by | Oct 5, 2020 3:34 pm | Comments (3)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Weruché George.
A Democrat is taking on a Democrat for one of Hamden’s state legislative seats, but on an independent line — with a focus on her experiences as an immigrant and without taking shots at the incumbent.
Continue reading ‘Democrat, Running On Independent Line, Mounts “Equity” Challenge’
by | Sep 29, 2020 3:45 pm | Comments (0)
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Teacher Of The Year Kristin Mendoza (pictured): This is my chance to advocate.
When Wilbur Cross teacher Kristin Mendoza had the floor, she didn’t waste the chance to advocate for undocumented students facing extra disadvantages during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mendoza was selected by group of peers to be New Haven Public Schools’ Teacher Of The Year. Superintendent Iline Tracey invited her to give a brief acceptance speech at Monday’s Board of Education meeting.
Continue reading ‘Teacher Of The Year Speaks Out For Undocumented Students’
by | Sep 29, 2020 9:06 am | Comments (0)
Artist Z Bell sang the song of Azhar Ahmed and turned the experience of Patrick Morrison into poetry. “The American Dream don’t shine at night,” Bell said. “The American Dream doesn’t teach you what’s right.” Ayse Coskun, on a park bench, talked about what it is to miss home even as you create new ones. Ismael Al Hraaki talked about the help he got in arriving from Syria via Jordan. “I want to show all these people it wasn’t a waste of time taking care of me,” he said. He wants to become a docfor and help take care of people right back.
Continue reading ‘New Haven Play Project Brings The Stage To The People’
by | Sep 24, 2020 4:41 pm | Comments (4)
Ram Vishwanathan Photo
Aili Maimaiti at work outside Brick Oven Pizza.
Dot by dot — by tens of thousands of dots — a public portrait of the late boxing champion Muhammad Ali is coming into focus at the corner of Howe and Elm, at the hand of a warehouse worker looking to take the art world by storm.
Continue reading ‘On Dwight Corner, Aili Brings Ali Into Focus’
by | Sep 23, 2020 10:57 am | Comments (1)
Emily Hays Photo
Havenly Treats Head Chef Nieda Abbas packs up boxes of grape leaves.
The staff wrapped the grape leaves carefully, filled them with just the right amount of tomato sauce and rice. The finished product — an Iraqi appetizer — was then available for purchase for $4.99.
It also served as a way for refugees to train for gainful employment.
Continue reading ‘Grape Leaves, Biryani Arrive On Temple Street’
by | Sep 21, 2020 9:30 pm | Comments (28)
Thomas Breen file photo
Scenes from the Columbus Day Parade.
Good-bye, Columbus Day. Hello, Italian Heritage Day.
Starting this year, the city-recognized holiday on the second Monday in October will no longer be named after the 15th-century European explorer whom many Italian-Americans celebrated as a heroic, cultural icon, and whom critics lambasted as an enslaver of Indigenous peoples and an emblem of violent white supremacy.
Continue reading ‘It’s Official: “Italian Heritage Day” Replaces “Columbus Day” In New Haven’
by | Sep 14, 2020 10:59 pm | Comments (21)
Contributed Photo
Qualina Cooper and sons Jayvyn and Dakarai. Jayvyn, who has autism, lasted only 10 minutes on remote classes.
New Haven schools will reopen as soon as next Monday for a maximum of 125 students with autism and other severe disabilities.
The New Haven Public Schools’ Board of Education meeting made that decision Monday evening in a 6 – 1 vote. Up to this point, New Haven had planned to start all in-person classes, including special education, after ten weeks of virtual classes.
by | Sep 10, 2020 2:20 pm | Comments (9)
Rachel Peet Photo
Bahati Kanyamanza.
In January of this year, I moved to New Haven to start a job with an amazing refugee resettlement organization, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services.
I was excited about my new position. In February, I decided to take a walk downtown to familiarize myself with my new city. I entered a restaurant and sat near a group of three white gentlemen. They invited me to join them at their table, but the look of one of them scared me. Putting away my doubts, I joined them. They introduced themselves to me and I did the same.
Then, the scary-looking guy asked where I had come from. Before I answered, he said, “I hope you did not come here illegally and are now living on American taxes.” I replied, “NO, SIR.” But, his question had already watered down the nice gesture of inviting me to their table. And so, even before the Covid-19 lockdown, I started thinking about how to avoid people no matter how nice or innocent they look.
Continue reading ‘Haunted By Ghosts Of The Violence I Escaped’
by | Aug 15, 2020 1:18 pm | Comments (3)
Ko Lyn Cheang photo
Prayer caravan participants preaching peace.
Local Hispanic pastors and their congregants blanketed city streets with prayers of non-violence, unity and hope in a car caravan that traveled from Fair Haven to the Hill to City Hall.
by | Aug 13, 2020 9:30 am | Comments (2)
Brian Slattery Photo
Clinard.
Statues stand together, a small family of them, somehow radiating both fear and total resolve. A pair of shadows huddle under rafters. Another group stands together, bearing witness, demanding to be counted. The pieces are all part of a larger exhibit by New Haven-based sculptor Susan Clinard focusing on refugees, migrants, and border crossings, for a new journal seeking to use groundbreaking ways of representing art to perhaps change hearts, minds — and policy.
Continue reading ‘Sculptor’s Work Crosses Borders, Breaks Ground’
by | Aug 7, 2020 4:30 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen Photo
Will they be marching next in an Italian Heritage Parade?
In the mid-20th century, Italian immigrants Luisa DeLauro and Linda DiPaola Saracco operated sewing machines in a dress factory at State and Chapel Streets.
Thursday night, their politician daughters worked together to change Columbus Day in New Haven to “Italian Heritage Day.”
by | Aug 2, 2020 5:31 pm | Comments (0)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Community leaders with members of the Peruvian American Association.
On a stormy Sunday afternoon, members of the Peruvian American Association of New Haven gathered with family and political leaders on the green to raise the Peruvian flag to celebrate the country’s independence.
Continue reading ‘New Haven’s Peruvians Raise Independence Flag’
by | Jul 30, 2020 4:10 pm | Comments (0)
Maya McFadden Photo
DeLauro aide Lou Mangini comes outside to talk with ULA organizer John Lugo.
New Haven immigrant-rights activists have joined fellow groups nationwide in calling for defunding of a Massachusetts detention facility where local immigrants are being detained — and, they said, abused.
Continue reading ‘Protest Targets Immigrant Detention Facility’
by | Jul 24, 2020 9:48 am | Comments (6)
Maya McFadden Photo
Erick Sarmiento with son.
After living in New Haven for the past four years, Erick Sarmiento is now looking forward to him and his son living with fewer concerns about being harassed about immigration status.
Continue reading ‘Mayor Signs “Welcoming City” Order To Protect Immigrant RIghts’
by | Jul 21, 2020 9:57 am | Comments (1)
Contributed photos
John Lewis getting arrested in D.C. in 2013 immigrant-rights action.
The late Congressman John Lewis was not only a giant of the civil rights arena.
His advocacy also touched us directly in New Haven during the ongoing movement for immigrant rights.
by | Jul 2, 2020 10:52 am | Comments (16)
Rajachack back at work Wednesday, mostly healed.
Ketkeo Rajachack had one question as teens were pounding on her inside the Temple Street Garage: Why?
Continue reading ‘After 2nd Attack, Restaurateur Presses On’
by | Jun 30, 2020 1:23 pm | Comments (1)
Ko Lyn Cheang photo
Zhi Yong Wang, tends to customer at Million Asian Market.
For a week now, more than a dozen customers have asked Tom Zhang when the kimchi will arrive.
Continue reading ‘Asian Grocers Roll With Virus Disruptions’
by | Jun 29, 2020 10:48 am | Comments (11)
Contributed Photo
Artwork would be displayed in the first floor windows around the Amistad Memorial (pictured).
The City of New Haven Department of Arts Culture and Town Green Special Services District are seeking a New Haven-based artist or artists to design temporary, two-dimensional artwork for display on windows of City Hall next to the Amistad Memorial at 165 Church St. Artwork should reflect the importance of black and brown lives, influences and culture on our New Haven communities.
Continue reading ‘Call For Art On Black Lives Matter For City Hall’
by | Jun 26, 2020 1:22 pm | Comments (13)
Thomas Breen Photo
Statue removal supporters and opponents square off Wednesday.
When America’s culture war and social-justice movement came to Wooster Square this week, it landed at the heart of a race for Congress.
Continue reading ‘Columbus Statue Removal Becomes Campaign Issue’
by | Jun 26, 2020 11:02 am | Comments (1)
Laura Glesby Photo
Alejandro and Andres Cordido at their newly opened eatery.
Alejandro and Andres Cordido dreamed for years of starting a restaurant of their own devoted to the Venezuelan recipes they grew up with. They never imagined that opening week would comes amidst a pandemic.
They never pictured tables spread six feet apart. Floor stickers spaced out to help customers keep their distance. Plexiglass barriers between employees behind the counter and the customers they feed. Surfaces sanitized extra frequently. Customers’ smiles undetectable behind their protective masks.
by | Jun 24, 2020 2:04 pm | Comments (1)
Christopher Peak Photo
Mia Edmonds-Duff (left) reads to Ross-Woodward fourth graders.
Now that Iline Tracey is officially superintendent of New Haven Public Schools, she is beginning to assemble the team who will mold the district’s curricula, technology policies and school operations under her tenure.
Continue reading ‘3 Principals Named As Tracey Assembles Executive Team’
by | Jun 22, 2020 11:30 pm | Comments (38)
Molly Montgomery Photo
2018 protest unofficially renames Columbus Family Academy, with blood on hands of papier maché Columbus.
The Board of Education voted overwhelmingly in support of removing Christopher Columbus’s name from a Fair Haven K‑8 school — as well as from an October holiday on the district’s calendar — in the city’s latest reckoning with the 15th-century explorer’s violent legacy.
by | Jun 19, 2020 2:44 pm | Comments (3)
Courtney Luciana Photo
Cross grad Atziri Rodriguez, who earned biliteracy seal on top of APs.
Over 140 seniors walked across New Haven graduation stages this year with diplomas certifying that they are proficient in multiple languages.
Continue reading ‘# Of Officially Bilingual Graduates Tripled’
by | Jun 15, 2020 3:51 pm | Comments (20)
Fence outside Nevedo’s house.
Paul Bass Photo
Juan Cervantes shows wound, healing a week later.
Neighbors poured onto Frank Street twice in eight days — first to stop a machete-wielding man from attacking a Mexican immigrant, then to protest what they called deeper problems revealed by the encounter.
by | Jun 11, 2020 10:24 pm | Comments (5)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Fifty protesters silently marched single file Thursday evening along the Grand Avenue sidewalk to protest police brutality.
Instead of chants of “no justice, no peace,” the most prominent sounds were the honking cars that rushed by, and the “clip, clip” sound of staples sticking posters with police officers’ faces into telephone poles.