I followed a group of Burmese refugees from (almost) the moment they got off the plane to their new house in a rough Brooklyn neighborhood and out into the city during their first week in New York. A sidebar that briefly overviews the PATRIOT Act politics that have prevented other refugee groups from coming links from the story. The best part of the package is probably the photographer’s contribution, a slide show that really captures in their faces the worry, bewilderment, and excitement as they navigate their new world.

http://nysun.com/news/new-york/burma-refugees-relaunch-lives-new-york-city

New Document Requirements Block Travel

New York Sun

Dec. 21-23, 2007

mexicocatch22.pdf

Dublin Wants Separate Pact Covering Its Emigrants

New York Sun

Dec. 19, 2007

ireland.pdf

Voice: Gangs

September 9, 2007

The Village Voice, Jan. 21-27, 2004, p. 21
Pols Push Tougher Policing For City’s Gang Problem
Gang Planks

The New York Times
August 8, 2006 Tuesday
Group Teaches Immigrants About AIDS, Hoping to Head Off a Crisis
BYLINE: By SARAH GARLAND
Section B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 6

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Javier Soriano has made it his personal mission to combat a health crisis he fears has been building for years in New York City, unnoticed and unchecked.
His main worry was that language and cultural barriers were preventing agencies that have traditionally done H.I.V. outreach to Hispanics to make inroads with newly arrived Mexican immigrants, many of whom come from villages in the states of Puebla, Oaxaca and Guerrero and speak any of a number of local dialects.

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

Gifted and Talented

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.

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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.

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

East Harlem Giglio

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.”

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

A Home For a Group of Artists

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.