crowding and delays and think, even when it is running at full service, the train leaves a lot to be desired.

Back in Service

The return of service is particularly good news for residents in Flushing, a primarily Chinese and Korean enclave, as well as other immigrants who travel to specialty stores there to prepare for the Lunar New Year, which falls on February 7 this year. John Liu, the City Council member who represents Flushing, told the Daily News that the area's economy would have taken an even bigger hit if the 7 train had not run the first two weekends of February, the biggest shopping days of the year in the area. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's move was in response to requests from local politicians and.

"The MTA is understanding and cooperating with the businesses," Liu said.

"Our track department performed above and beyond our expectations," Steven Feil, senior vice president for subways at NYC Transit, said in a press release. The repair work, originally scheduled for five weekends, was completed ahead of schedule due to favorable weather.

During the first weekend with the 7 train back in service, Flushing was in chaos as many people rushed back to do their Lunar New Year shopping. According to the Chinese-language World Journal, a parking space was hard to find while the streets were filled with traffic and frustrated drivers. Some people did not know about the restored service and boarded the Long Island Rail Road without a ticket, thinking it was still free between New York Penn Station and Flushing.

The installation of the new equipment represents the second phase of a $76 million capital program to improve and upgrade the subway infrastructure along the Flushing line.

To provide alternative service when the 7 was not in service, the MTA ran shuttle buses between Woodside and Flushing. The Long Island Rail Road provided free rides between New York Penn Station and Flushing. The disruption confused many passengers, but most were able to find their way to the shuttle bus. Bilingual MTA workers were available to help riders who speak little English.

Chronic Pain

Even when it runs on weekends, a ride on the 7 train is never exactly smooth. Riders' blogs on the Straphangers website offer an array of complaints about the 7 train.

"At 6 p.m. today, I was at Grand Central station and there was hardly room to move on the platform," wrote Averie. "I don't mind the wait as much as I saw the safety hazard that prevailed on a crowded platform since both the Times Square-bound and Queens-bound trains both were not there to alleviate this human gridlock."

"One of the worst trains ever, and the only train out of Flushing forcing those of us that live there to take his horribly over crowded, smelly train," wrote Jen W. on Yelp, a review Web site on New York. "It's never on time. There are always delays. I don't care that you apologize for the delay, how about you apologize to my boss for me getting there late? Are you going to subsidize the pay my boss is going to dock from me? Probably not."

Some bloggers believe that the riders of the 7 train are underserved because they are mostly immigrants and working class.

"The subway system in New York City is unlike any other. It's a subway system in which people's livelihoods depend on - rich and poor," wrote a blogger named Cheeseburger 9000. "The subway was built for everyone, not simply for the rich folks living on the Upper West Side or the Upper East Side that have to get to their important jobs in midtown and downtown."

"What is not recognized and valued is that thousands upon thousands of the city's workers come in from Queens," wrote Mariposa7 on the Straphangers blog. "This is not racism on the part of the MTA. This is classism, which unfortunately reeks of racism because the poorer class in this city is mostly made up of black and Latino citizens, immigrants included."

Service Improvements

In an effort to make things better, the MTA last December named a general manager for the 7 and the L trains. The move is part of an overall effort to decentralize the system by appointing managers who are responsible for virtually all elements of the day-to-day operations of the lines, overseeing everything from announcements to station cleanliness.

The MTA has also been asking riders to grade their subway lines. In the rider survey conducted last year, the 7 train received a C minus, with most riders citing severe crowding at rush hour. Among the 24 subway lines, only the C, E, W, G and the Rockaway Shuttle trains received a worse grade.

Lou Brusati, the line general manager for the 7 train and a veteran MTA supervisor, said he thought the 7's grade was fair but declined to give the train a grade himself. "New Yorkers are a tough crowd...in a good way," he said. "People have high expectations and they feel that we can do better."

Brusati added that he would focus on station cleanliness and the reliability of service. Starting next month, he will conduct a series of "meet and greets" at various stations and listen to the riders' concerns.

Larry Tung, a native of Taiwan, teaches media and film courses at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. A resident of Brooklyn, he is also a documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on immigrant and Asian American issues.  

Race Matters in New York


Most New Yorkers think of racism as yesterday's news. They prefer to think we have moved beyond not just the city's dependence on slavery, its attempts to remain neutral in the Civil War so it could keep trading with the Confederacy, and Draft Riots that saw black people strung up from lampposts, but also the kind of contemporary blatant racial attacks that turn thousands of protesters out in the streets led by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

When the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee is Harlem's own Charlie Rangel and Time Warner and Merrill Lynch -- not to mention the city itself -- have been led by black men (Richard Parsons, Stanley O'Neal, and David Dinkins respectively), most people think that overt racism is a thing of the past or, at worst, an isolated problem -- especially when an African American named Barack Obama could very well become the next president of the United States.

But evidence to the contrary persists. Just ask yourself who is homeless in New York, who the beggars are on the street and who does the lowest wage and hardest jobs from checking your groceries and emptying bedpans to cleaning your office.

The report from the Urban Justice Center's Human Rights Project goes beyond such anecdotal evidence. Presented at a forum in mid-December the study documents how even in multicultural New York, we have a long, long way to go before race no longer matters.

The report, "Race Realities in New York City," covers employment, health, criminal justice, immigration, education, voting rights, domestic violence, housing, and child welfare. The study by leaders of non-governmental organizations was prepared under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a human rights treaty that the United States has ratified. Under the terms of that agreement, the Bush administration issued a report earlier this year on how it is dealing with racial disparities in the United States, but the Urban Justice Center cited the thinness of that official report, especially for failing to note "the government's disgraceful response to Hurricane Katrina" or the issue of police brutality. "Moreover," the center report says, "despite persistent racial discrimination that affects thousands of New Yorkers, the U.S. report contains very little New York City-specific information."

The Report's Findings

The center's 131-page report is an attempt to supplement that. And in doing so, it presents a stark picture of racial disparities. For example, it notes that "98 percent of 17,000 children in foster care in New York City are black and Latino." It also makes note of what it calls the "school to prison pipeline," which it describes as a "nationwide system of policies that pushes students from the school system into the juvenile justice system."

To start with, students of color are disproportionately suspended for the same infractions: 8.3 percent of all black students, 4.8 percent of Latinos and 2.5 percent of whites in the 2001 school year according to a recent report by Elizabeth Sullivan, "Deprived Of Dignity: Degrading Treatment And Abusive Discipline In New York And Los Angeles Public Schools" from the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative.

In addition, according to the Urban Justice Center, "In 2006, 43 percent of black students and 41 percent of Latino students in New York City graduated on time, compared to 67 percent of white students and 68 percent of Asian students."

In employment, African Americans, Latinos and Asians "make up 37 percent, 16 percent and 4 percent respectively of the city's workforce," but hold just 18 percent of the senior and executive staff positions.

African Americans and Latinos comprise about half the population of the city, but account for 91 percent of those in jail. In 2006, half of all police stops were of African Americans, 29 percent were of Latinos and 11 percent were of whites. The report says that this occurred despite the fact that "white suspects were 70 percent more likely than black suspects to have a weapon."

The infant mortality rate is 10.5 per 1,000 live births for African Americans and 5.9 for whites. Women of color have three times the HIV rate of white women. The vast majority of domestic violence victims are women of color. The list goes on and on.

Looking for Solutions

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was making his tour of the Far East when the Urban Justice Center released the report. It hopes that he and the City Council will adopt international human rights principles in looking at whether New York City is plagued by racial disparities and what it can do about it.

In light of persistent racial disparities, the Urban Justice Center, in coalition with other groups, for several years has been trying to pass a City Council bill that would go beyond protecting individuals who can prove they have been illegally discriminated against and move toward remedying systemic discrimination. The measure, called the Human Rights in Government Operations Audit Law, would require city agencies to "disaggregate data" at least on the basis of race and sex and, when appropriate, on immigration status, sexual orientation and gender identity.

The measure is currently stalled. Bill Perkins, who is now a state senator, originally sponsored the bill. He has on called for getting the 2009 mayoral candidates to support the measure. The bill's current sponsor, Councilmember Helen Foster of the Bronx, in a passionate address at the December forum, highlighted the racial dimensions of everything from stadium siting to congestion pricing, which she said would lead people to park their cars in Harlem and other neighborhoods of color to avoid fees.

Andy Humm, a former member of the City Commission on Human Rights, has been in charge of the civil rights topic page since its inception in 2001. He is co-host of the weekly "Gay USA" on Manhattan Neighborhood Network (34 on Time-Warner; 107 on RCN) on Thursdays at 11 PM.  

What Three Million Immigrants Do


A college graduate from Beijing who studies hotel management and culinary art, Zhen Zhang moved to New York in 1993 with dreams of opening his own hotel. Although that idea never materialized, he now runs a successful travel agency in Flushing, Queens.

" New York is a city that is full of opportunities," Zhang said. "Here, as long as you are willing to work hard, you will have a better future. You run into language and cultural barriers but you learn to adapt."

Zhang is among the 3 million immigrants living in New York City. Like the majority of them, he works hard and pays taxes. Now his contribution to the society is reaffirmed by a study, titled "Working for a Better Life: A Profile of Immigrants in the New York State Economy." It concluded that immigrants contribute nearly one fourth of the economic output of New York State. Their contribution is even greater in New York City, where their share of wages is 37 percent of total earnings by residents.

" These numbers should wipe away any impression that immigrants are holding the New York economy back," said David Kallick, a senior fellow at the institute and the principal author of the study. "In fact, immigrants are a central component of New York’s economic growth."

The study, conducted over the past year, was released on November 26, less than two weeks after New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer dropped his controversial plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants that stirred up a national debate. It is prepared by the Fiscal Policy Institute, a private research organization, as part of a joint project on "The Truth about Immigrants" with the New York Immigrant Coalition.

" We just felt like there was such a deep misunderstanding about who immigrants were that the political discourse often got far afield from any factual basis of what’s really going on here," Kallick told the New York Times. "

" This report clearly proves that immigrants fuel growth and vitality in every economic sector and every geographic area in New York," said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director or the New York Immigration Coalition. "For us to maximize immigrant contributions to the economy, we must stop treating immigrants like criminals and terrorists. Instead, we need to change our immigration law so that undocumented immigrants can come out of the shadows of the underground economy and future immigrant workers ca immigrate legally to fill jobs that our economy requires."

Breaking the Stereotypes

In New York City, foreign-born residents account for 37 percent of the population. The national average is 12 percent. These immigrants are not limited to the low-wage, low-skill work often associated with them. According to the study, in New York City, immigrants make up a quarter of all chief executives, half of accountants, a third of financial managers and four out of 10 architects. They account for half of the city's doctors and six out of 10 registered nurses. In addition, more than a third of college professors are immigrants and so are more than half of all computer programmers.

Steven Michaels, an immigrant from Greece and a former comptroller of a major financial firm, said about 20 percent of the employees in his former company are foreign-born and highly educated.

" Many of them earned their MBAs here and hold middle and upper management positions," said Michaels, currently an independent financial consultant. "Leaving their families and social circles to start over in a foreign country, they have to work hard in order to be successful. They absolutely make great contribution to the economy."

" Immigrants’ contribution to economic output in New York State is about the same as their share of the population," said James Parrott, chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute. "That’s because immigrants start businesses, invest in New York and work in jobs all across the economic spectrum – the same as other New Yorkers."

In the Labor Force

According to the study, about 28.5 percent of all immigrants live in families with an income of between $40,000 and $80,000. Immigrants tend to have incomes in this middle range, while native-born families tend to be more concentrated at the top and bottom of the income spectrum.

In addition, immigrants have a higher work force participation rate than other Americans. Sixty-four percent of immigrants are in the labor force, compared to 60 percent of New York City residents born in the United States. Immigrants work longer hours – slightly above one hour a week more than native-born workers. And they tend to have more workers in each family – 44 percent of immigrant families have two or more family members that work, compared to 28 percent of native-born families.

Illegal immigrants, the center of the furor over Spitzer’s former license plan, were also included in the study through collaboration with the Pew Hispanic Center and Urban Institute. Immigrants without proper documentation make up about 18 percent of all immigrants in New York City, totaling at 535,000. Among them, 374,000 people are in the work force, showing a labor participation rate as high as 70 percent.

Urban Revival

Immigrants have contributed to New York City’s rebirth over the last 25 years. Because of the fiscal crisis and population decline in the 1970s, New York City’s population dropped to a record-low 7 million in the 1980 Census. The city's population reached 8.2 million in 2005 and is projected to continue to grow, partly because of immigration.

Asian immigrants are the fastest-growing group, making up 23 percent of all immigrants. Blacks are 21 percent with many newcomers from the Caribbean and Africa. Whites account for 23 percent with a big influx of Eastern Europeans, while Hispanics are 31 percent. The top five countries of birth for immigrants are the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Mexico and Guyana.

Beyond working, these immigrants contribute to the economic vitality of the city in other ways. For example, 34 percent of immigrants live in hoes they own, a rate close to that of their native-born counterparts.

Newcomers to the city have opened businesses across New York, particularly in its many ethnic enclaves. Immigrants own a variety of businesses -- grocery stores, nail salons, newsstands and restaurants, to name a few-- that create employment and generate tax revenue. In Flushing, Queens, where Chinese and Korean signs can be seen everywhere, the number of businesses grew 54.6 percent between 1994 and 2004. In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where Spanish is the primary language, more than 500 new businesses were established during the same period of time.

Education

More and more immigrants have some form of higher education, the study found. In 1980s, only about 30 percent have received some college education. That number grew to 52 percent in 2005. The study also found that immigrants from Asia have considerably higher college graduation rates than native-born residents, while groups from Latin America, Caribbean and Mexico, have considerably lower educational levels.

" No matter if it is low-skill or high-skill work, immigrants fill the positions that Americans refused to take or simply could not do," said Keju Ma, a Canadian citizen who works for Goldman Sachs in Manhattan. "They fill the gap. That is significant contribution to the American economy."

Larry Tung, a native of Taiwan, teaches media and film courses at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. A resident of Brooklyn, he is also a documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on immigrant and Asian American issues.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Print Friendly and PDF

Editor's Choice


Gotham Gazette: New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
Gotham Gazette: 
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
Gotham Gazette: 
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Gotham Gazette: 
City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years