VTMBH Article: Body
I was able to survive, thanks to my mother and my church, but many people dont have mothers, churches or anyone to turn to for help, said Dominican Severina Evangelista as she addressed the crowd in front of the Human Resources Administrations (HRA) offices while struggling to cover her son from the freezing winds that gusted through Lower Manhattan yesterday.
Evangelista was not there to receive benefits, rather as part of a group of over 100 demonstrators whose shouts accused Mayor Bloomberg of being racist, unlawful, and untrustworthy.
The demonstration was organized by the group Mothers on the Move (MOM), which is accusing the Bloomberg administration of failing to honor a year-old legal settlement reached under Ramírez vs. Giuliani that granted immigrants seeking food stamps the right to translation services. These people are being discriminated against; their needs are not a priority to the Mayor, who worries more about the new building for the Board of Education than providing basic services to immigrants and their children, said Michael Friedman, co-director of MOM.
MOM brought the case of Ramírez vs. Giuliani against the city a year ago with the support of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund and New York Legal Assistance.
In a written declaration of their demands, protesters accused the city of failing to meet the Oct. 1 deadline to provide translations of notices pertaining to food stamps and bilingual caseworkers to more than one third of food stamp recipients. According to the declaration, 77 percent of the citys welfare centers did not provide adequate bilingual information to Latino immigrants and 65 percent failed to post informational material in the centers about the availability of free interpretation services. Due to the lack of these services, many recipients benefits have been cut off.
The Mayor is discriminating against the 24 percent of New Yorkers who dont speak English, said Yorelis Vidal, one of the protests organizers.
They close our cases because we dont understand; its very difficult to live like that, added Evangelista, who has become active in MOM over this issue.
Evangelista was not there to receive benefits, rather as part of a group of over 100 demonstrators whose shouts accused Mayor Bloomberg of being racist, unlawful, and untrustworthy.
The demonstration was organized by the group Mothers on the Move (MOM), which is accusing the Bloomberg administration of failing to honor a year-old legal settlement reached under Ramírez vs. Giuliani that granted immigrants seeking food stamps the right to translation services. These people are being discriminated against; their needs are not a priority to the Mayor, who worries more about the new building for the Board of Education than providing basic services to immigrants and their children, said Michael Friedman, co-director of MOM.
MOM brought the case of Ramírez vs. Giuliani against the city a year ago with the support of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund and New York Legal Assistance.
In a written declaration of their demands, protesters accused the city of failing to meet the Oct. 1 deadline to provide translations of notices pertaining to food stamps and bilingual caseworkers to more than one third of food stamp recipients. According to the declaration, 77 percent of the citys welfare centers did not provide adequate bilingual information to Latino immigrants and 65 percent failed to post informational material in the centers about the availability of free interpretation services. Due to the lack of these services, many recipients benefits have been cut off.
The Mayor is discriminating against the 24 percent of New Yorkers who dont speak English, said Yorelis Vidal, one of the protests organizers.
They close our cases because we dont understand; its very difficult to live like that, added Evangelista, who has become active in MOM over this issue.