by | Dec 4, 2015 8:26 am | Comments (8)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Four months into resettlement in New Haven, Noor is finding her new country friendlier and less violent than she expected — after first learning about the culture by watching Hollywood action movies back in Syria.
by | Dec 3, 2015 2:28 pm | Comments (38)
After receiving a scathing legal analysis critiquing the police’s “constitutionally troubling” actions, Mayor Toni Harp promised to look into the arrest of a local immigrant rights activist at a picket outside Goodfellas restaurant on State Street.
by | Nov 26, 2015 9:04 am | Comments (59)
Paul Bass Photo
Forty immigrant-rights activists brought complaints about the arrest of a wage-theft protester to the mayor’s office on Thanksgiving Eve — and refused to leave in what became an extended stand-off.
by , , and | Nov 25, 2015 8:06 am | Comments (3)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
IRIS chief Chris George.
Seventy five years ago, a German Jewish teenager who had been sent to safety in England in 1939 on the Kindertransport arrived in New York where she was reunited with her parents. After a brief stay in New York, the three of them travelled by bus to Scattergood, Iowa, where the American Friends Service Committee had turned a school into a hostel for European refugees. As the Nazi terror spread through Europe, the members of a Disciples of Christ Church in tiny Eureka, Ill, decided to go beyond reading newspaper headlines and praying and offered to adopt the family. The teenager and her parents moved into a fully furnished apartment on the edge of the Eureka College campus and were welcomed into a community that had known few Jews, let along foreign-born Jews. The father got a job auditing municipal books in small Illinois towns. The mother got a job in the college kitchen. And the teenage girl got a free college education there. Her brother interned in England – he was considered an enemy alien even though he was a Jewish refugee – eventually joined his family in the U.S.
by | Nov 23, 2015 3:17 pm | Comments (2)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Trevino: Affirming our “deepest values.”
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy got a shout-out Monday from Fair Haven-based Junta for Progressive Action, in support of his controversial decision to welcome a Syrian refugee family to the state after the governor of Indiana denied it entry.
by | Nov 20, 2015 8:19 am | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photos
Lembo, Markley in the WNHH studio Thursday.
Connecticut served as a beacon to the nation — or failed to heed popular warnings to tread more carefully — when it welcomed a Syrian refugee family to New Haven this week.
by | Nov 19, 2015 4:56 pm | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photos
Hank 1 (Paper) …
… and Hank 2 (Hoffman) of Best Video in the WNHH studio.
Syrian refugees, Best Video’s transition into the nonprofit sphere, and one seasoned artist’s take on where the city’s art scene is going: those were among the hot topics on shows aired today on WNHH radio. Listen to them below.
by | Nov 18, 2015 3:55 pm | Comments (18)
After Indiana’s governor refused to take in a family of Syrian refugees, New Haven’s Chris George immediately agreed to help. The family— pawns in a national post-Paris ideological argument — has arrived in town.
by | Nov 15, 2015 6:27 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Sister Lu, center, with the masjid’s Shah and Ahmed at WNHH.
After Lu Rifai started losing her eyesight, she also lost the chance to hear the call to worship summon her to prayer five times a day.
by | Nov 11, 2015 5:08 pm | Comments (0)
DAVID SEPULVEDA PHOTO
Marvin kisses the bride at St. Rose’s.
Ivette Guevara’s eyes would well up when she recalled the day she was notified that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had taken her husband, Marvin, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, into custody.
by | Nov 5, 2015 8:28 am | Comments (3)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
A few months after arriving in New Haven from Iraq, Akram Hussein was verbally attacked by a stranger while riding a bus.
He didn’t speak enough English or know enough about the city to report it to police.
by | Nov 4, 2015 1:04 pm | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photos
Magdalena Rosales-Alban is the chief executive officer of Lulac Head Start, a family and childcare development center that annually serves 188 children between six months and five years of age across New Haven. Started out of the basement of a church, the center now has three locations, two of which Rosales-Alban has been responsible for: its Cedar Street home, as well as satellites on James and Ramsdell Streets.
by | Nov 1, 2015 9:41 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Smiling, Erika and Jessica Sanchez held up a picture of their grandfather, Erineo, in front of two of the enormous puppets that would soon be marching through the streets of Fair Haven as part of the annual Día de los Muertos parade.
“I have never been to a Día de los Muertos event,” Erika said. “I’m getting in touch with my roots and I want to honor the spirits of those who have passed.”
Continue reading ‘Día De Los Muertos Honors Living And Dead’
by | Oct 27, 2015 12:00 pm | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photo
There is a big Colombian presence in the New Haven area, and it can be experienced — and savored — at The Little Colombia restaurant. There Rosalba Vera and her husband, Julio Cesar, serve traditional Colombian dishes such as camarón y piña asada, ceviche, and paella marinara.
Continue reading ‘“Little Colombia” Draws A “Latino Salsa” Of Customers’
by | Oct 23, 2015 7:26 am | Comments (4)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Booted businessman Ernesto Garcia was back selling arepas on York Street during the Thursday lunch wave — just not at the same spot as before.
by | Oct 15, 2015 2:04 pm | Comments (73)
Paul Bass Photos
Garcia at his cart.
Ernesto Garcia offered a clipboard instead of arepas Thursday to the lunchtime crowd on York Street.
The clipboard contained a petition protesting the city’s decision a day earlier to evict Garcia’s and two other carts, after neighboring storeowners complained the operations infringed on their business.
by | Oct 13, 2015 3:22 pm | Comments (0)
Abelardo King Photo
Rather than culture shock, Mantina Varma encountered snow shock when he came to New Haven.
by | Oct 5, 2015 1:55 pm | Comments (18)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
When the ribbon was cut on new apartments and a bakery/coffeehouse at a transitional Dixwell crossroads, the man holding the scissors was largely unkown to the public eye — but increasingly familiar to tenants around town.
by | Sep 23, 2015 4:48 pm | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photo
Omar Rajeh was behind the counter at his Mediterranea restaurant on Orange Street when his cell phone rang. The call came from his native Syria.
by | Sep 22, 2015 7:02 am | Comments (1)
Marta Mera replaced the windows at Pan Del Cielo bakery after a shooting last month around Ferry and Chatham streets that cracked the glass.
Continue reading ‘A Congresswoman Knocks On Fair Haven’s Doors’
by | Sep 16, 2015 7:02 am | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Look out, New York — Puerto Rican bread from Ferry Street is headed your way.
by | Sep 15, 2015 11:55 am | Comments (2)
Markeshia Ricks photo
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy wants Congress to reallocate resources to bolster refugee efforts.
Forty-one year old Omaia said her family endured a year of bombings and killings in their home country of Syria before they decided to leave on foot for Jordan. Three days later their house was leveled by a bombing.
by and | Sep 11, 2015 12:17 pm | Comments (15)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
George: First 5 of many.
As the U.S. moves cautiously to opening its doors to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war, New Haven’s Integrated Refugee and Immigration Services (IRIS) has resettled four families from that conflict with another on the way to New Haven.
by | Sep 3, 2015 3:33 pm | Comments (2)
Paul Bass Photos
The mangonada.
Miguel Xicohtencatl needed a hot seller to get his dream businesses going. He found it in a cold cup of mango.
Continue reading ‘Summer’s Surprise Hit: Miguel’s Mangonada’
by | Aug 21, 2015 12:09 pm | Comments (0)
Sonia Salazar, 36, is the owner of Barracuda, a popular new restaurant and bar at the corner of Park and Chapel. She is from Barranquilla, Colombia, and has been living in different cities across Connecticut since she immigrated to Stamford when she was 18, including several years on Quinnipiac Avenue in New Haven. Now she lives in Milford with her two sons, ages 14 and 16.
Continue reading ‘“You Know What You’re Doing, You Can Make It”’