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From: Aliza Becker <azbecker@mindspring.com>
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Subject: [NIFL-ESL:6590] FW: A Nation of Immigrants Rebuilds
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------ Forwarded Message
From: "Maurice Belanger" <mbelanger@immigrationforum.org>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 14:09:01 -0400
To: <mbelanger@immigrationforum.org>
Subject: A Nation of Immigrants Rebuilds
National Immigration Forum
Date: October 23, 2001
To: Forum Associates and interested advocates
From: Forum Policy Staff
Re: More Excerpts from Stories Relating to the Aftermath of the
Events of September 11
----------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
1. "Second Loss Compounds Widow's Grief," New York Times,
October 10, 2001
2. "Arab-Americans ready to defend U.S.," The Dallas
Morning News, October 6, 2001
3. "For WTC widow, another blow," The Associated Press,
October 10, 2001
4. “Loved ones of missing migrants face dilemma,” Chicago
Tribune, October 14, 2001
5. "Arab-Americans fear bias," The Hill, October 15, 2001
6. "Editorial: Squeegee man," Concord Monitor, October 16,
2001
7. "Adult Ordeal for Twin Girls, 13," New York Daily News,
October 16, 2001
8. "Kararo Trerra," Associated Press, October 16, 2001
9. "Keeping N.Y. terror victim's dream alive," Orange
County Register, October 16, 2001
10. "People from a dozen countries become U.S. citizens at
ceremony," The Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, MN), October 12, 2001
----------------------------------------------------
A NATION CHALLENGED: CHARITY
Second Loss Compounds Widow's Grief
By AARON DONOVAN
10/10/2001
The New York Times
c. 2001 New York Times Company
Jorge Morron was supposed to become a United States citizen on Sept. 17.
To record the event, he wanted his pregnant wife, Sonia, to bring a
video camera to the swearing-in ceremony, at the Immigration and
Naturalization Service bureau in Garden City, N.Y.
The two were going to celebrate that evening with dinner at a
restaurant. He asked Mrs. Morron to wear her most beautiful clothing.
''The ceremony will be in your honor and our baby's honor,'' she
recalled his saying.
But on the morning of Sept. 17, the cushioned metal chair that Mr.
Morron, 38, would have sat in during the ceremony remained empty. Mr.
Morron, a security guard at the World Trade Center, has been missing
since Sept. 11, and is presumed dead.
After her husband disappeared, Mrs. Morron began to have panic attacks.
Mrs. Morron has four brothers and four sisters in Bogotá, Colombia,
where she was born, but her husband was the only relative she had in the
United States, to which she immigrated in 1995.
Mrs. Morron has not worked since February, after a 91-year-old woman she
had cared for as a live-in health attendant died. The couple were
married in April and lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Jackson
Heights, Queens, with Mr. Morron's brother, Carlos, who built a wall off
the living room to partition the apartment. The other bedroom was rented
out to bring in an extra few hundred dollars a month.
It was a crowded existence, but for Mrs. Morron, 41, it was the happiest
time in years, because she was in love.
This summer, Mrs. Morron (pronounced mor-OWN) was delighted to find out
she was pregnant.
Early on the morning of Sept. 11, Mr. Morron took his wife to Elmhurst
Hospital Center, where she was receiving prenatal care in the third
month of a pregnancy that was considered high risk because of her age.
He was always anxious when she was in the hospital and he considered
staying there and waiting for her to finish the day's tests. But he
decided he had to go to work. ''He doesn't like to leave me alone,''
Mrs. Morron said, ''but he was always very responsible to his job.''
She was in the hospital's waiting room when the television showed
pictures of the planes hitting the twin towers. When the south tower
collapsed, she said, she felt a chill come over her body.
Mr. Morron never returned, and she began to feel uncomfortable living in
the apartment without her husband. The Children's Aid Society, one of
the 10 local charities supported by The New York Times 9/11 Neediest
Fund, gave her a one-bedroom apartment in a shelter it runs, where she
is cared for 24 hours a day by a health aide and can receive medical
attention quickly.
When her husband failed to return home in the days after the attack,
Mrs. Morron increasingly worried about the well-being of her baby. ''In
this baby,'' she said, ''there is a part of my husband.''
Then last Thursday, she began feeling cramps in her abdomen, and Judy
Quinones, a social worker at the Children's Aid Society who was working
with her, called an ambulance, which took her to Mount Sinai Hospital.
There, she found out that she had suffered a miscarriage. ''In my
feelings, I am hopeless,'' she said, crying. ''I feel like dying also.''
==========================
Arab-Americans ready to defend U.S. Some say civilian prejudice, abuse
aren't found in military
Ed Timms
10/06/2001
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2001 Gale Group Inc. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT 2001 The
Dallas Morning News, L.P.
Jamal Baadani came to the United States from Egypt as a boy. At 17, he
enlisted in the Marine Corps.
He'd endured abuse from classmates because of his ethnic background but
also met people who stood up for him. They helped him learn a new
language, to understand American customs, to appreciate American values.
He came to love his adopted country.
As the nation gears up for a war on terrorism, Staff Sgt. Baadani is
ready and willing to contribute. And it's likely that other
Arab-Americans who serve in the military will be called upon to help in
the fight.
"We are a part of society," he said. "We're defending the country. We're
willing to die for the same rights and for the freedom of others as
well."
No record of numbers
The role of Arab-Americans in the military is not easily discerned. They
are neither high-profile nor vocal. The Defense Department keeps no
record of their number. Especially since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, at a time when
Arab-Americans have been the targets of hate crimes, some military
officials are reluctant to discuss them at all.
But there is tacit acknowledgment that Arab-Americans have served their
country well through many wars and crises, and will continue to do so -
even as they may encounter a heightened level of prejudice, suspicion
and misdirected hostility from the civilian population they are sworn to
protect.
"Just like everybody else, I was outraged at what happened," said Lt.
Cmdr. David Fawal, who serves with a Navy reserve unit as a lawyer in
the Judge Advocate General's Corps, or JAG. "As an Arab-American, I was
especially disturbed to find out that Arabs were behind this. But ...
you can't attribute the beliefs of a few fanatics, no matter how
horrendous the acts that they do, to the group as a whole."
Willing to fight
Lt. Cmdr. Fawal said he would have no qualms about fighting those who
are responsible for the recent terrorist attacks.
"In the big scheme of things, as a Navy lawyer, I ain't going to be
launching any missiles," he said. "But I sure as hell would."
Muslim and Christian, observant or not, emanating from many different
countries and cultures, Arab-American service members are not a
monolithic group. Sgt. Baadani, for example, is a Muslim, born in Egypt
to a family that originally was from Yemen. Lt. Cmdr. Fawal is an
Orthodox Christian whose parents, both immigrants, came from the
Palestinian city of Ramallah on the West Bank.
Assimilation has distanced some Arab-American service members from the
language and culture of their forefathers. Others are fluent in Arabic
and have considerable knowledge of customs and traditions.
The Arab American Institute, a civil rights organization in Washington,
recently was contacted by a military intelligence unit based in Utah
that is seeking Arabic speakers. Similarly, the FBI has sought the help
of Arab-Americans who are fluent in Arabic.
"Recent immigrants, whose Arabic language skills are that of native
speakers, are in demand," said Dr. James J. Zogby, founder and president
of the institute. "And they are responding."
Dealing with prejudice
As they stand ready to defend their country and mourn the loss of life
in the Sept. 11 attacks, some Arab-American service members also must
grapple with other emotions.
"We're all grieving, just like everybody else," said Sgt. Baadani, who
serves in a Marine reserve unit in Southern California. "And we're
having to defend ourselves."
While dining with a fellow Marine recently, a restaurant manager,
commenting on the attacks, pronounced that "those Arab-Americans are all
knuckleheads."
'You're a terrorist'
The next morning, while eating breakfast in uniform, another woman
struck up a conversation. She asked where he was from. He told her that
he was born in Egypt.
"With a serious tone - she wasn't joking - she goes, 'Oh, you're a
terrorist,'" Sgt. Baadani recalled.
His eldest daughter, who lives in another state with her mother and
younger sister, received a threatening note to the effect that all Arabs
are terrorists. Sgt. Baadani said that his younger daughter, whose
features appear more Arabic, is more accustomed to dealing with teasing.
For his blond and blue-eyed older daughter, it was a shock.
"It really affected her because that's the first time in her 14 years of
life that she's experienced any racial prejudice against who she is,"
Sgt. Baadani said.
Fearing anti-Arab backlash, Sgt. Baadani's father asked that his son
send photographs of him in uniform, to be displayed in the family
business in Michigan. "They're having problems up there, too," Sgt.
Baadani said.
Ethnicity not an issue
Among Marines, Sgt. Baadani said he has not encountered intolerance. And
Lt. Cmdr. Fawal said that his ethnicity hasn't been an issue.
"It has never been a problem, nor have I been shy about it," said Lt.
Cmdr. Fawal, who in civilian life practices law in Birmingham, Ala. Nor
has he been reluctant to share his views on the Middle East.
"With respect to the way this country handles the Israeli-Palestinian
issue, I have some disagreement and I always have, but I can voice that
in this country and not get killed for it," Lt. Cmdr. Fawal said. "A lot
of people in a lot of other countries can't do that."
Served in Lebanon, gulf
As a Marine, Sgt. Baadani has participated in military operations in
which the enemy, or potential enemy, is Arab. In the mid-1980s, he
served as a translator in Beirut, Lebanon, and also was part of the
external security for the U.S. Embassy there.
In 1988, he took part in Operation Earnest Will, which put an end to
Iranian attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.
He also spent several years as a Marine recruiter in Lewisville, and
earlier this year was chosen to represent the United States as a member
of a military goodwill ambassador contingent in Australia.
He left active duty in the early 1990s, but joined a reserve unit last
year.
"I missed the Corps and felt that I wasn't finished serving my country,"
Sgt. Baadani said.
Muslims in military
In addition to the backlash against Arab-Americans, Muslim service
members of all ethnic backgrounds have seen their religion disparaged
after the terrorist attacks.
Defense Department officials estimate that there may be 10,000 to 20,000
Muslims in uniform. In 1993, the armed forces' first Muslim chaplain
began serving; according to the School of Islamic and Social Sciences in
Virginia, which provides training, there are currently 17. One serves at
Fort Hood.
"The unique thing about our armed services is that irrespective of your
faith, there's no division - and this horrendous act is not going to
divide us," said Qaseem Uqdah, a retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant
and executive director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans
Council. "It's not going to be used as a wedge."
=======================================
For WTC widow, another blow
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
The Associated Press
The attacks on the World Trade Center left Deena Gilbey's young sons
without a father -- and the British national facing the possibility of
being deported from the country she's called home for eight years.
Paul Gilbey, a money trader with Euro Bank, worked on the 84th floor of
the south tower and is presumed dead.
The couple, who moved to the United States eight years ago and settled
in Chatham Township, were here on a long-term work visa that allowed
Deena to live in America but prohibited her from working. Their two
young sons were born here and are U.S. citizens.
Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Deena Gilbey phoned the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. She said she was told the visa was not valid
after her husband's death and that she would have to leave the country
or face deportation.
In the following days, Chatham Detective Sgt. George Petersen assigned
himself the task of ushering Gilbey through discussions with the INS.
Petersen said that of all the Chatham families affected by the tragedy,
she is the only one put in such a position.
"Not only has she lost her husband," Petersen said. "Now she's getting
revictimized by the country she's chosen to live in."
And because she is not a resident (although she and her husband applied
for green cards years ago, their paperwork never made it through the
bureaucracy), the government will tax her husband's life insurance 60
percent.
"It had been about six years they'd been trying to get this process,"
Petersen said. "Now here it is eight years later, he gets killed, and
she has no status."
Local efforts have been ineffective despite Petersen's help, said Police
Chief George Kurzenknade, who called on federal lawmakers to help before
the INS decides to take action.
"I don't think they're going to physically come and take her out of
here, but until she has a document that says that, she's not going to
rest," Kurzenknade said.
Although INS Commissioner James Ziglar has said the agency would not
pursue immigration claims against victims' families, Deena Gilbey
remained concerned about her future and her sons Max, 7, and Mason, 3.
"This is their home. They're American," she said. "This is the only
security they've got."
On Tuesday, Sen. Robert G. Torricelli stepped in.
"We understand no one wants her to be deported, the INS included," said
Debra DeShong, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Democrat. "They are
working with us to go through her case and find the best possible
solution, which would be for her to remain in the United States."
Torricelli plans to offer an amendment to the anti-terrorism legislation
now working its way through Congress that would give the INS discretion
to offer humanitarian relief by allowing anyone affected in this manner
to become a citizen.
A similar provision is already in the House version of the
anti-terrorism bill.
A woman who answered the phone at the Gilbey home Tuesday afternoon and
identified herself as Deena's mother said her daughter still had not
heard from the agency.
U.S. Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen spoke with Ziglar and received
assurances that Gilbey would not be seized or deported, said Mark
Broadhurst, spokesman for the Republican congressman.
Petersen said that as long her situation is unclear, his department is
there to help.
===========================
“Loved ones of missing migrants face dilemma”
Chicago Tribune
By Evan Osnos
Tribune national correspondent
Published October 14, 2001
NEW YORK -- Long before he disappeared, Leobardo Lopez Pascual had
learned to be invisible.
Like hundreds of other undocumented workers in and around the World
Trade Center, the 41-year-old cook at Windows on the World knew that
staying in this country meant avoiding attention. He kept to himself and
worked hard, mailing a small check each week to his wife and four
children in Mexico.
But when Lopez Pascual vanished among the thousands of victims of the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his relatives, also here illegally, found
themselves torn between the need for aid and information and the fear of
exposure to authorities.
"We are fearful because we gave information about ourselves. [But] we
had to get answers," said Gerardo Pascual, an uncle who decided to come
forward along with Leobardo's brother in the hope of retrieving his
body.
Families and roommates in immigrant neighborhoods throughout New York
face this dilemma as lives of careful anonymity are overturned by a
disaster that did not discriminate.
Hundreds of other undocumented dishwashers, delivery workers and bus
staff from the trade center area survived the attacks, only to find
their employers' businesses destroyed or shuttered. Once paid in cash or
employed by firms now reluctant to confirm their use of illegal
immigrants, these workers are struggling to provide the documentation
needed to receive disaster benefits available to displaced workers.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has pledged not to pursue
cases against illegal workers or those who employ them based on
information gathered as a result of the attacks. Yet many undocumented
residents are wary.
No one knows exactly how many undocumented immigrants were among the
victims. Estimates by community groups range from 40 to 100. But some of
the same groups say the estimates are premature.
"The early figure on Haitian victims was five, and that seems
outrageously low," said Merrie Archer, associate director for programs
and development at the New York-based National Coalition on Haitian
Rights. "Seeing the numbers for the Dominican community or the Puerto
Rican community, proportionally, it doesn't seem possible. . . .
Haitians have the same types of jobs."
A count by Tepeyac Association, a non-profit immigrants' group, found 10
Dominican victims. The city's Haitian and Dominican populations are
comparable in size--350,000 to 400,000, according to the 2000 census and
community estimates.
Relatives far away
Another impediment to an accurate count is that many of the city's
undocumented workers live far from close relatives. In those cases,
getting personal information from relatives in poor or remote towns is
nearly impossible.
"It is so difficult to get any benefits for these people and we are
afraid that it will take too long," said Brother Joel Magallan, a Jesuit
missionary and executive director of Tepeyac, now serving as a
clearinghouse for immigrants affected by the attacks.
Even late last week, the group was receiving new calls about victims. In
one case, a 15-year-old girl called Thursday from a pay phone in
Guatemala City to provide a shred of new information about her mother,
who vanished Sept. 11.
Without much more than a name and age, however, Tepeyac has been unable
to file a claim for benefits on the girl's behalf.
That case is on top of 65 missing persons cases that Tepeyac has filed
successfully.
The group has had measured success in getting disaster aid for
undocumented families.
The state Crime Victims Board is providing lump-sum or partial payments
up to $1,500 to victims' families. The Red Cross is offering up to
$30,000 to cover housing, food and other urgent costs, regardless of a
family's immigration status.
Proving that a family member is missing requires identification to
establish a relationship, as well as documents, such as a letter from an
employer or an affidavit from witnesses, that confirms the person's
location on Sept 11. New York City and the state are offering free legal
help to families struggling to prove their case.
The challenge of substantiating a claim for benefits is even greater for
undocumented workers now unemployed as a result of the attacks.
Ineligible for insurance
Illegal immigrants are not eligible for unemployment insurance. They may
apply for cash assistance from the September 11th fund, managed jointly
by the United Way and the New York Community Trust, but each case is
considered based on the evidence to support the claim.
"We are trying to be flexible but we just need to do it on a
case-by-case basis," said Julie Goldscheid, general counsel for Safe
Horizon, the group helping administer the funds.
If workers lack a pay stub or other documents, they can prove employment
with an affidavit from other employees or a letter from their employer,
Goldscheid said.
But even those documents are hard to gather, according to workers who
fill Tepeyac's offices each day in search of assistance.
Jose Luis Reyes, a lanky 15-year-old, said he worked one block from the
trade center as a dishwasher at a Mexican restaurant closed since Sept.
11. He has no paperwork to prove his employment and has been unable to
find or reach the manager. With $230 due for rent next month, Reyes, who
lives with four others in an apartment in Harlem, said he may have no
choice but to return to Mexico.
"I don't have any money to pay for food or transportation," he said.
Delfino Cielo, 28, had three years of seniority at a steakhouse that is
now closed. A slumping job market has made it difficult for him to get
any job interviews, and the few he has found didn't work out because
he's undocumented, he said.
"Most of the restaurants, they ask for a Social Security number so I
just walk away," said Cielo, who lives in Queens with his girlfriend.
`Workers left behind'
"We are very concerned about displaced workers," said Dennis Diaz, lead
organizer for the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees International
Union. "With all due respect to the [families of ] victims, there is a
lot of money available to them, but there is not as much going to the
workers left behind."
In total, an estimated 11,900 restaurant jobs have been lost in New York
since Sept. 11, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Fiscal
Policy Institute in Albany.
One of those out of work is Gerardo Pascual, Leobardo's uncle. The elder
Pascual was a dishwasher at the Windows restaurant, a job his nephew
helped him get.
Trying not to dwell on his own family's mounting needs, Gerardo Pascual
now holds the hope of finding both a job and his nephew. His goal, in
emerging from the shadows of the undocumented community, is to secure a
measure of comfort for his nephew's wife, Mirna.
"All I want is to find a body. That's all," he said.
===========================
The Hill
October 15, 2001
Arab-Americans fear bias
By Allison Stevens
Candidates with Middle Eastern backgrounds fear that 2002 could be like
last year, when an anti-immigrant group ran campaign ads with Osama bin
Laden’s face on one side and the face of Arab-American Sen. Spencer
Abraham (R-Mich.) on the other.
Abraham, who lost to Democrat Debbie Stabenow before being appointed to
head the Energy Department, wasn’t the only target of anti-Arab
sentiment.
The Democratic opponent of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a
Lebanese-American and one of six House incumbents with Arab-American
backgrounds, accused him of being unduly influenced by Middle Eastern
oil interests because of a contribution from an executive of Gulf
Interstate Engineering.
But the smear backfired: The “Gulf” in the company’s name referred not
to the Persian Gulf but to the Gulf of Mexico.
Some fear next year’s campaigns could also resemble1998, when Rep. Ken
Calvert (R-Calif.) distributed copies of his primary opponent’s donor
list with Arab surnames circled in red. The target, Republican Joe
Khoury, an Iraqi-American professor, filed a complaint with the Federal
Election Commission.
Or perhaps next year’s campaigns will hearken back to the early 1990s,
during the Gulf War, when foes of former mayor of Jacksonville Tommy
Hazouri (D), a Lebanese-American, sullied his campaign posters with
mustaches reminiscent of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Some Arab-American incumbents and candidates fear that ethnic slurs
could be worse than in past campaigns, especially if America’s new war
against terrorists and the predominantly Arab countries that host them
fuels widespread anti-Arab sentiment.
“It is going to be a potentially tough year,” said Issa. “It’s always
been tough for Muslim and Arab-American [candidates],” he added, noting
that he expects that racist undertones would damage new candidates more
than more established incumbents.
Issa, a Lebanese-American, won his first election last year with just 48
percent of the vote and ranks high on the Democrats’ target lists.
Politically, he is the weakest of his fellow Arab-American congressmen,
three of whom — Reps. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), Chris John (D-La.) and Ray
LaHood (R-Ill.) — are seeking reelection. One, Rep. John Baldacci
(D-Maine) is running for governor, and the other, Rep. John Sununu
(R-N.H.), is weighing a primary challenge to embattled Sen. Bob Smith
(R-N.H.).
In addition, Pete Dagher (D-Ill.), whose Armenian mother was born in an
Arabian refugee camp and whose father fled Lebanon decades ago, is
running to succeed retiring Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.). Louisiana
Elections Commissioner Susan Haik Terrell (R), a third generation
Lebanese-American, is also weighing a challenge to Sen. Mary Landrieu
(D-La.).
Indeed, ethnic slurs have already poisoned the Louisiana Senate race,
where Rep. John Cooksey, a three-term Republican lawmaker who is running
against Landrieu, sparked an outcry when, days after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, he called for racial
profiling of Arab-Americans, who, he said, can be identified by the
“diapers on their heads.”
Cooksey has since apologized for remarks that slandered his potential
opponent, Haik Terrell. But political observers privately suggested that
the comments may bolster the lawmaker’s stature among his numerous
conservative constituents, some of whom backed their state’s 1988
presidential contender, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Dagher, one of several contenders for Illinois’ open seat congressional
race in southwestern Chicago, said he is fully prepared to deal with
bigotry, whether it is overt or subtle.
“This is politics,” he said. “I expect it. … It’s just a campaign
tactic. It’s something that an opponent can use to try to put you in a
negative light.”
Reality, however, is dispelling fears among Arab-American candidates,
who worry that their heritage will be used against them, and among
constituents, many of whom expressed reluctance to go to polling booths
in mayoral and congressional elections on or in the days after the
terrorist attacks.
Indeed, John Zogby, a prominent Arab-American pollster, pointed to a
recent poll that showed that sympathy and support for Arab-Americans,
who have experienced a rise in hate crimes in the wake of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, has skyrocketed.
The Zogby International poll, conducted between Sept. 24 and Oct. 2,
showed a significant boost in favorability ratings for the Arab-American
community.
Favorability ratings, he said, jumped by about 10 percent while
unfavorability ratings sank at about the same rate.
Zogby, who is conducting polls for several Arab-American members of
Congress, added that he doesn’t expect the attacks to damage his
clients’ political strength because the Bush administration is taking
precautions to separate Islamic extremists from Arabs the world over and
in America in particular.
“Some very prominent Arab-Americans were hearing some awful stuff,”
Zogby said. “But I think that wears off. From the president on down,
there has been such a clear attempt to squelch this anti-Arab-American
sentiment that I don’t think it’s going to translate into the polls at
all.”
Zogby’s brother, Jim Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute,
agreed that fears are founded upon isolated incidents but have little
basis in the broader reality.
“We don’t know how this will come out,” he said. “There are incidents of
backlash, but public support is very high.”
Both brothers agreed that despite some Arab-Americans’ initial
reluctance to appear in public in the days following the attacks, the
war will build on two decades of progress and will continue to energize
the Arab-American community in next year’s elections.
Last year, the 3 million-strong Arab-American community finally arrived
as an organized political constituency with a common political — if not
partisan — agenda. Bush recognized the community’s arrival when, for the
first time in inaugural history, he spoke of mosques in addition to
churches and synagogues.
More than half of the Arab-American community identify themselves as
Lebanese, according to the Arab American Institute, with the remaining
44 percent hailing from Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and other
countries. Almost a quarter identify themselves as Muslim.
“There was a fear that this might inhibit voter turnout,” Jim Zogby
said, but he pointed to two recent candidate nights held in
Arab-American neighborhoods in Virginia and New Jersey that attracted
large crowds as proof that Arab-American constituents, even new
immigrants, are eager to demonstrate their patriotism by exercising
their most basic democratic right.
Rahall, the grandson of Lebanese immigrants who traveled from coal camp
to coal camp in the hills and hollows of West Virginia, peddling linens
from the mother country, agreed.
“I fully expect [the war] to energize turnout,” he said. “These
individuals are proud of the country that they chose to live in, raise
their families and make a living. They are proud of the freedom that
brought them here. What better way to express that pride than to
exercise those freedoms?”
=============================
Editorial: Squeegee man
Tuesday, October 16, 2001
Monitor editorial
Concord Monitor
For a bright spot amid the blackness, consider this escape.
It's hard to stop thinking about Sept. 11, but today we found some
relief in adjusting how we think about it. It was and will always be a
day of darkness, but that is all the more reason to contemplate its
bright spots when we encounter them. One nugget amid the blackness is
the story of the squeegee man.
His name is Jan Demczur. He is a Polish immigrant who worked as a window
washer at the World Trade Center. His tale has been spreading since it
emerged in the New York Times last week, and deservedly so.
Demczur had just boarded an elevator on the 44th floor of Tower One when
a jet plane struck at 8:48 a.m. on Sept. 11. He and five others were
going up on Car 69-A, an express elevator that normally stopped between
floors 67 and 74.
"We felt a muted thud," one passenger told the Times. "The building
shook. The elevator swung from side to side, like a pendulum." Then -
suddenly, shockingly - it fell. One of the passengers hit the emergency
stop button, arresting the fall but leaving them trapped and dangling
with no place to go. They were inside a dying skyscraper, 500 feet in
the air.
Ten minutes later, the intercom brought word of an explosion and then
went silent. Smoke drifted into the car. The passengers pried open the
doors, then held them apart with the wooden handle from Demczur's
squeegee.
On the wall before them was stenciled the number 50. It was not a floor
the elevator served, so there was no exit from the elevator shaft. "To
escape," the Times said, "they would have to make one themselves."
Demczur felt the wall, and recognized it as sheetrock - a panel nearly
an inch thick made of fiberboard, paper and a hard gypsum plaster core.
Construction workers use sharp knives to cut it. None of the office
workers aboard Car 69-A was carrying a knife, sharp or otherwise.
But Demczur had his squeegee - a long metal tool with a disposable
rubber blade. He pulled it from his green plastic bucket and began
sliding the metal edge against the sheetrock.
It was slow going, and the others soon took turns.
"Against the smoke," the Times said, "they breathed through
handkerchiefs dampened in a container of milk."
They were making progress when Demczur, his hands aching, dropped the
squeegee. It fell - not into the elevator, but down the shaft.
It was a blow, but hope was not lost; Demczur still had a short metal
handle, and the men applied it against the wall. Eventually, they gouged
a rectangular opening about 12 by 18 inches.
Beyond the sheetrock was a layer of white tiles. The passengers broke
through and into a bathroom; their hole was next to a sink. One at a
time they squeezed through the hole and out of their prison.
It was 9:30. Only firefighters remained on the 50th floor, and they
hurried Demczur and his fellow escapees to the staircase.
Over the next 20 minutes they descended, single file, to the 15th floor.
As they reached it the other tower collapsed. "We heard a thunderous,
metallic roar," one passenger said. "I thought our lives had surely
ended then."
It took 24 minutes more for Demczur and his fellow passengers to reach
safety. There had been little time to spare. Five minutes later, at
10:28, the tower from which they had fled collapsed to the street.
Demczur told Times reporter Jim Dwyer that he had not been sleeping well
since. The faces of those he knew, people who perished on Sept. 11, keep
coming to him in the night.
But Demczur's is also a face that others will never forget. "That man
with the squeegee," one passenger said. "He was like our guardian
angel."
A guardian angel. How comforting it is to associate such an image with
the hellishness of Sept. 11. Like the far more numerous accounts of
suffering and loss, Demczur's story is also a reminder that events big
enough to shake the world are actually an accumulation of tremors best
understood on a human scale.
=====================
Adult Ordeal for Twin Girls, 13
Left to help mom, sister deal with loss of dad in attack
New York Daily News
October 16, 2001
By ALISON GENDAR
Because their mother's English is limited, it fell to 13-year-old twins
Joanna and Joann Gomez to face questions no child should have to answer:
questions about how to identify their father, who lies buried under the
World Trade Center rubble.
"I didn't want to, but we had to try to find him," Joanna, an
eighth-grader at Junior High School 56 on the lower East Side, said
softly yesterday.
"We answered questions for the missing persons report and afterwards,
the death certificate. It was hard. It ..." she said, her voice trailing
off. Then the girl shrugged and looked down at her hands.
The Gomez sisters are among the 1,500 city public school students who
lost a family member, caregiver or family friend in the Sept. 11 attacks
on the twin towers, according to estimates released yesterday by the
Board of Education.
Overall, more than 10,000 children are believed to have lost a parent in
the tragedy.
At schools around the city, teachers, students and parents have pitched
in to help comfort those left without loved ones by the attacks.
Yesterday, a group of Brooklynites working with the principals union
gave the struggling Gomez family $1,500 — money raised through a tag
sale.
Although they appreciated the money — and, perhaps more importantly, the
show of support — the girls said they were still struggling to come to
grips with their father's death.
The day of the attacks, Joanna and Joann scoured five hospitals
searching for their father, Juan Gomez, a 45-year-old Dominican
immigrant who was a prep cook at Windows on the World.
When they didn't find him, the twins filled out the missing persons
report.
"They were asked if he had a tattoo, what clothes he was wearing, if he
was circumcised. Questions no child, no 13-year-old, should have to deal
with," said family friend Sonia Mediavilla, who took the girls to the
hospitals. "They are hurting."
But Joanna and Joann have shrugged off their own concerns to focus on
their mother, Blanca, and 10-year-old sister, Melissa.
"My mom is having a bad time. She cries a lot," said Joanna. "And
Melissa, she's acting like it's not her. Like nothing happened to her.
Any time we try to talk about it, she switches the topic."
Adding to the family's tragedy was the loss of the girls' uncle Enrique
Gomez, who worked alongside his brother at the restaurant.
But the Gomez family is hardly alone in their turmoil. At Melissa's
school, Public School 20 on the lower East Side, 14 students lost a
family member, caretaker or family friend, Principal Len Golubchick
said.
Karen Finney, a spokeswoman for Schools Chancellor Harold Levy, said the
board surveyed community school districts to find out how many children
suffered a direct loss, so they could be targeted for one-on-one
counseling.
Levy has said the school system needs $110 million to provide the
long-term counseling for children who lost parents, as well as for the
9,000 students forced to flee their schools near Ground Zero and the
countless others who had to leave their homes or watched the horror
unfold on television.
Critics questioned whether Levy was padding the request because not all
the city's 1.1 million school children were directly affected.
But mental health professionals warned that New York schools should be
prepared for waves of problems.
Oklahoma City public schools found more than half of 1,200 elementary
school children worried about safety, had trouble concentrating in
school and thought about the event regularly for months after the 1995
terror bombing there.
"We had many more children than we ever expected having problems eight
and 10 months out. And the scope of New York City dwarfs what we went
through," said Robin Gurwitch, a clinical child psychologist at the
University of Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, the three Gomez sisters have spoken to counselors at school
as they struggle with the realization their lives will never be the
same.
"It helps to talk about it, I guess," Joanna said. "But, well, it still
doesn't change much."
==================================
Karamo Trerra, 40, of New York, was a computer technician of ASAP
NetSource, who had started his second week of computer work for
Fiduciary Trust when planes crashed into the World Trade Center. His
wife, Sharon Schultz, spent her fourth wedding anniversary, Sept. 12,
searching for her husband. Years ago, Trerra moved to the United States
from Gambia, Africa, and in March he received his associate's degree in
computer network operations. "How he struggled as an immigrant to
achieve the American dream and once it was achieved, it was stolen from
him by these murderers. How unfair," Schultz said. "Americans are very
strong and we're going to pick up again."
(“Some Terrorists Attacks Victims,” Associated Press, 10/16/2001)
=====================
Keeping N.Y. terror victim's dream alive
October 16, 2001
By YVETTE CABRERA
The Orange County Register
Her voice has a sense of urgency as she whispers over the phone that she
is in the middle of a budget meeting.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Lisa Labrado's company in New York
City, like many companies across America, has changed gears. Budgets are
being analyzed, goals reassessed. Nothing is static.
But amid days that end long after dinnertime, she still finds herself
worrying about a group of strangers she has never met, says Lisa, a
marketing manager at Harry Winston jewelers.
It is a worry that grows greater every day as she reads newspaper
accounts about these strangers, the immigrants who perished while
working behind the scenes at the World Trade Center -- pizza delivery
boys, cooks, janitors, waiters.
She connects with people such as Antonio Melendez, a man she never met.
She reads of this Mexican immigrant's dream that his children will lead
a life different than his own.
Barely 30, only four years younger than Lisa, Antonio already was a
father to four children. The oldest is 11; the youngest still an infant.
It is clear to Lisa, as she reads his story, that he treasured his
children more than anything. At the end of his eight-hour shifts as a
waiter at the World Trade Center's Windows on the World restaurant, he
ate his meals with his family in their tiny one- bedroom Bronx
apartment.
"His only goal was for his children to study so they wouldn't have to
work like he did," says Lisa, a native of Orange who became a Big Apple
transplant little more than two years ago. "How can we make sure his
dreams are realized since he's not going to be there to do that?"
One day, she found herself dialing up her friend Eddie Marquez, a
fashion and beauty director at the New York City-based Latina Magazine,
and telling him she wanted to help the immigrant workers by organizing a
fund-raiser. He immediately told her that the same idea had crossed his
mind.
"I said, 'Great! What are you doing on Saturday?' I said, 'We have to
get going, we have to get together now,' " says Lisa, in retrospect
laughing at her own urgency.
"I've been an event planner through my profession and I've worked on
different fund-raisers, but I've never been so inspired to say, 'Let's
get together and do something,' " says Lisa, who's also rounded up
fashion designer Mark Montano and artistic director Francisco Navarez,
of the folklorico group Mexico Images and Traditions.
Her passion makes sense when you look at the way she was raised. Her
parents, who still live in Orange, taught her to be aware of the needs
of the people around her.
Her father, Lawrence R. Labrado, a member of the Rancho Santiago
Community College District board of trustees, was one of the founders of
the Friendly Center in Orange. The nonprofit center provides
after-school programs for disadvantaged children.
Through his work as outreach director at California State University,
Fullerton, Lisa's father recruited disadvantaged students who were
bright and talented but needed someone to believe in them.
Thousands of miles away from her parents, this principal still guides
Lisa. "It's about helping other people achieve their goals," she says.
"I've had so many people who have helped me. In all areas I've been very
blessed. If I can give back just a little bit of what I've received I'd
be happy."
A third-generation American whose great-grandparents hail from the
Mexican states of Chihuahua and Jalisco, Lisa says her Mexican culture
was always a constant in her life - music, dancing, reading.
It's her memories of her childhood that inspire her now: Perhaps they'll
throw a party outdoors like the fiestas that involved her entire
neighborhood block. Maybe they'll buy cascarones, the confetti-filled
eggs that are commonly sold in Mexican plazas during the holidays.
Lisa's intentions to help these immigrants remind me of the creativity
of firefighter Ray Hoffman.
The Lake Forest resident designed a red bracelet in honor of the
firefighters who died in the tragedy, and its sales have raised more
than $1 million for their families.
Whether it's Ray selling bracelets or Lisa planning a New York City
block party, their efforts go a long way in helping everyone remember
that we're not in this alone.
For Lisa, it's also about sending the message that she's not abandoning
her city. As some friends talk of leaving New York, Lisa says she's
going to stay put in her Upper Eastside apartment.
"It was always my dream, since I was a little girl, to live in a big
city," Lisa says. Even as a visitor, when she made monthly business
trips from her former job in Newport Beach to New York City, she would
cry on the plane flight home, missing the Big Apple.
"I'm not going to live in fear, and no terrorist is going to drive me
out of New York," she says. "I love this city."
In all this loss, there's comfort in knowing that Lisa's dream is still
alive -- and in the knowledge that in her own small way she'll do her
part to keep Antonio Melendez's dream alive as well.
==================
People from a dozen countries become U.S. citizens at ceremony
By Mary Mahoney
The Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, MN)
Published Friday, October 12, 2001 3:48 PM CDT
Exactly one month after the terrorist attacks in New York City and
Washington, DC, 20 people from more than a dozen countries raised their
right hands as they repeated the oath for allegiance, granting them all
of the rights and responsibilities of United States citizens during a
ceremony Thursday at the U.S. District Courthouse in Fergus Falls.
"This is a simple ceremony, but it reflects the determination and
symbolism of the United States," said the Hon. Judge John Tunheim, who
presided over the naturalizations. "America is a nation of immigrants
.. and like a coat, we are a stronger country when we have people of
different colors and backgrounds woven in it."
With each name called, a young Sudanese man smiled with joy as
certificates of citizenship were presented. As his own name was called,
he said he was barely able to contain his excitement at becoming a
United States citizen.
"I am so very happy," Mohamed Ahmed said. "I've been waiting for this
for so long."
Ahmed, 28, has been living and working as a bus driver in the
Fargo-Moorhead area for the last six years, after he and five members of
his family fled Sudan, leaving behind many other members of his large
family. Over the past two decades, Sudan, located in North Africa, has
seen a civil war pitting black Christians against the Arab-Muslims of
the north, costing at least 1.5 million lives in war- and famine-related
deaths, as well as the displacement of millions of others.
"It's been hard, not being able to see them and only getting to
communicate with them by phone occasionally or by mail," the Northwest
Technical College graduate said. "If I could go back and visit them, I
would do it without hesitation."
Although the number of people requesting naturalization is down 31
percent from last year, nearly 377,000 applicants took the oath of
citizenship during the first eight months of this year, according to the
Immigration and Naturalization Service.
But statistics didn't matter to Ahmed Thursday. He said he's proud to
call himself an American and would do whatever is asked of him to defend
her honor.
"This day meant more to me than you could know," Ahmed said. "I am an
American now."
==============================
Maurice Belanger
Senior Policy Associate
National Immigration Forum
mbelanger@immigrationforum.org
http://www.immigrationforum.org
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