by Jan Haldipur
Immigrant Bronx
Young people like Kwesi who have spent most of their childhood in another country, moving to the US later in life, are often regarded as part of what sociologists call the “1.5 generation.” This so-called straddler group is unique from their parents, who have spent most of their lives in their country of origin, and the “second generation,” who were born to immigrant parents and raised in the United States.
In this chapter, I will highlight the highly divergent experiences of six immigrant young adults. While they are by no means representative of all immigrant youth in the neighborhood, their stories provide valuable insight into how a cross-section of immigrants have come to understand police in their lives.
The stories of Kwesi, Saikou, Gauri, Adriana, Manny, and Ralphie take us to five countries spread across three continents. Some have spent a significant amount of time in their country of origin, while others have gotten only glimpses of their parents’ birthplace through secondhand stories told at the dinner table.
While I shared common ground with many of the young people I spent time with during this project, it was with this group that I found myself reflecting most on personal experiences. As a second-generation American, whose parents came from India and the Netherlands, I empathize with the often-delicate task of maintaining a connection to the old country while trying to carve out a space of one’s own in the new. Among immigrant youth, one can argue, the need for a sense of belonging and a place to stand may be even more important. Still, for some South Bronx residents with roots outside the United States, the process of becoming New Yorkers can be complicated by an aggressive police presence in the neighborhood, an experience not universally shared by immigrants in many other parts of the city.
While the borough on the whole, and the South Bronx in particular, is closely associated with its rich African American and Nuyorican history, as of 2011 the Bronx had a larger immigrant population than even Manhattan, with approximately 15.4 percent of the residents having come from another country1. The Concourse Village section of the South Bronx, home to a number of the people I spoke to, is one of the city’s fastest growing immigrant communities, with approximately 41,748 foreign-born residents, or 40.8 percent of the neighborhood’s total population. This represents an almost 18 percent increase from the year 2000.2
There is great diversity among these immigrant groups. Walking along 161st Street, I became used to hearing the usual blend of Spanish and English, but also, depending on exactly where I was, also French and Arabic, reflecting immigrants with roots in Africa and the Middle East. The people I spoke with and spent time with reflected the borough’s rich diversity, with a great number coming from Latin American countries such as the Dominican Republic as well as West African nations such as Ghana. While other groups such as Bangladeshis and Indians are somewhat less visible, they are no less of a part of the neighborhood’s ecology.
Figure 4.1. A neighborhood corner store. Photo courtesy of the author.
Figure 4.2. A group of men play dominoes on the sidewalk. Photo courtesy of the author.
Still, as often happens, many of the young adults in the neighborhood have carved out their own unique geographies in the area, as I realized during the summer, when I spent a great deal of time playing basketball with young adults from the community at an indoor recreation program at a local middle school.
The program, which ran for a few hours each weekday evening, was free for local residents. And one of the first things that struck me was how the young adults policed the available courts. Based on experience, I had anticipated more of a division between Latino (Dominican and Puerto Rican) and African American ballplayers. Instead, what I observed was a division between some of the West African and American-born players. Many of the former were relegated to the tilted hoops furthest from the main entrance, and, when full-court games began, these players were forced off the courts altogether. I became curious as to how this division came about, and, perhaps more important, how, if at all, this might inform the relationship between West African immigrants such as Kwesi and the police.
The Protective Layer
Kwesi is 19 years old now, having spent the last two years of high school in the Bronx, ultimately getting accepted to a public university in the borough. Religion plays a substantial role in Kwesi’s life, although it is also a source of frustration in his household. His father and siblings are Pentecostal, while Kwesi has chosen to attend a Catholic church. Because the rest of his family is part of a Pentecostal congregation, Kwesi often feels obliged to attend services with them, having to carve out time to attend Catholic services on his own. Between church, school, and the seemingly omnipresent challenge of finding viable part-time employment, Kwesi spends little time socializing in the neighborhood. As he explains:
I’ve been going to school a lot on the weekends, so when I go to school, and then when I know that there’s a Mass at a nearby parish, I might go there. Plus, on Sunday, I was going to study more—I go to school, I study, I do some readings . . . homework, I’m just reading and making small notes. After some time, I go to the church. I get it done, and then I go back and continue the studies. When the library closes, I come back home.
For Kwesi and other young 1.5- and second-generation New Yorkers, a lack of social capital in the neighborhood coupled with the strength of ethnic-group ties seems to provide a protective layer between them and police. Although Kwesi, a dark-skinned teenager, physically resembles many of his peers in the neighborhood who experience a disproportionate amount of police attention, he has managed to remain outside of the reaches of the police department and has never been frisked. It is not that he spends so much time with other Ghanaians, but rather that he doesn’t frequently socialize with many of his American-born neighbors. As a result, he has in effect become “invisible” to the New York Police Department.
The desire of Kwesi and others of West African background to not interact with other local residents has put a strain on their relationship with some of their neighbors. In turn, many native-born residents have begun to harbor negative feelings toward their immigrant neighbors, as, in their worldview, their families are often the subjects of police harassment, while their foreign-born counterparts seemingly navigate the area without any fear of persecution. As one African American mother revealed to me while talking on her front stoop:
They’re out there almost every day. The Africans wilding out at night, and the cops will just watch them. Up near Clay [she points north toward a nearby park]. Most of them stay up near there. But the cops still feel the need to mess with us. I should have filmed them. . . . All of the bad stuff going on up the block, but they still feel the need to harass us here. See! [Points to a cop slowly driving by where we’re sitting.]
Still, for others I spoke to, the so-called protective layer took on a somewhat different form, as it did for Gauri, a Bangladeshi woman in her early twenties. When she was eight, Gauri moved to the United States from Bangladesh after her father’s name was selected as part of an immigration lottery. She explained how a simple twist of fate allowed her family to immigrate to the country:
Gauri: So, one of my Dad’s . . . he never wanted to come here, but his friend filled out a form for him, and then he got picked, so we ended up—
Jan: Did the friend actually get picked too?
Gauri: No. And the funny thing is, he did it in his name like three or four applications, and my Dad’s name, it was only one. So it’s pretty weird. It’s always been said that my Dad’s been really lucky.
Upon entering the States, the family initially came to Queens, settling in with relatives before moving to an apartment in the Bronx’s 42nd Precinct. Although there were fewer Bangladeshis or Indians in the neighborhood, the apartment was affordable and provided a desirable amount of space.
Gauri does not spend much time in the neighborhood. She attended high school in the North Bronx, and, as a result, ended up spending a great deal of time in the area with fr
iends who lived nearby. Her social circle began to reflect her school environment:
It was mostly Jamaicans, yeah . . . and then a few Spanish girls, but mostly Jamaican girls from the school. I’m still really good friends with them. . . . I was the only Indian girl in the school, so, if they said “the Indian Girl,” they knew, everyone knew who they were talking about. Like, I had a few family friends through my parents, but that’s about it . . . and I have like one best friend from elementary school, she’s Desi (a person of South Asian descent), but she’s like the only Desi friend I have.
While such a diverse social circle may have been the norm for Gauri outside of the house, within the home her parents held on to many of their traditions. Sociologists such as Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut refer to this phenomenon as “dissonant acculturation.” 3 This typically occurs when a child learns the language and traditions of the host country at a faster rate than the immigrant parents. Gauri’s mother, who comes from India and grew up Hindu, converted to Islam upon marrying her father. In their house, Bengali is still the language of choice. As Gauri reflects, “Even if I’d say something in English, my Mom would say: ‘Speak Bengali! Talk what you learn!’”
The contrast between Gauri’s home life and her behavior outside her home became more pronounced upon the arrival of her grandmother from Bangladesh. “I think when she’s here,” she says, “we’re more, kind of Indian . . . we watch the Indian programs on TV and stuff, because she likes it and she misses home, so we’ll watch it with her.”
Gauri’s parents still seek out “pockets of home” whenever possible, even making the long journey to Queens to shop at Indian grocery stores, which are almost nonexistent in their neighborhood. While Gauri’s father has become somewhat indifferent to the neighborhood, her mother questions the safety of the community. Now in her early twenties, Gauri still feels consistent pressure from her parents to avoid certain areas, particularly at night. In Gauri’s view, this is due largely to her gender as well as general feelings of unfamiliarity, and in turn mistrust, that her mother still harbors about other local residents:
Say we need milk and there’s a store right in our building, right downstairs, she won’t let me go, she’s like, let’s go together. I’m like, it’s right there! Nothing’s gonna happen! She kind of . . . I don’t know. She thinks, because I’m a girl . . . and, like, we don’t really know other people so she categorizes them, like, oh, they try to stick together, they’re gonna pick on us. That’s kind of the way she thinks about things.
While Gauri has never been frisked herself, she can recall a handful of events that helped crystallize her understanding of how the police may perceive her, both as a woman and as a member of an ethnic minority. In one such incident, while in high school, Gauri and some friends were loudly passing through cars on a moving subway train. Two officers were waiting in one of the cars and immediately stopped the group. Gauri and two of her female friends were let go, but the men were brought to the police station and frisked:
I think that was because I’m a girl, because it was me and two other girls. . . . we really didn’t get into trouble, they just said don’t do it again, it’s not safe. It’s dangerous. But that was it. For the guys, and they were like, tall, black guys . . . they kind of got more attention for some reason.
Saikou and Downward Assimilation
Saikou, who is 23 years old, was born in the Bronx to Gambian parents. At the age of 11 he moved back to Gambia, living with relatives in Banjul, the country’s capital. After seven years, he returned to the southwest Bronx to live with his parents and two younger siblings, while his older brother remained in Banjul. Before leaving America the first time, Saikou said he had several American friends. Upon his return, however, he says that nearly all his friends were Gambian. Similar to Kwesi, religion plays a significant role in Saikou’s life:
Well, I’ll be honest with you, I do go to mosque every morning, but other than that, if I’m at work, I just make sure I bring my praying mat with me and I’ll pray there. If I don’t have the time for it, when I get home I’ll pray. I stick to my religion. Five times a day, every day. I try not to miss it. Even if I miss it, I’ll make sure the next day I’ll pray it all.
As with Kwesi, the threat of being frisked is something of an afterthought for Saikou. He says he has not experienced any harassment by the police since he has returned to the United States. He spends much of his time working at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Midtown Manhattan and hanging out with friends from the mosque. He aspires to go back to school one day to pursue a college degree, though he thinks that he may require a little more time to, as he puts it, “clear my head,” before he resumes his studies. Saikou says that his father is extremely strict, and as a result he tries his best to steer clear of him in the home. In recent months his father has pushed him to get married, and has openly discussed the possibility of arranging a union for him. Saikou has been resistant. As he reports:
They try to [arrange a marriage], but I told them I’m not doing that. Shit, I’ll be honest with you. You probably could have done that to my older brother who’s in Africa, but you can’t do that to me because I’m trying to get my degree and everything else. I want to get everything out of the way first. Then after that, I’ll think about that.
Earlier the previous year, at the urging of a friend, Saikou went upstate to cash some forged checks. The two were quickly arrested in a town near Poughkeepsie and charged with possession of a forged instrument. Saikou ended up spending a few weeks in an upstate jail and is currently on probation supervision in the Bronx. This was his first real interaction with police, one that he feels at least partly responsible for. While he feels lucky that the charges resulted in nothing more than a misdemeanor, he is wary of how his life could be affected by this transgression. For Saikou, this is as much a symbolic event as one with real-life implications.
Now forced to attend weekly meetings with his probation officer, he is becoming aware of how his interaction with police, and the criminal justice system as a whole, has seemingly expedited his process of “becoming American,” and not necessarily for the better. In his opinion, “It’s like the Africans are taking what the black people is doing, and the black Americans are taking what us Africans are doing. So, it’s like, they’re trading places.”
Portes and Rumbaut refer to this phenomenon as a form of “downward assimilation.” In their conception, while some young adults are more inclined to outperform their immigrant parents and ascend into middle-class comfort, others “seem poised for a path of blocked aspirations and downward mobility, reproducing the plight of today’s impoverished domestic minorities.”4 As part of the larger process of “becoming American,” some children of West African immigrants, like Saikou, experience an expedited form of downward assimilation through their contact with police.
As Saikou made clear, he feels as if his continuing involvement with the criminal justice system has him “trading places” with the African American men he sees on the street corners in his neighborhood and in the waiting room of the Probation Department offices. While up to this point he may have “outperformed” his closest proximal hosts,5 African Americans, in some respects his arrest has seemingly undone any of this progress.
Mexican in Mott Haven
“I just don’t like them,” Adriana, a 23-year-old woman, says, her eyebrows beginning to furrow, “even though I don’t have nothing on me or whatever, like, I walk through them and I just be like, speed-walking, or I get nervous. I automatically think they’re going to stop me or say something.”
Adriana becomes noticeably more animated when discussing the police. She is small in stature, with wavy black hair flowing well past her shoulders. Apart from a pronounced scar under her right eye, now covered by a layer of makeup, she looks much younger than her age.
Adriana is a second-generation Mexican American, born and raised in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. After a number of school transfers (for academic and behavior is
sues) and some time off due to the birth of her son, she is, more recently, a high school graduate. Adriana currently lives in an apartment with her mother, son, and younger siblings in circumstances she considers less than desirable, explaining: “It’s not good. Uh-uh. It’s too crowded, it’s too many problems. And then I don’t work, so that’s a problem with her [her mother].”
In addition to caring for her son, who is now eight, she is required, as part of her probation for an assault charge, to attend a “leadership academy” that focuses on anger management and coping skills. This, she sees as a stepping-stone to realizing her dream of going back to school to become a nurse.
Having spent her entire life in an enclave of the city with a rich African American and Puerto Rican history, Adriana has become acutely aware of her ethnicity. As she says, “Ever since I was in junior high school, I was about the only Mexican . . . in high school there was a couple, but not, like, a lot. I always tend to go towards where I see Mexicans. It makes me feel, I don’t know, comfortable.”
In Adriana’s section of the borough, near Mott Haven, Mexicans are the second largest immigrant group (behind Dominicans), representing nearly 27 percent of the area’s entire immigrant population.6 Still, as a more recent immigrant population, there is often a great deal of mistrust between the groups.