Affordable Housing Expo - Saturday, 3.7.09 @ Westchester County Center

See attached flyer
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Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Chats w/Mark Green

Mark Green talks policy with New York's junior senator Kirsten Gillibrand:

Here's the q&a on the economic stimulus and immigration:

GREEN: In your view, is the Stimulus/Recovery bill good enough for New York -- or, if you were on the Conference Committee, what would you have tried to get back in good for NY?

GILLIBRAND: Well, I would've been advocating for more funding for education. It's one of the areas that the senate took out. And those dollars would've been very, very valuable to New York state, because, obviously, education is the gateway for the American dream. And I think it's so important that we're investing in our kids by giving them, not only the resources to have the best education possible, but opportunities for early childhood education and for college tuition. So, having more of those dollars in education funding, I think, would've been a long term economic stimulative effect that really can't compare to anything else. Because when you educate a child, and you give them the opportunity to achieve their God given potential, that child will then excel and they will go on to high school and go on to college. And when you have a college education, you know, you can earn much more money. The average high school diploma earns you about $25K, but the average college diploma is closer to $45K. And that means you can provide more for your family and invest more in our economy. That's an effect that's long-term economic growth.

GREEN: If a version of the Kennedy/McCain bill came up on the Senate floor -- creating a "pathway to citizenship" by the payment of fines, learning English, waiting 12 years -- could you support a version of that, or would you continue to view it as "amnesty"?

GILLIBRAND: Well, the Senate bill had a lot of flaws. So, we need a lot of work on a comprehensive immigration strategy. One of the biggest flaws of the bill was that it accepted that, for family reunification, an eight year backlog was acceptable. To me, that's outrageous. Why would you say you're doing immigration reform and not solve that issue? What you should have is to hire the right number of lawyers and caseworkers, have infrastructure in place so you can get that backlog done within six months. Immigration is part of our nation's heritage. Our country was built on immigrants. We have so much richness in our culture and in our traditions because of our immigrant populations. Family reunification is a core value of America, and it's something that we should solve.

The second issue that I felt was very problematic was if we're going to have a guest worker program, then you need to have one that is going to work. Immigrant communities are very vibrant and essential for our economy and for many, many industries. I happen to know a lot about farming. So, in that regard, we need to right-size immigration. We need to know how many visas we need in this country and have the right number and have a system that actually allows for an immigration system that works, and works for everyone. So, I will work with the President on a comprehensive immigration plan... Whether it's similar to what the Senate bill had, whether it's learning English, paying back fines, paying back taxes, having a job training opportunity, whatever the President wants to do, I will work with him in that regard. I think we do need t o solve the problem in a comprehensive way so that we can have a system that works and works for everyone.

Immigrant advocates hold candlelight vigil in Nanuet Saturday

The Rockland Immigration Coalition will on Saturday hold a candlelight vigil to protest hate crimes in the area and across the nation.

Organized by the Rockland Immigration Coalition, an immigrant advocacy organization, the vigil will give members of local faith, civil rights and human rights groups the opportunity to join together to commemorate the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and to call attention to the intolerance against immigrants that has been highlighted by the recent murder of two Hispanic men, one on Long Island and the other in Brooklyn.

Link: Immigrant advocates to hold candlelight vigil in Nanuet Saturday

Holiday Violence Against Mt. Kisco Latinos

The Journal News reports that four masked thugs assaulted two Latinos and attempted to rob a Latino business in Mt. Kisco over the Christmas holiday.

Mt. Kisco is an affluent town one hour north of mid-town Manhattan in upper Westchester County, New York. While an estimated 25% of the population is Latino, none of the town's elected or appointed officials is Latino.

While we don't yet have any information on the thugs, what we do know is that Mt. Kisco area Latinos are in the crosshairs of racists. Read some of the comments at the end of the article to glimpse what Latino immigrants in Lower Hudson area are up against.

Mt. Kisco police are 'investigating'. Of course, they have thus far failed to find any of the criminals responsible for the brutal slayings of 6 Latino immigrants over the past few years. Protecting immigrants and bringing anti-Latino criminals to justice just does not seem to be a priority for Mt. Kisco Police.

Photo: Fernando Mateo of Hispanics Across America and Westchester DA Janet DiFiore at a vigil for slain Latino immigrant Rene Perez.

Hudson Valley Latinos: Franky Perez

The Poughkeepsie Journal's series, What life is like for valley Hispanics, gives its Hudson Valley readers a glimpse into the region's expanding Latino community.

This week they feature a piece on Franky Perez, 40, a guidance counselor in the local high school whose of Dominican heritage.

Very nice.

Poughkeepsie High School guidance counselor Franky Perez was born in Brooklyn to parents who had emigrated from the Dominican Republic and never spoke English at home while he was growing up.

Perez, 40, is the youngest of nine children - the only one not born in the Dominican Republic - and is married to a woman of Irish descent. Like two of his siblings, he attended college. However, he is the only one in his family to receive a master's degree. Actually, he has two of them.

Perez, of New Paltz, maintains strong connections to his heritage.

"Knowing that my parents were immigrants, knowing that they came here for a better life, it helped in shaping me," he said. "I needed to do the best I could in school and make sure I was getting ready for my life in America, understanding what my parents had come from."

More

Related: What life is like for Hudson Valley Hispanics: Francisco Del Moral and Reyna Garcia, store owners
Latinos' local presence expanding

The Dramatic Growth of New York's Suburban/Exurban Latino Population

Top 10 Counties by Percentage of Latinos
#1 - Bronx 51%
#2 - Queens 26%
#3 - New York 25%
#4 - Kings 20%
#5 - Westchester 19%
#6 - Orange 16%
#7 - Richmond 15%
#8 - Rockland & Suffolk 13%
#9 - Nassau & Sullivan 12%
#10 - Putnam 10%

Top 10 Counties by Number of Latinos
#1 - Bronx 702,073
#2 - Queens 600,467
#3 - Kings 493,961
#4 - New York 400,498
#5 - Suffolk 193,605
#6 - Westchester 180,819
#7 - Nassau 162,564
#8 - Richmond 72,972
#9 - Orange 59,791
#10 - Monroe 42,181

Counties w/Highest Latino Pop. Rates of Growth (2000-2007)
Top 5 large counties (pop. > 450k)
#1 - Richmond 36%
#2 - Suffolk 30%
#3 - Westchester 25%
#4 - Nassau 22%
#5 - Onondaga 17%

Top 5 mid-size counties (pop. 100K - 449K)
#1 - Saratoga 54%
#2 - Orange 50%
#3 - Dutchess 44%
#4 - Schenectady 41%
#5 - Ontario 38%

Top 5 small counties (pop. 5K - 99.9K)
#1 - Putnam & Yates 71%
#2 - Warren 61%
#3 - Seneca & Herkimer 53%
#4 - Lewis 44%
#5 - Fulton 42%

Source: Pew Hispanic Center: Latinos by Geography

Related:
Half of New York's Latinos Live on Long Island
Immigrants: Huge Boon to New York
Latino Surge in Orange County (NY)
Children of immigrants reshaping America: Booming ‘second generation’ becoming the mainstream
U.S. Latinos by the Numbers '08
U.S. "Minority" Population Surpasses 100MM
127MM U.S. Latinos by 2050
Latinos: Next Great Source of Intellectual Capital
Latino Surnames Break into U.S. Top 10
U.S. Latinos by the Numbers '07
Mexican Immigration and U.S. Culture

Visitors to Latino Long Island -- An Update

As of May 27, 2008, 3242 persons from across the globe have visited Latino Long Island.

Here are the numbers:

- 3242 visitors from 72 countries/territories
- 2914 US visitors from 47 states
- 2053 visitors from New York State from 170 cities, towns, villages and hamlets, including:

1. Albany
2. Albertson
3. Amityville
4. Astoria
5. Babylon
6. Bay Shore
7. Bayport
8. Bayside
9. Bellport
10. Bethpage
11. Binghamton
12. Blue Point
13. Bohemia
14. Brentwood
15. Briarcliff Manor
16. Bridgehampton
17. Bronx
18. Bronxville
19. Brookhaven
20. Brooklyn
21. Buffalo
22. Calverton
23. Carle Place
24. Centereach
25. Central Islip
26. Clifton Park
27. Cohoes
28. Cold Spring Harbor
29. College Point
30. Commack
31. Cooperstown
32. Corning
33. Corona
34. Cortland
35. Dansville
36. Deer Park
37. Depew
38. Dobbs Ferry
39. East Elmhurst
40. East Hampton
41. East Meadow
42. East Northport
43. East Norwich
44. East Quogue
45. East Rochester
46. Elmhurst
47. Elmont
48. Elmsford
49. Fairport
50. Farmingdale
51. Farmingville
52. Fayetteville
53. Floral Park
54. Flushing
55. Forest Hills
56. Franklin Square
57. Garden City
58. Getzville
59. Glenwood Landing
60. Great Neck
61. Greenlawn
62. Greenvale
63. Harrison
64. Hauppauge
65. Hempstead
66. Hicksville
67. Highland
68. Highland Falls
69. Holbrook
70. Holtsville
71. Horseheads
72. Huntington
73. Huntington Station
74. Islandia
75. Islip Terrace
76. Ithaca
77. Jackson Heights
78. Jamaica
79. Jamesville
80. Jericho
81. Kew Gardens
82. Lake Grove
83. Larchmont
84. Latham
85. Levittown
86. Long Island City
87. Malverne
88. Mamaroneck
89. Manhasset
90. Manorville
91. Marathon
92. Maspeth
93. Massapequa
94. Mastic
95. Mattituck
96. Medford
97. Melville
98. Middle Island
99. Miller Place
100. Mineola
101. Mount Vernon
102. Nassau
103. Nesconset
104. New Hartford
105. New Hyde Park
106. New Rochelle
107. New York
108. Newtonville
109. North Babylon
110. Northport
111. Oakdale
112. Old Bethpage
113. Old Westbury
114. Ozone Park
115. Painted Post
116. Palisades
117. Patchogue
118. Plainview
119. Port Byron
120. Port Chester
121. Port Jefferson Station
122. Purchase
123. Queens Village
124. Queensbury
125. Rego Park
126. Ridge
127. Riverhead
128. Rochester
129. Rockville Centre
130. Rocky Point
131. Rome
132. Ronkonkoma
133. Roosevelt
134. Rosedale
135. Roslyn
136. Roslyn Heights
137. Sayville
138. Scarsdale
139. Selden
140. Shirley
141. Smithtown
142. Southampton
143. St James
144. Staten Island
145. Stony Brook
146. Sunnyside
147. Syosset
148. Syracuse
149. Tarrytown
150. Uniondale
151. Upton
152. Valhalla
153. Valley Stream
154. Wantagh
155. Wappingers Falls
156. Water Mill
157. Webster
158. West Babylon
159. West Harrison
160. West Hempstead
161. West Islip
162. Westbury
163. Westhampton
164. Whitestone
165. Williston Park
166. Woodbury
167. Woodside
168. Wyandanch
169. Yaphank
170. Yorktown Heights

Mamaroneck's Mariana Boneo Selected for MLK Award

From across the Sound....

Mamaroneck Village resident, Mariana Boneo, has been selected by the Mamaroneck-Larchmont Human Rights Commission to be honored at the 21st annual celebration in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Emelin Theater on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 7:30 pm.

Mariana serves the community as the leader of a local social service agency, the Hispanic Resource Center. She has both assisted in the continuance of the center and tried to mediate when the Village of Mamaroneck and local day laborers were at odds. She also was instrumental in organizing the efforts of many who helped bring the community and its residents through the March floods.

Congratulations, Mariana!

Immigrants: Huge Boon to New York

A new report shows that immigrants are a huge boon to the New York economy. How big?

The study found that immigrants were responsible for $229 billion of New York's economy last year — more than the individual gross domestic product of 30 states.

Now that's big!

The report was sponsored by L.I.'s Horace Hagedorn Foundation and The New York Community Trust.

Related:

Immigrants Pull Weight in Economy, Study Finds
Immigrants Are Seen as a Boon: A New Report Sees Big Impact

Half of New York's Latinos Live in Long Island

Did you know that 1.5 million Latinos make New York's Long Island their home?

Surprised, right? I was--and I'm a bit of a demography buff.

Why is it such a surprise? I'll get into that and related issues in later posts. The purpose of this post is to take a look at the population numbers as they stand now, and to allow a peek at what's to come.

93.2% of NY Latinos Live Downstate

The 2006 American Community Survey put New York's Latino population at 3,139,590, or 16.3% of the state's population. That is, one of every six New Yorkers is Latino--and that's excluding most of those with a partial Latino heritage.

3,139,590 is a big number.

Actually, if NY Latinos were their own state, it would have more people than 21 U.S. states, including: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Another interesting facet of the New York Latino population is that it's heavily concentrated in the state's Downstate region. Fully 93.2% , or 2,924,923, Latino New Yorkers live in the 12 counties comprising downstate New York (i.e., lower Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island).

Downstate New York counties include: Bronx, Dutchess, Kings, Nassau, New York, Orange, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester.

93.2%!!!

A mere 6.8% of the Latino population (213,492 persons) is distributed across the state's remaining 50 counties.

In terms of people per square mile, Downstate New York has a 739 Latinos per square mile vs just 4.25 Latinos per square mile in the rest of the state.

4,835 Latinos per NYC square mile

Of course, Latinos are not evenly distributed--whether in Upstate or Downstate. As people tend to do--they're concentrated in certain jurisdictions within both regions.

The Downstate concentration is in the City of New York. Actually, almost three of every four New York Latinos (72%) reside in New York City.

The resulting NYC Latino density is an astounding 4,835 persons per square mile.

Long Island is an island (and it contains 39% of all New Yorkers!)
First, a geography lesson --important since people tend to confuse the physical and political make-up of the island.

Long Island is an island. It's bound by the Long Island Sound to its North and the Atlantic Ocean to its South. It's connected to the mainland via three bridges to the Bronx and three ferry routes across the Sound to Connecticut. It's also connected to the isles of Manhattan, Roosevelt and Staten Island by a web of tunnels, bridges, commuter rail lines, subways and river ferries. The Long Island Expressway cuts a path across its length, a stretch of some 100 miles from Long Island City on its western tip to Riverhead, the island's easternmost city.

Long Island is urban and suburban (and it even has a touch of rural scape in Eastern Suffolk). That is, it contains two of New York City's most dynamic counties/boroughs: Queens and Kings (aka Brooklyn), as well as the suburban counties of Nassau and Suffolk. Queens and Kings are governed by the Mayor of New York City, while Nassau and Suffolk are ruled by 100s of governing entities, including 2 county governments, 2 cities, 13 towns, 95 incorporated villages, 127 school districts, 2 reservations, etc.

(Note: The way Long Island is governed has implications for the quality and cost of life for the poor as well as the rich. It's America's non-so-subtle--yet legal--mechanisms for racial and class segregation. More on this later.)

According to the '05 U.S. Census projections, 7.5 million people live on geographic Long Island--which is an incredible 39% of the state's total population!

Over a third of all New Yorkers live on what is essentially a long thin blade of land slicing into the Atlantic Ocean.

1.5 Million Latino Long Islanders (or 46% of the State Total)

According to the 2006 American Community Survey, 1,445.646 Latinos were projected to be living on Long Island.

Queens 597,773
Kings 496,304
Suffolk 191,552
Nassau 160,017

That is a 43% increase from the 1990 U.S. Census count of 1,008,769.

Queens 381,120
Kings 462,411
Suffolk 87,852
Nassau 77,386

2,000,000 Latino Long Islanders by 2020?

Long Island's Latino population will likely grow to over 2 million by 2020--that is, if recent population growth rates continue.

Using this compound annual rate calculator and 'o6 and 1990 data, suggests an annual Long Island Latino population growth rate of 2.43%. Taking that rate and plugging it into this population calculator results in a 2020 Latino population of 2,023,216.

Here's what it looks like by year:

2006 - 1,445,646
2007 - 1,480,775
2008 - 1,516,758
2009 - 1,553,615
2010 - 1,591,368
2011 - 1,630,038
2012 - 1,669,648
2013 - 1,710,220
2014 - 1,751,779
2015 - 1,794,347
2016 - 1,837,949
2017 - 1,882,612
2018 - 1,928,359
2019 - 1,975,218
2020 - 2,023,216

Conclusion
New York's Latino population is heavily concentrated Downstate region--and its greatest density being in New York City. While geographic Long Island hosts two NYC counties (Queens and Kings) as well as Nassau and Suffolk, it's Latino population of 1.5 million represents 46% of the state's total. Assuming a continued growth rate of 2.43% per year, Long Island's Latino population will grow to over 2 million by 2020.

Two million Latinos are a lot of people, representing significant purchasing power and a potent political bloq, themes Latino Long Island will address over time.

However, the broader point is that irrespective of the tenor of the times, Latinos are a major presence on Long Island now--and the group's impact will grow and deepen over time. There are amazingly talented Latinos contributing to the growth and success of Long Island now--and many young people who'll shine in due time. Latinos are a hardy people with a hope and belief in a better tomorrow.

We should know and celebrate who we are today--as we move confidently in shaping the Long Island of tomorrow.

Data Sources:

US Census: New York County Selection Map
New York State population
Queens County population
Kings County population
Suffolk County population
Nassau County population