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Elections call attention to ethnic shift

Nekita Lamour

The following appeared on 11-25-05 in the Malden Observer.

This year's municipal elections be it in Boston or home in Malden were closely watched. Maura Hennigan and Thomas Menino's intense campaigning will be long remembered. Menino won the longest mayoral tenure in the history of Boston.

However, Sam Yoon's and Felix Arroyo's elections to the Boston City Council at large seats provoked a certain amount of bewilderment from long-time political observers.

The minority faces, which are the majority in Boston, are beginning to be represented in Boston's political sphere. Sam Yoon being the first Asian American to be elected in a political seat in Massachusetts signals a change of new directions for the growing Asian population which has tended to project an image of leaning more toward education and self employment than politics.

The reelection of Hispanic Councilor-at-large Felix Arroyo also demonstrated the minority/majority population will go out to vote if motivated. Some of the credit for this political gain should go to a conference at University of Massachusetts at Boston that occurred two years ago which gathered Latinos, Asians, blacks and progressive whites to form the New Majority Coalition.

Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association had kept the group active. Lowe has been very instrumental in bringing national attention to voting rights irregularities pertaining to non English speakers in Boston. How do these victories and the ethnic populations' participation apply in Metro North, particularly in Malden? As an "ethnic" voter from the region, I have observed the lack of candidates' signs on lawns with significant ethnic populations, especially in wards 7 and part of 5. I also noticed the limited presence of ethnic groups in fundraising events and visibilities.

These personal observations are ample examples of the ethnic community's sparse involvement in civic and political matters in many North Shore towns.

In a country as democratic as the United States, voting and participation are the only ways to get better education, improve one's life, live in better neighborhoods and therefore be more productive and contributive members of society.

Thinking locally, Malden's ethnic population needs better services. The streets in many ethnic neighborhoods are not as cleaned as the others. For instance, in some streets, where many Haitian homeowners live, the Traffic Department doesn't always tag cars that are parked during street cleaning days which cause the streets to remain always dirty.

In addition to poorly maintained streets, Malden school personnel don't reflect either the ethnic background of its unprecedented demographic shift which means the minority/majority students have no role models to look up to during their K-12 school years.

Moreover, there is hardly any structured, supervised recreational activities, and/or centers for ethnic adolescents or young adults. As a result, many of them attend house parties, go to night clubs in neighboring towns, hang unsupervised in the streets - which are unhealthy settings, that may lead to drug use, illicit, sexual relations and behaviors, and sometimes the premature death of young people.

For society's sake, this lack of civic involvement needs to change in many ethnic communities. The world does not want to see more footage similar to New Orleans during the Katrina deluge or unrest resembling to those that
France's marginalized neighborhoods had experienced in the past weeks.

For a systemic paradigm shift to occur, concerned ethnic community stakeholders would need to work with city officials and take responsibilities of their youth and their communities. For instance, from a historical glance, 19th century and early 20th churches, especially the Catholic church played a vital role in helping the immigrants of that period assimilate in the Anglo-Protestant culture by providing environments and schools to keep their particular European Catholic cultures.

The kinds of blatant ethnic violence that the Irish immigrants have known such as the burning of their voting places or their religious establishments (Charlestown's Ursuline convent) or the civil rights destruction of the 1960s are less likely to happen today. It is more than ever encouraged and important to participate in local and national civic affairs of this country.

In regards to Haitians, from Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, the pioneer settler of Chicago (circa 1773), to Haitian soldiers who helped fight the British in the battle of Savannah, Geo. in 1779, Haitians are in their third century in the United States. Also, world renowned naturalist John James Audubon was born out of wedlock in Haiti in 1785. Jean Rabine by birth, Audubon moved to France with his father in 1788 and to Pennsylvania in 1803 and became a U.S. citizen in 1812.

On another historical note, the onset of Haitian slave revolts around 1789 prompted French masters to flee with their slaves to Louisiana and Baltimore. Free mulattos and manumitted blacks of all ages also came to New Orleans from Haiti during the 18th and 19th centuries. Mother Marie Elizabeth Lange, whose beatification is being searched for ministering to Haitian Catholic slaves when they arrived in Baltimore in 1793, is a major evidence that there had been a significant movement between Haiti and the United States since the 18th century.

Mr. Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes is another important historical figure of Haitian descent. His father, Jeremiah Desdunes was born in Haiti. Mr. Desdunes was an active member of the Comite des Citoyens, an instrumental citizen committee that orchestrated Homer Adolphe Plessy's disobedience in the first class train compartment reserved for whites that led to the 1896 Supreme Court decision "separate but equal" segregation law, known as "Plessy vs. Ferguson." The one-eighth black that Plessy is known for could be Haitian since Plessy's grandfather Germain Plessy lived in Haiti.

Thus after close to three centuries, Haitians need to be more vocal and active. I also would like to see the growing number of immigrants from African countries join the political and civic sphere. US/Western-educated Haitians are to be more vocal and active in Haitian radios, TVs or the churches, the medium that the population listen and depend on more often for news and directions.

Haitians and other communities need to provide and create opportunities for their young to volunteer or do internships in community organizations or schools with large ethnic population.

Finally, for the growing number of Haitians to be civically engaged and politically vocal, in addition to public media, I truly believe clergy and pastoral agents need to lead the recent immigrants in being informed, active and contributive members in their new land by exposing them to newspapers, books, the Internet, and the written world.

Like Moses or Jesus or the 19th century immigrant clergy, today's ecclesiastical authorities and other stakeholders in some of the aforementioned milieus need to be leaders of their time in their adoptive country and in local communities.

Nekita Lamour is an educator in the field of ESL/Bilingual/Multicultural Education. She holds a Jesuit theological degree. Ms. Lamour studied Asian history and culture at the University of Hawaii and had traveled to Japan, Korea, and Okinawa.

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