Under the rumbling No. 7 line el along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights hangs the red, blue and yellow sign of the Ecuadorian consulate. Clusters of down-and-out men sit on the sidewalk around the sign, waiting for a job that never comes. Most haven’t worked in weeks – or months, in some cases.

The immigrants’ usual living arrangement of two to three people per apartment is now closer to seven or eight as they struggle to pay the rent. Some can’t afford housing and become homeless. Those without documentation hesitate to seek social services and must often ask their families in Ecuador for money.

“If I’m going to starve, I’m better off starving in my country,” said Patricio Garces, an Ecuadorian-born U.S. citizen who plans to return home this year.

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Rosa Martinez used to stroll to the local money transfer office in Corona every week to send $200 to her family in Cuenca, Ecuador.

She still goes to the Delgado Travel office, but not to send money. Instead, it is she who collects a little cash from those family members in Cuenca.

“My husband used to earn $140 a day working three, four days a week as a construction worker,” said Martinez, 48. “Now he gets $80 a day and works two, maximum three days a week.”

The economic downturn has battered the nation in recent months, but it also has deeply affected countries like Ecuador, where a recently improved standard of living has devolved with less money flowing from immigrants working in the U.S.

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When they’re not in class, Regis High School seniors Ruben Martinez and Julian Penero spend two to four days a week delivering meals or offering computer tutoring at the Carter Burden Center for the Aging on the upper East Side.

“Whenever we do anything small, whether it’s getting a fork for them or bringing them their meal or helping them figure out how to send an e-mail, they’re always so thankful to us,” said Martinez.

“Sending an e-mail comes by nature to us, but when we help someone do that and they’re so grateful, that’s so rewarding to us,” he said.

The Regis model soon may extend to city public schools.

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Greenpoint is known as a Polish immigrant neighborhood.

But if you walk north on Manhattan Avenue, past three blocks of shuttered storefronts, the Polish meat markets are being replaced by bodegas and Mexican restaurants.

If you go one block farther, you will see factories and giant brick industrial buildings.

Here in this unlikely location, at the northernmost tip of Greenpoint, and nestled between Box and Ash Streets sits the aptly named Ashbox Café, an upscale coffee shop.

Yoko’s Story

The owner, Yoko Kubo, 47, is a Japanese immigrant, who serves factory workers and local artists green teas, edamame, homemade tofu and Japanese fluffy bread. She is part of an increasingly diverse neighborhood that includes Poles, Latinos, loft-dwelling artists – and a handful of Japanese.

Kubo is a minority immigrant in a sea of others, yet she somehow feels at home here – even more so after a recent personal tragedy.

“The reason why I like living here is that the people are very friendly,” Kubo said from behind the counter one recent Tuesday afternoon.

When Kubo first immigrated with her husband, Yu, to the United States from Tokyo, Japan 13 years ago, they moved to Manhattan — a place where she never really felt comfortable.

“Tokyo is just like Manhattan. It’s so crowded. Too many people,” she said.

A Neighborhood Staple

Kubo got the opportunity to leave her job as manager of a fancy Japanese restaurant in Midtown in early 2008 when she and her husband took over management of the Ashbox Café, the northernmost coffee shop in Brooklyn. The two had been living in Greenpoint for 11 years by this point, and the café had been a staple of the neighborhood for five years, with two previous owners.

For Kubo, it was the perfect fit – she had run a coffee shop back in Tokyo and was an expert in teas. She infused the western coffee shop with a “Japanese taste” so that there would be “more than just sandwiches,” she said.

“There’s a similarity to some of the small shops [in Japan],” said Gregor Asch, a.k.a. DJ Olive the Audio Janitor, who has lived in Greenpoint for 19 of his 40 years. “The people who own the shop also do the cooking and are very attentive to the detail of what’s going in the food.”

Although Kubo is one of only a small number Japanese in the area, she says that she feels a greater sense of community in Greenpoint than what she ever experienced in Japan.

“It’s not so close in neighborhoods in Japan. So I feel more comfortable to live here, because of the people,” Kubo said.

The community atmosphere she strives to create for her customers — many of whom come to the shop three times a day — is similar.

‘A Warm Feeling’

“I’m always looking for places where I can sit with my laptop and work, and it’s a really, really peaceful environment here,” said Anya Rozenblat, 31, a photographer originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, who has lived in Greenpoint for three years.

Kubo’s husband passed away in March at age 67. He had been sick on and off for the past two years and the community supported the couple.

When Kubo was still working in Manhattan, “I gave the keys for my to apartment to my friends,” she said. That way if her ailing husband had an emergency, their Brooklyn friends could get to him faster.

After her husband died, Kubo closed the store for ten days. She returned to find her doorstep covered in prayer candles and flowers.

“I had a warm feeling for neighborhood and customers at Ashbox,” Kubo said.

On a warm night in Fort Greene, people often sit at tables outside a bustling restaurant on DeKalb Avenue, just down the street from the park. Inside, patrons sit at tables or the bar, sometimes just chatting, other times listening to music or a reading from an author.

For a decade, Madiba restaurant has been a cultural center for South Africans in the city. Mark and Jenny Henegan, co-owners and spouses, modeled Madiba after a South African shebeen, where locals gather to drink, socialize and talk about politics. As a native of South Africa, Mark Henegan wanted to bring a taste of his homeland’s culture to his adopted hometown.

Peaceful Feeling

“When I arrived in New York it was the first place I ever felt closest to world peace, where everyone lived together and walked together and ate together,” said Mark Henegan. “In New York you can be anybody you want. You can be connected with people.”

The Henegans opened the restaurant across the street from their apartment, using $10,000 in savings. The concept caught on, with the Henegans opening other branches in North Carolina and Florida.

The venture hasn’t been without its share of difficulties. In the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Madiba and other restaurants along DeKalb reported a downturn in business. More recently, the recession has hit DeKalb Avenue. Madiba’s profits are down 20%, according to Henegan.

The restaurant joined with other businesses in the DeKalb Merchants’ Association to cut costs through bulk purchases. The Association also shares a garbage service. Henegan said these moves have made up the difference from the fall in profits.

Community Spirit

That same type of community spirit is present at the restaurant, where locals mingle with a diverse group of South Africans and other patrons from around the city. That’s in stark contrast to the realities that Henegan experienced growing up in apartheid-era South Africa, or even in his travels throughout the American South.

“Traveling across the South, I found a lot racism, a lot of separation,” said Henegan. “Though it was not labeled as apartheid, I found very similar towns to where I was raised in South Africa, where there was a lot of segregation. New York for me was not even part of the United States. It was a different place altogether.”

Walk along Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant and the Caribbean presence is undeniable. Residents stop by the West Indian grocery store to pick up yuca and Jamaican cooking spices. Ali’s Roti Shop sells Trinidadian street food from a walk-up window, while the Jamaican bakery on the corner turns out fresh bulla cakes daily.

Despite the neighborhood’s large Caribbean influence, the government has no accurate count for how many residents of Caribbean descent are living here. One organization is trying to change this by urging the United States Census Bureau to add a Caribbean-American ethnicity option to Census forms. The next Census survey is scheduled for April 1st, 2010.

Misleading Numbers

“I was just sick and tired of being told that Caribbean nationals, they’re not really important because of the numbers,” said Felicia Persaud, founder of the advocacy group CaribID2010.

More than 570,000 New Yorkers were born in the Caribbean – 20 percent of the city’s foreign-born population, according to Census figures. But the number excludes U.S.-born citizens of Caribbean ethnicity.

“There are no accurate figures in terms of measuring their spending power, their voting power, their contribution,” she said. “In New York City especially, there is a huge undercount in Caribbean populated areas, which is also pulling down the federal funding level that the city could get.”

Persaud, who is Guyanese, argues that without an accurate count, the country’s Caribbean population is unable to meet its full economic and political potential. Census results are used to draw congressional districts and to determine how much funding communities receive.

Funds at Stake

In the 2000 fiscal year, 85 percent of federal grants to state and local governments were distributed on the basis of Census data, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

While there are no Census counts for the number of Caribbean-Americans in New York, they represent one of the more prevalent immigrant groups. Four of the countries on New York’s list of top ten countries of birth for the state’s foreign-born population are Caribbean nations — the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti and Jamaica, government statistics show.

“The Caribbean community is very prolific in Brooklyn, in New York as a whole,” said Austin Tuitt, who runs the Global Caribbean Representation, a community organization that aims to connect Caribbean-Americans with their roots. Originally from Trinidad, Tuitt has lived in Brooklyn since the late 1960s.

“Everyone needs to be counted,” he said. “People are here.”

Bill Bid

In April, a bill was introduced in Congress by Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn) asking that a Caribbean origins category be added to Census forms. Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, represents several Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Still, the bill is not likely to progress quickly enough for the change to be made in time for the 2010 Census.

“Category changes for race do not happen overnight,” said Tony Farthing, New York regional director for the U.S. Census Bureau. “This has to go through all levels of government, and Capitol Hill, and not just the Census Bureau.”

He noted that other changes to Census forms — like the addition of Hispanic as an ethnicity, first used in 1990 — were achieved after years of campaigning.

“Obviously we’re aware it’s not going to happen for 2010 unless it’s a miracle,” said Persaud, who started CaribID2010 last year. “For 2010, we really want to reiterate that Caribbean nationals must fill out the form and write in their country of origin on Question Eight. It’s about whether they want to exist in this country and be counted, or remain invisible.”

Check Off Drama

Question Eight asks the race of the person filling out the form, with an option underneath for “some other race.” Ali Shah, who’s owned Trinidad Ali’s Roti Shop on Fulton Street for the past 15 years, said he checked off “black” on the last Census survey.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, he chatted with two friends inside nearby Charlie’s Calypso City, a record store that sells reggae and steel drum music.

“I’m a West Indian just like these gentlemen here,” he said, pointing to his friends, who are also Caribbean.  ”They would put black automatically. I do the same.”

The “black” option is described by the Census Bureau as for someone who is “black or African American, a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.” Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, this description does little to accurately describe Shah and his friends.

“I don’t know where they put me,” he said.

A Catholic church in Bushwick that serves many immigrant families is opening a new elementary school with a price that can’t be beat: the tuition is free.

The new Pope John Paul II Family Academy, to be part of St. Barbara’s parish, is being funded by a wealthy Brooklyn-born businessman who insists on remaining anonymous.

He also is insisting on some conditions: families must attend Mass every Sunday. Students have to provide baptismal certificates from a Catholic church, and parents must sign an agreement promising to keep the faith.

$2 Million Pledge

“We don’t want someone who has a baptismal certificate with fresh ink, that’s not the point,” said Soren Gutierrez, a representative for the mystery benefactor, who is putting up $2 million to open the school. “Part of this is about rejuvenating faith but it’s also about giving free education to the most deserving.”

In Bushwick, where 32 percent of residents earn less than $19,000 annually, a free parochial school is viewed as a godsend – particularly in the pews of St. Barbara’s, whose 1,200 parishioners include immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Ecuador.

“It will change the community for the better,” said the Rev. Fulgencio Gutierrez, Dominican-born pastor of St. Barbara’s.

“The whole family is going to be formed, going to be reshaped, and they are going to continue to form and reshape the children,” added the priest, who will serve as the new school’s head chaplain. “It also helps me to evangelize the parents to be more active in the church.”

Immigrant Families Welcome

Gutierrez said he distributed more than 300 applications to members of St. Barbara’s and other Bushwick parishes.  The school, slated to open in September, will accept 100 children for pre-k through third grade in the first year, with plans to eventually expand to eighth grade.

Immigrant families will have the opportunity to apply without fear of being deported, Soren Gutierrez said.

“As long as they meet the financial and faith requirements, any family is welcome to apply,” he said. “We just want to educate the children of the community regardless of their immigration status.”

The benefactor chose St. Barbara’s parish because of the need in the community, strong attendance at the church and because many Bushwick families remain intact, Gutierrez added.

Among the parents excited about the new school is Arileyna Duran, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic.

“I work in public schools,” said Duran, a mother of two. “I see what those kids are like.  I don’t want my kids turning out that way.”

Esmeralda Lopez hopes to enroll her son Joey in kindergarten at the new school this fall.  “My son is a handful, so I think it will do him good,” she said.

The mother of six boys believes the school is a chance at a better education: more individual attention, smaller classes and strong discipline.

“We’re looking for a school that really interacts and cares. I’d rather them call me 100 times a week because there’s problems than not call me at all,” said Lopez’s husband, Joseph Candelaria.

Work to be Done

The new school will be housed blocks away from the parish in a Menahan Street building owned by St. Barbara’s that’s currently home to a Head Start program. Some of the 106 children from the program, which will be displaced, are applying to the new school – but many do not meet the religious requirement.

There is a significant amount of work that needs to be done before the Pope John Paul II Family Academy can open.  The building’s basement requires renovation.  Families have yet to be interviewed and selected, and teachers haven’t been hired.

Still, the venture is seen a positive sign by many at a time when local parochial schools have faced significant decline amid shrinking parishes and rising costs.

While the benefactor is providing about $2 million to fund the Pope John Paul II Family Academy in its first year, he plans to start outside fundraising as the school grows.

“I think he is in it for the long run,” said Father Gutierrez,  “and pray that he is.”

The Starrett Judo Club has earned more trophies than can fit in its display case.

The overflow of awards, some three feet high, cover a cafeteria-style table and some floor space throughout Starrett City’s Office of Community Relations on Pennsylvania Avenue. The club, founded by former Haitian Olympian Parnel Legros, is a mirror of this integrated 153-acre community of just under 15,000.

“It’s like Disneyworld,” said Legros. “You name the country – Haiti, Russia, Poland – it’s probably the most diverse community I’ve ever seen. I don’t know anything else like it.”

A Towering Neighborhood

Starrett City offers a middle class, almost suburban lifestyle, to a diverse working-class community in East New York. Streets are called loops and the homogeneity of the 46, 15-story high-rise towers give no hint of the diversity that dwells there.

Starrett City was the first and remains the largest federally subsidized housing community in the country. When it was built in 1974, the owners set a policy to ensure a tenant ratio of 70 percent white to 30 percent black. They said the purpose was to prevent white flight, but the reality was that many black tenants were placed on an endless waiting list.

The policy was struck down in federal court in 1998.

Today, the growing Caribbean community in Starrett City reflects the surrounding neighborhood, where 33 percent of the population was foreign-born as of the 2000 census. Of that number, 41.4 percent were from the Caribbean – the second largest foreign-born population in the whole district, behind immigrants from Latin America.

Local Champs

Legros said since the racial quotas were struck down, his club has become a United Nations of judo. Legros, 52, is the sensei (teacher) of the club and has taught physical education at Starrett City’s Intermediate School 364 since 1989.

Legros, who immigrated from Haiti at 14, is a Judo world champion and was captain of the 1992 Haitian Olympic Team. He was training for Barcelona at Starrett City’s school weight room when someone from management asked him to start an after-school judo program for local kids. Now, the club is known as a home to national and international champions.

World Travelers

Harry St. Leger, 23, has lived in Starrett City his whole life. He and his twin brother, Garry, the sons of Haitian immigrants, started lessons at the Judo Club when they were 8.  Their parents did not hesitate to support the two brothers and their sport, despite economic hardship.

Starrett City Public Affairs also helped out with college scholarships for both brothers. Harry St. Leger recently took a bronze medal at the nation championships in Massachusetts, despite an injured arm.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my club,” said St. Leger.  “It’s different from other sports. You compete out of the state, out of the country.

“I’ve been all around the world.”

The world calls soccer the beautiful game.

The crisp, clean passing between streaking teammates, the hard shots on goal, and the exciting saves that follow add an aesthetic splendor to the sport for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.

“It’s a working-class sport,” said analyst Nick Webster, co-host of Fox Soccer Channel’s Fox Football Fone-In.  “And the working class are the masses.”

In Brooklyn, where more than 200,000 immigrants hail from European countries, fans of the game find creative ways to get their soccer fix.  Local bars match up with foreign time schedules and morph into the familiar soccer pubs scattered across Europe.  And on the field of play, garbage cans become corner flags and field goals act as soccer goal posts.

Webster, a former player in his native England, said that soccer is ingrained in Britain’s youth at a very early age.  “As soon as you can walk, if your father is a football fan, you have a ball at your feet,” he said.  “I have a little 2-year-old right now, and as soon as he started walking, there was a ball.”

For those who miss their country of origin, gathering in the midst of this amalgam of American neighborhoods and European culture becomes more than simple recreation – it’s a way to hold onto a little piece of home.

London Calling

On the boarder of Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, the Chip Shop, an English-themed bar and grill on Atlantic Avenue, has become a sanctuary for soccer fans in an area brimming with European expatriates.

With walls covered in soccer regalia like team scarves and player photos, and framed posters of  The Beatles, The Who and The Sex Pistols, the pub looks like a snap shot of British pop culture past.

The food instantly pulls you into the middle of West London – waitresses serve Sheppard’s pie, beans on toast and the bar’s franchise dish – good old fashioned fish and chips.  The Chip Shop also boasts “New York City’s largest section of draught English, Scottish and Irish stouts, lagers and ales,” which, for many soccer fans, makes the experience much more enjoyable.

“It’s not one of these huge soccer bars where you can’t even get up to get a drink sometimes,” said Kiernan O’Hare, 27, of Cobble Hill.  “It’s not for one particular team, which is kind of nice, too.   So you can go and feel like if you’re rooting for the other team, you’re not going to get beat up.  And the beers are good, too.”

Soccer also holds a unique place in history for many countries abroad, often representing the social and political milieu of their homeland.

Eastern European stalwarts Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade played a match that degraded into rioting and helped propel the bloody Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.  And when Senegal triumphed over France in the 2002 World Cup, many in the West African country marked the victory as a symbol of triumph over their colonial oppressors.

“It’s very tribal,” Webster said.  “You’re given a team at a very early age and you stick with them through thick and thin.  And I think that’s really the appeal of it.  The passion, the history, the pageantry.”

The United States still struggles with embracing the game while countries around the globe view soccer almost as a religion.

Fans never lack for excitement on match day.  “It’s one of those times where you get a mile from the ground,” Webster said.   “And all of a sudden your hair on the back of your neck stands at attention because there is a real crackle in the air.”

Fields of Dreams

Many of Downtown Brooklyn’s immigrants flock to the various patches of grass scattered around the neighborhood in order to get their soccer fix in a more cardio-friendly manner – by playing the sport with friends.

“If you grow up anywhere else, it’s the sport you play,” said Karti Subramaian, 24, a Brooklynite of English-Indian descent.  “It’s the way people live.”

Inspired by a recent weekend’s docket of Spanish league matches at the Chip Shop, Subramaian and four of his friends took to Van Vorhees Park and did their best impression of Barcelona’s Thierry Henry and Real Madrid’s Raul Gonzalez.

Subramaian said that a real understanding of the beautiful game comes through on-field experience, something that he encouraged all Americans not familiar with soccer to try.

“Go out and kick a ball around,” Subramaian said.  “Watch people who are good.  It’s just beautiful to watch people with good touch and good skill and those who understand the game.   Because soccer is one of those sports that’s just so simple.”

The stained glass windows, pipe organ and varnished wood could be taken for any U.S. church, at any time. So could the cheery, sing-along hymns – at least until hundreds of voices rise up to praise the lord in Mandarin.

Tian Fu Church started in Sunset Park only five years ago, sharing space with a small Latino congregation in a church built a century ago for a Norwegian parish. Tian Fu’s founder, the Rev. Zhaodeng Peng, said his flock in New York City’s third Chinatown has grown to include more than a thousand believers .

Seeking Help

More than a quarter of Sunset Park’s foreign-born residents come from China. Many are young and arrive with limited English skills, destined for initial employment in one of the city’s many Chinese restaurants.

“New immigrants need help,” Peng said. “They need God in their lives. That’s how we’ve grown so fast.”

Peng studied theology in Shanghai before moving to a seminary in Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian Province. Most of Tian Fu’s members hail from that same mountainous corner in southeast China

Fujianese Influence

Fujian has more history with Christianity than most of China. According to the Rev. Gunshik Shim, who oversees Eastern Long Island for the national organization of the United Methodist Church, Protestant missionaries were finding converts in Fuzhou in the early 1850’s. “It’s very historical and meaningful for their descendants to come here and start their own congregation,” he said.

Ken Guest, a Baruch College anthropologist and the author of “God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community,” also suggests that some immigrants bring their religious beliefs with them in spite of the atheistic policies of China’s government.

“In Sunset Park, the Chinese immigrant population is primarily rural peasants,” he said. “Their religious practices haven’t been disturbed by the Chinese Communist Party. Especially the Fujianese.”

Like ‘Home’

After Sunday services, ShuYing Li oversees the distribution of steamed pork buns and fish ball soup with a weathered smile. She said her family were Christians in Fujian before emigrating in 1991. For her, Tian Fu is a social as well as a spiritual place.

“The church is like my home,” Li said. “I meet with other seniors, and we’ve become good friends.”

Not all of Tian Fu’s members were Christians when they arrived in Brooklyn. Evangelism is encouraged, and Peng awards certificates to members who bring in 12 or more converts, after the Twelve Disciples of biblical fame. Peng’s wife and co-pastor, the Rev. Qibi Shi, holds an introductory Bible study session after each service.

Youth Connection

Peng said young immigrants are drawn to the church’s social network.

“We are well connected, and many employers come to this church,” he said. “Even if they need a boyfriend or a girlfriend, we can help.”

The isolation experienced by new immigrants working long hours for small businesses can highlight the appeal of the spiritual and social comfort of the church.

“We are grateful to pastor Peng. Whenever I’m confused or unhappy, I call him for his suggestions,” said Meibing Liu, a housewife with two young children.

She said her husband persuaded her to join the church. “I found him totally changed after he became a Christian,” she said. “Before that, he was so unhappy. He always complained about life and worried about our kids’ future.”

Pressure to Convert

Not all of Sunset Park’s Chinese residents have joined the church. Lan Cheng is a high-school junior from a Buddhist family. He said friends and relatives have encouraged his parents to become Christian, but they declined.

“We still keep Buddhist traditions at home and go to temples sometimes,” said Cheng.

Tian Fu, which will become a dues-paying charter member of the United Methodist Church in June, will soon take over the church building, though Peng said the Latino congregation will remain as a tenant.

He said he baptized 106 converts in 2008, and more than 200 already this year.  And all the new recruits are encouraged to spread the good word among their family and friends.

“Many say, I can’t, I don’t understand the bible very well,” Peng said. “I tell them that’s why they should bring them to church.”