}
Three African-born men and a daughter of African immigrants are vying to represent the Bronx on the City Council, as the borough’s burgeoning West African community tries to gain a political foothold.
Upon meeting Shadi Batal, it is hard not to be impressed. Only 25 years old, Batal has been running his hair salon on 3rd Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn for five years. He is happily married and drives a shiny BMW around the streets of his vibrant Arab-American neighborhood. His life is almost storybook in its personification of immigrant success in the U.S.
But as a native of Syria, Batal’s life is much more complicated than it appears.
Dimitris Velitsianos couldn’t find work in his Greek homeland, so he left to seek a better life in Queens.
“I don’t think things are going to get better in Greece soon,” said Velitsianos, 20, a full-time student at John Jay College and a part-time waiter at Agnanti. “I don’t see any future in Greece.”
Four decades ago, a political coup brought thousands of Greeks to Astoria. Now, a failing economy that’s more than $400 billion in debt is fueling a recent wave of immigration.
http://vimeo.com/58483473
The difference between “noisy” and “nosey” offered a learning opportunity for the students gathered one recent Saturday at the Sunnyside branch of the Queens Library.
“This group is noisy,” said instructor Lorna Blancaflor, who smiled as she gestured to a few talkative women sitting in the corner of the library’s meeting room.
Pointing to her nose as she pronounced “nosey,” Blancaflor defined the word for the class.
“So, are your neighbors nosey or noisy?” she asked.
