The immigrant experience

Sullivan’s new arrivals face challenges

By Angie Hund | Manor Ink

Sullivan County, NY – Immigration is one of the most integral parts of our functioning and culturally diverse society. From the country’s inception, migration was necessary to the creation of modern-day America, and continues so today. Locally, migration to Sullivan County occurs for various reasons, including politics, fleeing violence and hardships, climate issues, family and interpersonal relationships, and jobs. In some parts of the world, the resources for survival aren’t guaranteed, and sustaining oneself can be untenable, so migration can be a matter of life and death.

Here in Sullivan County, residents have seen an influx of people from across the world in recent years. Immigrants have increasingly become part of community life, opening businesses and restaurants, working in a variety of jobs and contributing culturally. In particular, Sullivan County school districts have seen a growth in immigrant student attendance and have undertaken an expansion of educational services to accommodate them.

According to the NY State Department of Education, Fallsburg Central School District’s student population is predominantly Hispanic and Latino, with over 350 English Language Learner or ELL students. Liberty CSD follows, with more than 30 percent of its students being bilingual, and 207 students in ELL classes. Next is Monticello CSD with 178 ELLs, and then Tri-Valley CSD with 18.

Coming to a new country

Moving from a place of familiarity to the United States without any knowledge of the English language can be discouraging and difficult for many immigrants. In early March, Manor Ink spoke with Sandra Cuellar Oxford, a political and community organizer who focuses on facilitating resources for immigrants, healthcare workers and other groups in need. Language, she said, can be a real challenge.

“Often, the younger the arrival, the easier it is for that person to acquire the language and be able to do the cognitive work in the dominant English language,” Oxford said. “People are usually picking up the basic interpersonal stuff in their early years.”

County residents who have noticed the recent increase in Sullivan’s immigrant population often wonder where the migrants come from, and Oxford offered some insight. “Sure, migration is heavily from Central America, South America and Mexico,” she said. “But you also see Dominican people here, Haitian Creole being spoken, some French last names, and the Caribbean being represented. There’s also a big wave of Venezuelans, a long journey for Hondurans and Salvadorians who have certainly had their legacy of arrivals.” Migration from Eastern European countries like Ukraine, Poland, and Albania, has also been popularized in the region, she said.

But because climate change is another substantial reason for migration to northern states like New York and temperate places like Sullivan County, Oxford predicts that the next wave of migrants will come from American cities, places like Phoenix and Las Vegas, where people can no longer survive severe summer temperatures.

Student immigrants’ experience

The Ink also attended a meeting of a student organization, the Youth Economic Group, in Fallsburg to hear their stories and gain a deeper understanding of migration. During the meeting, members of the group shared their experiences and fears regarding coming to the US. The Ink agreed not to use their names out of concern for their privacy.

One member courageously shared her parent’s story. “A hard thing for me, at least, was when my dad got his residency, I was still a kid,” she said. “And he needed people to write recommendation letters for him explaining why he should be allowed to stay in the country.” Through this lengthy process, the student recalled being taken into an interrogation room and being questioned about her father’s residency. “They put my sibling and me into interview rooms, and this lady just came up to me when I was like 8 or 9, and asked, ‘What would you do if your parents were taken away?’ From then on, I was scared.”

Another student had a similar story regarding her father’s residency. He had received a deportation order, and had to present himself in court. “There is that terrifying fact that your parents can be taken,” this student said. “My dad went into court knowing that he either got his residency or he was going to be taken. And he still went into that courtroom to see if he was able to get his residency or not for us. We were the only thing that he had, the reason he had to stay here was because he had us.” Though he had no assets, he had his school-aged children to provide for, and they were the central reason he was given legal residency after fighting for it for nearly 20 years.

Bullying a serious issue

According to the National Institutes of Health, about 95 percent of youth born outside of the US experience discrimination and bullying. This means immigrants and their children will endure some sort of xenophobia or racism after arriving here. Often students in predominantly white schools discriminate against minority students, and even in diverse schools intolerance can occur.

A few of the students in the Youth Economic Group shared first-hand experiences witnessing and enduring discrimination because of their identity. “At this one soccer game, players from the other team were saying ‘Go back to your country!’” one member said. “I was so flabbergasted. And they just continued to say that for the rest of our game.”

“Last year, a student paraded around school with a MAGA hat and Trump flag even though political stuff isn’t allowed on campus, and told Hispanic people to go back to where they came from,” said another student.

One of the issues central to the upcoming presidential election is immigration and the policies surrounding it. Since 2016, immigration has increasingly become a divisive issue in American politics, sparking fear, xenophobia and racism across the country. But research by Stanford University shows, since the 1960s, immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than US-born people. In addition, a 2019 study by the CATO Institute revealed that undocumented immigrants were about 37 percent less likely to be convicted of a crime.

Immigration’s positive and negative aspects

As immigrants bring their cultural traditions, foods and stories into the larger community, residents are inevitably exposed to more diversity through migration. Starting in places of employment, immigrants contribute to the welfare of the county and provide needed skills for many jobs. In professions such as healthcare, food preparation, agriculture, construction and maintenance, immigrants predominate.

Oxford explained that food production in the US depends largely on immigrant labor. Unfortunately, corporations often exploit undocumented immigrant workers and take advantage of their vulnerable status. Members of the Youth Economic Group also raised the exploitation of immigrant workers. They said some employers will hire an exclusively undocumented workforce, overwork them, commit wage theft and provide workers with unsanitary and inhumane housing conditions.

“I used to work at this bakery, and the work situation was so bad,” said one student. “Workers would have to pull 12-hour shifts, and they had no AC. So, if you can imagine, with the summer heat and the ovens, they’d be working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. And a lot of them would get paid in cash because they didn’t have their papers. At times, the employers would wait weeks and months to pay them, and the workers would stay because it was their only source of income.”

Group mentor Adrienne Jensen, former director of the county’s Human Rights Commission, discussed the unfortunate conditions migrants frequently encounter upon coming to the county. “Every year, people get brought in van loads to Sullivan County and live in sheds,” she said. “They don’t have any water or septic, so they can’t take a shower, do laundry or anything like that. They’re told that they’re coming to this idyllic countryside, where they could live in these beautiful bungalows, have work and make a good wage. But the reality is very different.”

The bottom line? The US is a country of immigrants. With the exception of Native Americans, everyone at one time or another, whether voluntarily or otherwise, came here from somewhere else. In the end, it is immigration that has made the country what it is today.