bushwick

La Madrina*

Posted by Dana Rapoport

“I know it’s not easy,” she said and then paused. She raised her eyes from the podium and looked at the young girls across the room, searching for their eyes behind long slanted bangs.

“Trust me. I KNOW,“ and then Congresswomen Velazquez cleared the stage for Nydia.

“I know, because I was there too… I came from Puerto Rico to New York when I was 19 years-old.”

Nydia Velazquez talked about how different the big city is from the warm country she came from. How every day brings new challenges, and how solitary it feels to be in a foreign country, without your family by your side.

She spoke of her brother’s drug addiction, and how frustrated it was for her, not being able to help him from afar.

The room was silent. A mother of five was drying her teary red eyes behind the glasses. The mother and her young daughter, like Nydia and one of seven Latina adolescents, tried to commit suicide.

An hour earlier, I got off at the Flushing Avenue stop. A couple of blocks from the train, I found the old facility for the new center, where the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new “Life is Precious” program was about to begin.

Located only three train stops away from my Williamsburg station, I was in the same 12th District, but stepped into a completely different world. It was bare, poor and neglected. No one was brunching, but a man who peaked out of his trailer grabbed something from a nearby pile of bags. The streets were quiet, but inside the decorated building, excitement and anticipation buzz was getting louder by the minute.

The room was full with more than 60 Hispanic teenage girls, mothers and therapists. There was one father and two male photographers. All were waiting for Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez: La Madrina.

As the godmother entered the room, she went straight to the girls. Hopping over the pre-cut red ribbon with her stilettos, she was kissing the girls, talking, taking pictures, spreading cherry blossom magic around the captivated crowd of Latina women.

“Velázquez to Announce Federal Support for Local Health Program,” the Thursday press advisory said, but something greater happened there. It was the first time Velazquez publicly spoke of her private experience, possibly, a more precious gift then the $167,000 Federal funding cardboard check she brought.

My internal debate was over. I didn’t have to wonder how to weave her personal narrative into the sunny Saturday “photo-op” event in Brooklyn’s suicide prevention center – she laid it all out there – her journey, her story, her struggle.

Then she delivered a few passionate words in Spanish. I didn’t understand much, but she said something about “Republicano” that instigated some laughs from the audience, and Congresswoman Velazquez was back.

Still, those few minutes, when the 19-year-old Puerto Rican newcomer Nydia was talking, for the girls, and mothers, both were present. She was both the powerful woman with an elegant white and navy stripe suite -Washington big shot – first Puerto Rican woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and a Latina who tried to end her life.

Maybe it’s all part of the game. But even if so – for the teenage girls in this critical moment of their lives – their petite elected official who went through the same thing they’re going through, it was huge.

* Godmother, matron of honor, woman who launches ship.

Precious

Posted by Dana Rapoport

This could have been the week of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to back down from the KSM trials in Manhattan.

Or the week Congresswoman Velazquez was quoted again, criticizing Obama’s SBA Express plan, as “giveaways to big banks.”

But it was a week that the NYDailyNews reported on an issue that got very little attention. An issue that concerns a very large community in New York—and the largest community in Congressional District 12.

It’s about a new project but a very old epidemic and for some reason it’s under-reported and ignored in Congress.

Last month, a new center for suicide prevention for Latina teenagers opened in Bushwick. The program, ‘Life is Precious,’ started in the Bronx in 2008, and helps 41 Latina teenage girls and their families. According to research, Latina girls in New York are at the highest risk of attempting suicide.

A Bill co-sponsored by Velazquez in 2000, the `Latina Adolescent Suicide Prevention Act’ to promote awareness and allocate money for programs such as this. The bill was re-introduced in 2003, but never passed, according to Velazquez’s office.

A 2007 study, conducted by the ‘Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,’ found that one out of every seven Latina teens, or 14 percent, attempts suicide.

This number, although down in the last decade, is still higher than black non-Hispanic girls (9.9 percent) girls and is almost double the rate of white non-Hispanic girls (7.7percent). Nationally, Latina girls in New York City are at the highest risk in the country.

“When Nydia Velázquez heard about the program in the Bronx, she said: ‘I need this in my district too’,” the creator of the program, Dr. Rosa Gil said.

In Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, Velázquez’s Congressional District 12, there is a 67 percent Hispanic population majority.

Dr. Gil explained that poverty, low-wage jobs, inadequate housing and domestic violence all contribute to high rate of mental illness in Hispanic communities.

Last summer, the Congresswoman worked to secure $3.5 million from federal funding, to support local initiatives. Of this, $167,000 was dedicated for the opening of the “Life is Precious” program.

“I think her commitment to her constituents is real and she gets involved in many issues that affect their quality of life such as domestic violence, the suicide prevention center, immigration, etc,” said Albor Ruiz, the NYDailyNews reporter.

Although there’s a tremendous need for this program, ‘LIP’ is only open Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, supporting four girls and their families. “If I get more funding I can open every day,” said Gil. Also, they’re hoping at some point to receive more funding to open one in Queens.

Expanding the successful project to other neighborhoods, raise awareness and to help immigrants deal with cultural, social daily difficulties is obviously a priority. Furthermore, efforts should focus on the larger epidemic—the source of depression and distress.

This is one small business the congresswoman should keep promoting, in Washington, and in Congressional District 12.