Sushmita Roy

Bobby, at home everywhere, and nowhere

Posted on May 31, 2018 by royreports

An itinerant native son’s quest for permanence

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The complexities of building a China in a New York neighborhood never seemed to occur to anybody. It was that thing about New York — the thing that made everything believable and nothing too impossible or far-fetched. And in fact, the narrow roads running through downtown resembled the dark alleyways. And then there were the red-yellow lanterns, the cash-only restaurants, the chintzy replicas, the street vendors, the smell, the Mandarin.

Any definite boundary was hard to discern. People who lived down Mercer and Broadway could say they lived in Chinatown. It gave an address some solidity, implied community. It gave people a sense of belonging — even to those who lived at the homeless shelter that didn’t seem to fit in. And to belong is to survive in New York City.

Watching others suffer diminished your own suffering. Not being able to afford enough weed to make it through the week seemed less treacherous when you stumbled upon others searching for dealers acting like loan sharks. Outside the shelter, the customary catcalling and howling were norms; this was the traffickers’ way of announcing their arrival, showcasing control, marking territory.

Situations were tense, more complex than they looked peripherally. Money was tight. But the hardest thing was making it back by curfew. One minute late and you lose your bed, bound again to look for a secure spot on the gravy New York streets.

Robert Martinez, 40, missed the deadline on his third day at the shelter and, after picking up his bag, decamped to three others with later curfews.

Martinez, whose family and friends — whoever was left after the sudden news of the homelessness arrived — call him Bobby. And Bobby, whose grandparents and father came from Puerto Rico, is a tough New York kid through and through. He’s lived in the Bronx, in Queens, on Long Island, in Brooklyn.

The Bronx of the 1980s where Bobby grew up reeked of mischief. Guns, bodies, drugs.

“I saw my first dead body when I was 4,” he says. “Someone was putting a sheet on it and I was like ‘is this guy sleeping?’”

Life was all the more fun on Grand Avenue with the neighborhood kids rolling over each other in the park, in the street, anywhere, everywhere, till the sun would set.

The space wasn’t small for Bobby, who was then 12. To get to school, though, meant taking the bus. And taking the bus meant spending money. But he wanted shoes; good ones that people would stare at. He and most of the neighborhood kids attended a school in Riverdale. But the neighborhood rogues couldn’t afford the bus. They would climb up the back wheels and slink in through the back window. Easier and more fun, too. The only break in this routine came when one of them didn’t get in on time and was run over by the rear tires. Pronounced dead at the scene. Two days of mourning, before the kids resumed their custom. Death never terrified the neighborhood. Some secretly wished for it.

But everyone knew how to survive. Being hungry wasn’t especially difficult. Many knew the condition from birth, or before.

Abandoned buildings were another characteristic of the neighborhood that Martinez avoided. “Zombies!” Martinez called the wasted bodies huddled and cuddled around each other. That was their hub. Crack and pot and alcohol. Those were necessities one had to afford. Your body was an inexhaustible resource you could offer for trade. Until you found an escape, which Martinez did, out of the neighborhood, out of New York.

Enrolled at Manhattan Community College in his late teens, he lacked motivation. He had an urge to travel, or maybe just to leave. He enlisted in the Navy. After serving, he felt the pull of the borough. He returned, worked as a waiter and then as a cook. Money was coming in. He fell in love with a Latina. They married. A daughter arrived. When she turned 11, the family moved to Virginia. No soon after, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

The money had gone and his wife soon left too.

He returned to New York, taking turns at sleeping at cousins’ houses. His alcoholism caused conflicts, the job hunts frustrated and aggression was the norm. He was soon taking refuge on the 6 train.

For a month or so, Bobby had been sleeping upright on the train. New York may not be judgmental but it knows how to segregate: rich from poor, white from black, immigrant from native. It can tell. Homeless meant you caused trouble but Bobby wasn’t trouble.

Bobby is now at a shelter on the Upper West Side — living in Manhattan, where he once dreamed of having a home. His disability landed him in the hospital during December. After waiting five years, Social Security and Supplemental Security Income checks started coming. In his room, he smokes off a vape and paints watercolors – galaxies, birds and water scenes. He jumps at the opportunity to meet his daughter and spends his days listening to her play the violin or obsess over Harry Potter. But the $1,047 he receives as disability relief isn’t enough to bring her back from Virginia.

The frustrations and enigmas still sting. The Bronx is safer and cleaner and more dynamic than it was during his youth. Which means Bobby can’t afford to rent even a studio there. He understands that living in different New York neighborhoods implies adjusting all the time. But he believes that he can amend this, and make every neighborhood his own.

For original article- http://www.otdowntown.com/local-news/20180525/bobby-at-home-everywhere-and-nowhere

Sami Sneider Profile

Posted on May 9, 2018 by royreports

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March For Lives New York City

Posted on April 18, 2018 by royreports

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About 1,50,000 protestors gathered around Central Park on March 24 to protest gun violence. This is my first multimedia project and a short film I produced along with my co-reporters Samantha Sneider and Laura Diaz.

For original article- https://www.theodysseyonline.com/march-for-lives-new-york-city

Revisiting the undocumented New York

Posted on March 23, 2018 by royreports

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New York, ever since its establishment, has been a city of migrants: its character, a well-rounded one with a flush of black, brown and white on its skin. Indeed, in its truest form, New York is a concrete jungle that breathes in the toxins produced by automobiles driven by ‘underdogs.’

In its romantic form, which often overpowers the real one, it is the one hurdle you might never want to cross. There is always the sense that there is a better way of living, a better lifestyle, and a cleaner and safer neighborhood. But there is also a pleasure in the struggle in a sense that assures you that you would rather be homeless in New York than be confined in the precincts of any walled apartment, anywhere else in the world. It is the embodiment of an everlasting greed, a thirst for money and power, a pull so strong it resembles that of the seductive mistress whose plump lips have kept you from kissing your other, beautiful half for long.

No one seems to understand the invisible force that draws one to New York, yet New York becomes the one city everyone desires to breathe in. It isn’t just another Paris, just another London. For some even dare say that it isn’t even a city; it is a world in itself, crammed in 1 BHKs and rat-filled subways.A homeless man had once said to me, “You live everywhere else in the world but you survive in New York.” And that is the one common binding force that unifies all of New York- Upper East Side to the Bronx- the survival, the instinct that you can make it big today but lose it all tomorrow. Survival is key for most immigrants like me: those who have to power to make or erase the fantasy called New York.

The Undocumented New York

Although the chunks of white on his mustache and beard gave it away, Maged usually sported a baseball cap, more than anything; it gave him a chance to escape the embarrassment that comes accompanying old age.

When I first met Maged, he was working as a cashier at the Tomatina Café on 31st Street and 9th avenue (address changed for security reasons), energized and awaiting customers who were willing to have a conversation even if it was way past midnight. Learning that we were Indians, he had asked my friends and me if we planned to return to our country after graduating from college, “Why not?” I said, “maybe after a few years of working in New York.”

“You are young. You might say now that you wanna go back but by the time you come to your senior year, you gonna say no. Everyone wants to stay in New York and live the American dream. I know because I have seen so many do that. You must not fall for it; it’s a trap,” he said. What he hadn’t mentioned then, and what I had come to understand after continuously visiting him for several months, was that he was guilty of the same blissful entrapment.

Maged had come to New York on a student visa in 2003 after being accepted at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Thousands of miles away, ashes of religious wars covered his hometown Egypt. Terror attacks on tourists had deprived him of his only successful job as a tour guide. His small ears were constantly bombarded with questions about the failure of government control, of Islamic officials, of the religion itself.

The only answer an eighteen-year-old Maged had at that time conveyed the idea of escape. And so he did. Like most of the other Coptic Christians, like most of the people in the world, Maged’s idea of escape landed him in the States, in New York.

14 years after that day, Maged is an undocumented immigrant filing papers that would help him seek religious asylum. There is a chance that he could get persecuted in Egypt but there is also a risk of him being used, abducted or killed in the States, if and only if he decides to remain here undocumented.

For Maged, his New York is his East Harlem apartment, which he shares with two others, where he retires to smoke Hookah every morning after his night shift at Epice. For Maged, New York translates into an escape, into safety, and into his favorite topic of conversation.

The Mexican’s New York

Undocumented immigrants have seen the darkest spaces in Manhattan: your favorite Bangladeshi Halal cart guy who serves the best lamb over rice, the Uber driver you forgot to wish goodnight, the delivery boy from the nearest Chinese restaurant whose calls you missed seven times and who waited at your door for another 15 minutes without demanding an explanation of why you didn’t tip. And then there is Jose.

I had met Jose through Maged. He swept the floor while constantly checking on us to see if he could understand any English word. Jose is 17 and uses the translator on his phone to converse with Maged. Jose was smuggled into the States through the Mexican border, all after he paid approximately $15,000.

Jose earns about $450 a week and spends most of the money to clear off his debts. He dreams of sending his younger siblings to a school in the States but does not know the process.

For Jose, New York is from where his neighbors’ kid in Mexico earned money, it is the reason the neighbors have big houses, the reason why their younger kids attend a better school. It is the place where he can buy a cell phone, a computer and a video game. For him, New York is the only place where he is welcomed without judgments, the place that took him 49 days to reach (after he crossed the border), where he is now going to purchase his first Xbox, a place where his journey just begun.

Indeed, New York is an exciting journey: a thrill. In short, New York is a mystery, of skyscrapers and the homeless shelters, of the Empire State building and the Tenement Museum. You can never have enough of it.

It is a topic every writer, every journalist has either once covered or certainly wants to cover before she finally drops her pen. And no matter how much you read about New York, or write about it, you can never grow weary of it. No two writings on New York can ever be the same just like your New York can never be the same as mine, or as any other New Yorker’s.

Find the link to the original article: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/revisiting-undocumented-york

How Chanting “No Sex” Can Bring About Change

Posted on February 27, 2018 by royreports

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ACCRA, Ghana— Under Samuel Lamptey’s guidance, his team doesn’t ask for much. If it were too much, it wouldn’t have been openly publicized. If he weren’t looking for the benefit of the entire community, Collins Seymah Smith would have kept his permanent job. The least the onlookers can do to make this endeavor successful is to abstain from sex.

A bald girl, maybe seven-years-old, clutches the ends of her denim frock while still keeping her eyes fixated on the character that stormed through the middle of the crowd. Another woman, maybe in her thirties, stops her mid-day sales of smoked fish – the basket still toppling over her head- to watch the narrative unfold. The hero is obviously the female character that doesn’t end up getting pregnant.

The flash mob culminates with Susuka by Kofi Kinaata still playing in the backdrop, while all the actors converge in the middle to end in the one final dance step that involves dramatic hand gestures simply translating to, “No sex.”

Adorned in occasional giggles and bright colors that perfectly accentuate their skin tone, the crowd of about fifty, mainly comprised of teenagers and young adults, who may or may not be attending school, but are Lamptey’s potential targets. Teenage pregnancy is not just a major concern in the Shama region, where Lamptey was performing, but it spans across poor neighborhoods throughout Ghana, one of the fastest developing countries in West Africa.

According to statistics released by the Ghana Health Service, over 35,000 cases of teenage pregnancy had been recorded in the country during the year 2015. Mr. Eric Cobbina, the district chief executive of the Shama District, addressing the issue one year later, said, “Meaning one out of every five reported pregnancy case is a teenager.”

According to an article in Ghana News Agency, “He described the situation as unacceptable and called for concerted efforts and commitment to tackling the concern.” Lamptey and Smith seemed to be the only ones obligated.

About 130 miles from the Shama Region, Smith and Lamptey have occupied an old colonial building in Jamestown- donated by the Accra Metropolitan assembly- that they now call “Jamestown Community Theatre Center.” “Theatre is our flagship,” says Collins Seymah Smith, 37, the director of the theatre group that is “initiated and sustained by the young people of the deprived community of Jamestown.” The group that registered itself as an NGO in 2011 now has about 50 volunteers across the country and a few from abroad. Using interactive theatre as a medium to focus on everyday issues, the volunteers work to tackle problems that seem to haunt their community.

Remnants of Accra’s colonial history and a distressed fishermen community make up the crux of Jamestown, the oldest and poorest neighborhood in the fast developing capital city, Accra. Compared to the modern infrastructure of the city center and the ever-expanding posh residential areas of the suburbs, Jamestown remains a filthy pig that the officials refuse to domesticate.

Teenage pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment, and sanitary issues, are as much a part of this vicinity as are the dramatic graffiti on broken roadside houses. Bursting loudspeakers are as randomly positioned on the sidewalks, as are the strolling goats, enjoying just as much space inside houses, as do the citizens of this neighborhood. Residences are either dated a hundred years or newly built after a night of heavy rainfall.

A group of teenagers aged nine to fifteen occupy one of the colonial buildings that might easily pass off as a huge pile of unused stones and rocks to any ignorant tourist eye. Inside the enclosed space, clothes dry on a synthetic rope that stretches from one crack on the wall to another. From behind the clothes, loud giggles and foot taps are clearly audible. Anyone living in Jamestown, can easily match-up to the steps and sing along the tune.

“It’s the hand-wash dance!” said Emmanuel Markhansen, a 30-year-old artist from Jamestown community, who boasts of himself as the “co-coordinator and guide of the whole community,” to tourists who wander in search of ruins from the colonial era.

Markhansen, along with other community members has now learned the hard rule, “They said when you are washing your hands, the water shouldn’t be in bowl; the water should be flowing. They came into my house and taught me. They even made a song for it and we all dance to it.”

One of the many tactics that Smith and Lamptey’s team adopts is barging into open household doors and demonstrating newly acquired sanitary regimes. What mainly drives them, according to Smith is their “passion for theatre.”

“I was first introduced to drama in elementary school. It was almost Christmas and the play we performed was about Mary and Joseph. I was Joseph,” said Smith, who decades later, would ultimately be approached by the UK based NGO, Theatre for Change in 2009.

An organization maintained by a strong partnership between the United Kingdom and Malawi, Theatre for Change has been working with vulnerable and marginalized groups in Ghana since 2003. In Jamestown, they initiated behavior change workshops about sexual and reproductive health, human rights, and women-centric issues.

“After training with them, we were introduced to a new form of theatre called interactive theatre. We were all happy about it and we got hooked to it,” Smith said while scanning the theatre.

“We believe interactive theatre is rehearsal from real life. Sometimes when people are sitting behind and watching, they say ‘Oh! I would have done this or I would have done that if it were I,’ that’s simple to say but now we are encouraging people to come and do it on the stage,” said Lamptey, 27, who is also the programs director for Act For Change (AFC).

Initially, Smith worked as a community development officer and later on as a monetary officer for Theatre for Change. But by the end of 2010, Theatre for Change had to relocate to another region and focus on different issues. “That’s where Samuel and others, who were trained, came in. The interest and funds Theatre for Change provided died up. But we had a lot of issues in Jamestown and somebody needed to tell the stories of people here,” he said.

“Whatever money we got, we used it to register Act For Change in 2011.” In 2013, Smith and Lamptey finally quit the government jobs they had taken up “which is when the organization was having a retreat,” said Smith who believes that he was able to “do a lot more by dedicating all his time to the cause.” To increase community participation, AFC makes it a point to often approach playwrights from the community itself but the plays are mostly written and directed by the volunteers themselves.

“Because it is in our local dialect (Ga), we write our own dialogues. For child marriage or unwanted pregnancies, for instance, we all sit together and brainstorm ideas. We try to think about stories and real instances from within the community and then turn it into a narrative,” Lamptey added.

Ask Smith or Lamptey about the results or the aftereffects of the work they do and they would find it difficult to come up with quantitative data. Smith, however, remaining optimistic, smiles and folds his hands, “The kind of work we are doing, you can’t see it right there in short-term or quantify it right away. But whenever people see us for example, they sometimes ask for condoms. It means, they got it!”

One woman, who certainly agrees with Smith, is Susana Dartey, 31, who is not just an active member of AFC, but started her own NGO called “Women of Dignity Alliance.” Working for the welfare of female sex workers in poor communities such as Jamestown, Dartey remembered cutting her hair, putting on long earrings and changing her wardrobe to dress like she is “one of them (the sex workers).”

Citing her own example she said, “I got pregnant at the age of 23, which is something that never happens in Jamestown. By the time you are 15, you are already pregnant.”

Dartey who in 2014 was one of the participants in the Ghanaian Women Leadership Program, understands Jamestown as though it were her bible. She credited most of her success to engagement in theatre activities, “I dedicated my entire time to Act For Change: attending behavior change workshops, writing plays, and working for community members. This kept me away from the dangers.” Addressing key issues faced by AFC, Dartey explains, “They need more support.”

Most of the volunteers still pay for their own transport and hardly receive any money for their work. The theatre lacks a reliable supply of electricity, and the volunteers purchase laptops used for research.

Even though the government recognizes and appreciates their work, AFC has never received any kind of monetary support from them. “Last year, the tourism minister came and visited us at the Jamestown Art Festival we put up every year. She thanked us for all our work. But that’s about it,” said a disheartened Smith.

Daniel Tagoe, 27, an unemployed youth living in Jamestown believes that AFC can easily bring about more changes in the society, “Unemployment is a big issue. They do employ people and I hope they can employ more but I understand funding is an issue.”

Sitting in the theatre without any electricity, Smith whose vest is mostly drenched in sweat, smiles and explains, “In five years, Act For Change will be a house with a name not just in Jamestown but all over the world. Act for change should have offices in some big-big regions where we can employ a lot of youth while making change all over the world, and saving lives- teenage lives.”

7 hopes from seven Indians

Posted on February 9, 2018 by royreports

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Where new ideas can blossom RITHVIK RAJA | 28 | Carnatic musician, Chennai

“There are many questions being raised about freedom of speech today, and there’s an amazing sense of awareness and energy among the youth. New ideas and innovative narratives need encouragement to see real change. Artistic expressions and creative impulses of youth have to be nurtured and allowed to blossom to see real change.”

Where disabled can run companies RAHUL GAJJAL | 19 | Visually impaired economics student

“St Xavier’s College, Mumbai There’s diversity in India but no sync between the able and the disabled, and that’s what I hope to see. I hope games like Blind Football Championship are promoted so we can be in the top 10 one day. My India would get rid of taxes on devices used by the disabled, have companies run by people like us, introduce more initiatives in smaller towns so people recognise the specially-abled as equals in society.”

Where single moms are not shunned LALREMRUATI PAUT | 19 Single mom & hotel floor supervisor, Shillong

My life changed when I decided to give birth to my child four months ago despite the father backing out. My parents were worried about society looking down on them. I wish people weren’t weighed down by society’s expectations, which makes it painful for women like me to cope. I hope for an India where single mothers have more support, face less discrimination, and can reclaim their pride. I also wish offices would be open-minded about a single mother’s abilities by offering flexible work conditions.

Where there is no divide between India & Bharat SUPRIYA PAUL | 23 | Co-founder, Josh Talks

“An India that I really hope for is an India where every young person has a sense of purpose and a sense of drive. What I really hope for from our country is that more people get up and do something new, more people start doing something at an early age, and there is no gap or divide between the India we see and the Bharat there is.” Where more girls can play sports, even with a hijab AFIFA SHAIKH | 19 | Boxer & BSc student, Maharashtra College, Mumbai

“I hope more girls are encouraged to choose a career in sports. I’m fortunate to have supportive parents, and I participate in boxing bouts wearing hijab. But hijab is not a hurdle, it is a part of my culture. I hope all parents will treat their daughters on a par with sons and dream of an India where women get enough opportunities to be empowered educationally and financially.”

Where no woman is sold for sex like me SHIBA BANU NASIM | 22 | Commercial sex worker, Kamathipura, Mumbai

We must create more livelihood options for the poor so no one ends up living a life of stigma like me. I was sold when I was nine but was rescued by cops before being shifted to a children’s home, from where I escaped, landed on the streets and ended up in brothels. Having lived on the streets, I know the importance of a roof over your head and wish for hostels where helpless women can seek refuge. There must be alternative work options and micro loans so women can get away from unpleasant professions.

Where youngsters can follow their heart VEDIKA BHANDARI | 22 | TV Actor, Mumbai

I wish for a country where youngsters have the liberty to make informed choices. I was studying chartered accountancy when I decided to switch to acting. In my tuition class of 250 students, barely five wanted to become CAs. So many were dying to do other things.

For orignial article: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/7-hopes-from-seven-indians/articleshow/60062749.cms

Bay Ridge residents call on Donovan yet again

Posted on February 7, 2018 by royreports

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New York City’s only Republican Congressman, Dan Donovan’s constituents have often complained of his disappearance since he got elected. Surrounded by a multitude of controversies, Donovan’s stance on immigration policies and the Muslim ban have led to a public outcry among Bay Ridge and Staten Island residents: people of his constituency.

The protest, sponsored by the Arab American Association New York, Bay Ridge for Social Justice and the New York Immigration Coalition called for the Congressman to pass the #CleanDreamAct before the February 8th deadline. Protestors most of whom were Bay Ridge residents -unmoved by the cold- signed post cards addressed to Chuck Schumer and peacefully stood in front of the 86th Street and 4th Avenue subway station holding boards and wide smiles.

Bay Ridge, a diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn has the largest Arab American Population in the country along with the highest Palestinian population in the East Coast. Dr. Ahmed Jabar, 71, a resident of Bay Ridge and co-founder of the Arab American Association New York and a refugee from Palestine is now an American citizen who has practiced gynecology for several decades and delivered about 5000 babies.

“Statements that were politically incorrect earlier have now become a norm. People keep telling Hijabi women to go back to their country but this is their country — they were born here,” he said. “Similarly, young immigrants protected by the Dreamer’s Act only know America as their country.”

Mike Decillis, a democratic representative running for a seat in Congress representing the constituency of Bay Ridge and Staten Island is often sported at protests and rallies that support immigration policies. Stating that the dreamers need a path to citizenship he urges that, “We don’t want 10 million undocumented immigrants, we have to bring them out of the shadows so part of the immigration reform is dealing with and not ignoring the people that are there and not handling it solely criminally.”

The protestors had a hard timed garnering attention from the public but attracted young residents of the community including high school students from the neighborhood.

One such student, Alex Pallitteri’s mother is an immigrant. Her stories of difficulties and shortcomings has always been frightening to him. Just like the other protestors, for him too, no politician should have the right to deport young immigrants, “I think they have a right to build a life here especially when many of the things that they are fleeing from in their country of origin has been caused by America,” he said.

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