In Kentucky, Busing Built Bridges Between Worlds
April 7, 2007
The New York Sun
December 5, 2006 Tuesday
In Ky., Busing Built Bridges Between Worlds
BYLINE: SARAH GARLAND -, Staff Reporter of the Sun
SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. 4
Kentucky was the last of the Southern states to establish a compulsory school segregation law, so it is something of a miracle that Louisville has become one of the most racially integrated school systems in the country. In 2000, a federal judge determined that Louisville had met its obligation to desegregate its schools, though the city voluntarily kept the program intact.
Busing hasn’t completely dismantled segregation, however. On the inside, my school was just as segregated as it had been before 1975.
The New York Sun
December 1, 2006 Friday
Amid Push To Make Public School Gifted and Talented Programs More Diverse, Families Seek Spots for Their Children
BYLINE: SARAH GARLAND
SECTION: NEW YORK; Pg. 1
The new gifted and talented application process uses the same two citywide assessments for every child who applies. The system is meant to level the playing field between families like the Pallazhcos, immigrants from Ecuador, and the Jordans, an well-to-do family from the Upper West Side.
But at several points in the process, both families hesitate to apply, though their worries are very different.
Parents Finding School District Offices Nearly Empty
April 7, 2007
The New York Sun
October 27, 2006 Friday
Parents Finding School District Offices Nearly Empty
BYLINE: SARAH GARLAND -, Staff Reporter of the Sun
SECTION: NEW YORK; Pg. 1
Under a legal settlement reached last year, the city’s education department is spending more than $5 million a year to staff district offices, but in many cases parents looking for help at those offices would be wasting their time.
Visits by a reporter in the past two weeks to the 19 district offices situated apart from the regional offices disclosed that it was rare to find a community superintendent.
Three Girls in School Suit, Now Grown Up, Are Waiting
April 7, 2007
The New York Sun
October 9, 2006 Monday
3 Girls in School Suit, Now Grown Up, Are Waiting
BYLINE: SARAH GARLAND -, Staff Reporter of the Sun
SECTION: NEW YORK; Pg. 1
Three Girls in Lawsuit, Now Grown Up
In 1993, a dozen children became the face of a million New York City public school students when a lawsuit was filed on their behalf.
Among the dozen were three girls: Sumaya Jackson, who was 6 and dreamed of becoming a dancer; Alina Lewis, a teenager who thought about becoming a teacher even though the elementary school she had gone to seemed on the verge of falling down, and Erycka DeJesus, who traveled far from her district in Queens to go to a Manhattan high school that wasn’t overcrowded. Their parents charged the city’s schools with failing to provide them the level of education guaranteed by the state constitution.
Marie Claire: Forced into Slavery in the United States
April 7, 2007
IN YOLANDA’S HOMETOWN, A TINY COASTAL VILLAGE NEAR ZIHUATANEJO, Mexico, dusty plots of land barely yield enough corn to feed the families who harvest it. Growing up, Yolanda remembers eating iguanas, armadillos, and pigeons when the harvest failed and her father became desperate to feed his 10 children.
Like most victims of trafficking, Yolanda wasn’t ensnared by chains and shackles but by a fantasy of a better life far away from her poverty-stricken village. The Department of Justice estimates that every year, 17,500 people in the U.S. are victims of “human trafficking”—foreigners brought into the country by coercion, threats, or physical violence and sold for forced labor.
Marie Claire: Immigration Nation
April 7, 2007
A Return to East Harlem for the Giglio
April 7, 2007
The New York Times
September 5, 2006 Tuesday
A Return to East Harlem For the Dance of the Giglio
BYLINE: By SARAH GARLAND
SECTION: Section B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 6
Frank Uvenio, 73, stood on Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem one recent Saturday and pointed toward the brown choppy waters. Over there was the dock where they would dive into the East River on hot summer days. He pointed toward the rooftops of the gray buildings. That’s where they would lie out on the tar to dry off. Down that street past the vacant lot was where they would hold the feast for Our Lady of Mount Carmel. And here, on this dead-end block, they would play stickball.
”This was like a paradise,” Mr. Uvenio said. ”That’s why we always come back.”
A Home for a Group of Artists
April 7, 2007
The New York Times
August 19, 2006 Saturday
A Home for a Group of Artists in Search of a Family
BYLINE: By SARAH GARLAND
SECTION: Section B; Column 3; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 2
At first glance, it could have been any art opening in any converted warehouse in any hip neighborhood in the city. Dressed in ragged T-shirts, homemade jewelry and horn-rimmed glasses, the crowd at a nonprofit art gallery in Queens called Local Project sipped Coronas while contemplating a sculpture made of Band-Aids and a video installation of a Muslim artist shoving bacon into his mouth.
But a closer look at the people gathered at Local Project in Long Island City one recent Saturday night revealed a different crowd than the sort usually assembled at art galleries in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or the Lower East Side.
From Bowery to the Side Streets, to Where?
April 7, 2007
The New York Times
July 18, 2006 Tuesday
Late Edition - Final
From Bowery to the Side Streets, to Where?
BYLINE: By SARAH GARLAND
SECTION: Section B; Column 3; Metropolitan Desk; INK; Pg. 2
MICHAEL AZEEZ, who describes himself as the only American Indian street food vendor in New York, opens for business on the Bowery as dusk nears.
His braids swing as he chops and stirs and turns to chat with customers. Blue silk flowers and fluffy white foxtails hang from his cart, fluttering around him in the breeze. Red and green peppers, carrots and other vegetables are arrayed in a rainbow pattern. ”American Indians, we like to do things in a fanciful manner,” he explains.
Mr. Azeez, 45, who lives in Westchester County, is having a rough year. First, he said, city health code regulations shot down his dream of selling wild game and other traditional Mohawk dishes in the street. Then, a building owner forced him to move from his high-traffic spot on the Bowery, next to CBGB, to a less-traveled side street nearby. The final blow: CBGB, the storied punk rock club, is closing for good in October, after a long battle with its landlord.
But the tears Mr. Azeez frequently sheds are not from the bad news, but from the spices he sprinkles over his kebabs.
”Why should I be upset?” he says.
”It’s about destiny,” he says. ”Whatever happens, we’re not in control.”
For now, he is staying afloat. ”The way I put things out, it makes people stop,” he says. He operates the cart, named From Atlantis With Love, from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. Usually, one of his volunteer assistants helps out. The ”consultants,” as one called himself, live in a nearby homeless shelter and are drawn by free kebabs and Mr. Azeez’s cheerful company.
Mr. Azeez says he charges on a sliding scale, from as much as $5 a kebab to as little as nothing for customers he thinks need the money more than he does. He says he makes $500 a week on average.
Asked if he is worried about what will happen when the club closes, he frets for a while and says, ”I’m like a species on the brink of extinction.” Then he grins, and says, ”Or I’ll just move.”
On His 21st Birthday, a Marine Is Mourned
April 7, 2007
The New York Times
June 24, 2006 Saturday
Late Edition - Final
On His 21st Birthday, a Marine Is Mourned
BYLINE: By SARAH GARLAND
SECTION: Section B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 3
On His 21st Birthday, a Marine Is Mourned
Lance Cpl. Nicholas J. Whyte did not tell anyone he was signing up for the Marines, his father recalled yesterday. The war in Iraq had just begun, and he knew his family would be upset. They were.
But yesterday, as he stood outside the family’s home in Marine Park, Brooklyn, mourning the death of his son on what would have been his 21st birthday, Andre Whyte, a captain with the city’s Department of Correction, said, ”He never did anything a father couldn’t be proud of.”
