From The Integration of Dominican, Chinese, Russian and Mexican Immigrants in NYC
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Dominican Immigrants
Dominican immigrants face many challenges in finding jobs. These difficulties are reflected in their high unemployment and poverty rates. Specifically, Dominicans have an exceptionally high unemployment rate among the foreign born working class in New York. In 2000, the numbers reported were 8.9% for men and 13.1%. Dominicans also have the highest foreign born poverty rate in New York City at 30.9%. Native Born New Yorkers are only 21.5% in poverty. Adding to this difficulty in obtaining jobs and intrinsically tied to their low educational attainment as well, is that Dominicans tend to have limited skills. As New York has progressively become more service based and less manufacturing oriented, this has hurt the Dominican population.
Sources: “Newest New Yorkers 2000” NYC Population Division. + “Dominicans in the United States; A Socioeconomic Profile, 2000.” The Dominican Studies Institute at City College.
How do Community Based Organizations Deal with Dominican Labor Challenges???
The Dominican Women's Development Center
The Dominican Women's Development Center has an Economic Development Program, which is aimed at creating employment opportunities for women of the Washington Heights and Inwood Community. Through this program, the center helps women find jobs or helps them with start up funds for potential small businesses. On a fact sheet provided by one of the center's development directors, Beatrice Hernandez, the center claims to have trained and registered 150 women in providing family day services. They have also placed 81 women as Home Health Aids for the elderly. Although the program is not their largest, the Center does help the women overcome some of the issues involved in obtaining employment such as working through various registration and licensing provisions or giving them opportunities they would have previously not had access to before.
Chinese Immigrants
Brooklyn Chinese-American Association on Labor by: Jerrica Williams. I interviewed Carol Wu on April 27th, 2010 While the BCA does not provide services to help find employment, they do teach job skills, such as working with computers and pre-employment skills in their more advanced ESL classes. Their inability to provide employment services may be in part due to the large numbers of undocumented immigrants they receive. Since it is technically illegal for undocumented immigrants to work in this country, this organization, who gets their funding from the government, cannot provide employment opportunities.
Mexican Immigrants
Mexican Immigrant: Street Vendor/ Name not specified
Services attained from the U.S. government and non-profit organization: none
Advantages of being a Mexican street vendor: • Has a strong relationship with other Mexican vendors • Little money needed to start up the business • Works at chosen hours
Disadvantages of being a Mexican street vendor: • Extremely difficult to get a vending license (she is currently operating without one) • Easily fined by police • Little to no language experience makes it hard to communicate with the customers and police • Can barely defend oneself in court against police’s charges • Cannot make enough profits to cover the day-to-day cost • Government is of little to no help • Cannot provide children with mental, physical, and monetary support
Russian Immigrants
An Interview with an Immigrantby Michelle Ranello
When Alice and her family left Russia, you were not supposed to bring jewelry with you. They only let you take $90.00 per person. So they had $360.00 dollars. They had to go through Austria and Italy before they came to the United States. When they arrived gaining a job was a big priority because they need money to pay for rent. It was easy for Alice to get a job once she learned English but her father could not gain a job because he only spoke Russian. Her family had to use an organization named Nayana to gain help. They gave her family money but it was still not enough to pay for rent. Her relatives had to also give them money. When her parents finally did start working they were able to pay some of the money back to Nayana.
St. Michael's Catholic Chapel
They do not really have programs that help Russian immigrants find jobs although they do help any of their members if they are out of a job. To do so, they use their religious network and members alike suggest of hiring positions and as word gets passed along, this information is used to help those that need it.
Through this network, the Church is also able to find homes available for people that are looking for apartments. Most of the housing that is suggested is, no figures, in the borough of Brooklyn.
And last, but definitely not least the process of filing as a citizen or a permanent residence is learned through the experiences that other members have undergone. The relationships created in the organization allows new immigrants to learn of the places needed to visit in order to apply for a permanent visa or green card. And since most members are somewhat knowledgeable about the Russian language, immigrants can easily communicate with these mentors.
This connection system was integral during the years in the twentieth century after World War II. During this time they had the highest amount of members because this was a time where America experienced a high influx of Russian immigrants. As a result, programs such as the language classes were developed to meet their needs. In addition, they held meetings where they shared their thoughts and experience on their life in USSR. Through these meetings, they were able to consul Soviet Russian victims with other people who have experienced the same thing.
As you can see, St. Michael's Cathedral provides various programs to help their members adjust to the American life. Unfortunately not many people know about these programs.
Brighton Beach Neighborhood Association - Pat Singer
The BBNA does a variety of community projects and campaigning to improve the condition of the neighborhood.
The neighborhood went into decline in the 1970s. The Russian youth who were used to American culture felt alienated by the culture established by their Russian parents, and thus moved out after they graduated college.
As a result, business went into a decline as well, as few store owners remained to sell their goods. Brighton Beach's neighborhoods eventually began to become drained of it's human resources.
Even then, the shops that remained showed an obvious bias towards the remaining Russian Immigrant population. Stories have been recorded by the BBNA of conflict between storeowners and non-Russian residents.
It's just another day at the office.
Shorefront YM-YWHA of Brighton
An interview with Lawrence Fish, Director of Adult Educational, Vocational and Citizenship Services
The Russian population tends possess higher paying jobs that most other immigrant groups. When I asked about this, Lawrence stated that it was odd that I put it like this because in Russia, they don’t share the American obsession with money. They don’t measure success with wealth. But, the high quality of education in Russia makes it easier to excel in the American labor market.
Within the organization, they offer numerous career services to newly arrived immigrants. They help with finding job opportunities, resume writing, and practicing interview techniques. They also aid immigrants with the citizenship process. This includes translation, informational resources, referrals and support, all free of charge.
Lawrence also believes that the strong sense of community among the Russian population may play a role in their success. They support each other so it provides a good net to fall back on while pursuing a career or higher education.
