From The Integration of Dominican, Chinese, Russian and Mexican Immigrants in NYC
Organizations Helping Dominican Immigrants
SO IF I AM A DOMINICAN IMMIGRANT IN NYC, WHAT ORGANIZATION SHOULD I CHOOSE?
Community Based Organizations Can Help Dominicans OverCome Integration Challenges. Please take a look at the six organizations we interviewed:
Alianza Dominicana, Inc.
The staff at Alianza Dominicana, Inc. related that it has many programs which seek to help all immigrants in need. It seemed, however, that the predominate population using Alianza's services were Dominican and Latin American although there are other majority populations in the neighborhood. The staff also mentioned that Alianza promotes educational attainment for all ages. Alianza refers their clients to different programs based on the their specific integration needs. Some of these programs are:
• United Way funded project at P.S. 153 motivates at-risk youth to stay in school through various means of help, such as home visits, family counseling, attendance monitoring, etc.
• La Plaza Beacon School and Cornerstone Initiative at Dyckman offer after school programs to give adolescent students tutoring and homework.
• Learning to Work @ Innovation Diploma Plus HS provides supportive services, and college and career awareness to participants at Brandeis High School.
Alianza Dominicana La Familia Unida Day Care Center
"As a model bilingual, bicultural program, Alianza Dominicana La Family Unida Day Care Center strongly encourages early childhood education," and Educational Director said. The director explained that through bilingual programs, children at early ages learn different languages and come to understand different cultures as well. The day care center is open to all children with working parents. Since the center is funded by the government, the child(ren) enrolled must have a Social Security Number, regardless of whether their parent does or not. They also ask for a 1069 form that the employer must fill out as proof that the parents are working. What is surprising is that the curriculum that the young children have to follow, "3 days of Spanish and 2 days of English." 'Although not all the children in their class are Dominican, the emphasis is still placed on Spanish, not English.'
Alianza Dominicana H.O.P.E. (Holistic Orientation and Prevention Education)
H.O.P.E. aims to educate the public about sexual education offering services such as pre-natal care, H.I.V. testing, counseling, and support groups for the lesbian and gay society. All services are provided in both Spanish and English. A representative of H.O.P.E. says that 90% of the population they cater to are Dominican and that their services are in high demand. She herself spoke broken English and when asked for a brochure, she was only able to provide one in Spanish.
The Dominican Studies Institute at CUNY
At the Dominican Studies Institute at CUNY, a research fellow for the Institute and a former professor for IDC. Before the early 1990’s, there was little to no research being done on Dominicans in the United States. In 1992, this all changed when the Council of Dominican Educators founded the Dominican Studies Institute to help raise awareness about Dominican Immigrants in the United States. The research fellow claims that the greatest thing the Institute has done is bring attention to the Dominican Community. The Institute does this through producing and publishing research. This research is then used by community based organizations in foreseeing trends they must attend to, creating programs and approximating the funding they might need. Given this, the Institute actually plays a very important role in the integration process in that it highlights the challenges Dominicans are facing that must be addressed. In the fellow's personal research, he also had insight about the immigrant group. He said that although the Dominican immigrants faced many obstacles, patches of the second generation were coming up strong. Furthermore, he claimed that Dominicans were as a whole faring far better off than Native-born minorities such as African Americans.
The Latino Commission on AIDS
The Latino Commission on AIDS offers similar services to ALIANZA H.O.P.E. in that it provides HIV testing and education to lesbians, gays and transgenders of the Latin American community in New York. Since Dominicans represent the largest foreign source group of Latin Americans in New York, the Commission was a great place to see how community based organizations help with integration challenges such as health care. At the Commission we spoke to the Deputy Director of Research and Evaluation. He reminded us that immigrants face multiple challenges while trying to integrate. He said, "As an HIV organization, most of our clients are dealing with multiple stigmas-immigration, gay or transsexual identity, and HIV.” His statement was important in that it imparted that integration challenges are not simple, but multi-faceted and overlapping. Specifically in terms of education, the Commission works to educate people about safe sex and prevention. It also hosts substance abuse and treatment classes for people dealing with addiction. An interesting fact in New York and for the Clinic is that immigrants can still receive treatment for HIV regardless of their documentation status. Despite this, Andrew said that a large challenge the organization faces is the religious backlash from people in Hispanic communities. Therefore, the Commission tries to work with willing churches to raise awareness about HIV and ways it can be prevented.
Dominican Women’s Development Center
The Dominican Women’s Development Center's (more commonly known as "El Centro") goal is to help ease the integration experience of immigrants by helping immigrants gain the confidence they need to live happily in a new country. A representative from El Centro explains and emphasizes the problems that arise during integration, language acquisition being one of them. All workers and volunteers must speak both Spanish and English in order to communicate with the patrons. El Centro offers ESL classes and aid in the process of attaining citizenship (form translations and test preparation). They also offers free legal advice since many new (and old) immigrants do not understand the legal system, especially those who are not proficient in English.
El Centro also offers an Economic Development Program, which is aimed at creating employment opportunities for women of the Washington Heights and Inwood. Through this program, women are aided in finding a job or provided with start up funds for potentially starting their own small businesses. Another Development Director said that the center has trained and registered 150 women in providing family day services. They have also placed 81 women as home health aids for the elderly.
Source: "Fact Sheet." Dominican Women's Development Center.
WHAT CHALLENGES DO THESE ORGANIZATIONS FACE?
One of the biggest challenge that these organizations face is language incorporation. Most of the immigrants don't speak English or speak in different Spanish dialects which can be misinterpreted if not translated correctly. Immigrants can't take advantage of these services if they don't understand them and especially if they don't even know they exist. The organizations also have a difficult time gaining the trust of immigrants. Moreover, these organizations are funded by the government and it is usually difficult to get sufficient funding if the organizations cannot list all of the clients using their services. Given limited funding, it is also then difficult to advertise and spread the word about what they can provide.
- It is important to note that although the federal government does fund some of these organizations, the community based organizations do the majority of the leg work in the integration process.
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT THE INTEGRATION PROCESS?
Through our thorough research, we learned that immigrants face multiple stigmas in their integration process. Thus, community based organizations are major players in helping the immigrants integrate into the U.S society, more specifically New York City. These organizations are often successful in their field of support to the immigrants. They provide emotional support and personal attention, regardless of their status. Most of the organizations offer their services free of charge to all immigrants.
All immigrants, undocumented or not, are still entitled rights as human beings. A better effort needs to be made to welcome immigrants as a whole. Many times, Americans misinterpret or assume things about immigrants which can make the integration process more difficult.
ARE COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS SUCCESSFUL? OR ARE THERE SHORTCOMINGS?
Given the limitations most community based organizations have, they are definitely successful. All services are given free of charge. Most organizations will not ask for the social security number of immigrants to ensure confidentiality and allow all people to take advantage of the services, too. It is only government services (such as Medicare) that not all immigrants can take advantage of. These organizations provide the emotional support and personal attention immigrants need to feel comfortable in a new land.
WHAT WAS SURPRISING ABOUT THE INTERVIEW PROCESS?
Although scheduling interviews and coming up with answer-inducing questions were difficult, the persistence and patience paid off. We were able to reveal information that statistics could not tell us.
A surprising aspect we learned was revealed by Xiomara Santos-Abreu from the Dominican Women’s Development Center. She told us that many of the men were beating their wives. This is a real concern in that the Domincan men are overwhelmed by stress and pressure in trying to find and obtain work to support their families and so forth. When they don’t, which in many cases they might not, they beat their wives. Domestic violence is a real threat to these women, and the organizations should try to make more of an effort to deal with this matter.
FINAL WORDS
Because of this, Dominicans are doing better than the native born minorities and the second generation are emerging strong. Despite all the problems stated above, Dominicans continue to progress thanks to these organizations.
