{"id":10891,"date":"2023-08-12T20:29:13","date_gmt":"2023-08-13T00:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=10891"},"modified":"2023-08-17T23:31:46","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T03:31:46","slug":"bring-us-your-huddled-masseswe-got-something-for-em","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/08\/bring-us-your-huddled-masseswe-got-something-for-em\/","title":{"rendered":"Bring us your huddled masses\u2026we got something for \u2018em"},"content":{"rendered":"

Give me your tired, your poor<\/p>\n

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free<\/p>\n

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore<\/p>\n

-Emma Lazarus, 1883; from the base of the Statue of Liberty<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

O<\/span>ccupying one of the highest elevations in Brooklyn, the park that gives the neighborhood its name looks out over New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty. And each summer since it was built in 1936, the pool and recreation center in Sunset Park has been a hub of activity for the ever-evolving diversity of the city\u2019s working class. Now the Works Progress Administration facility is one of nearly two hundred sites that the City of New York is using to provide emergency housing to an influx of asylum seekers. Despite its location, its history, and its beauty, it is currently the site of an ugly struggle.<\/p>\n

Most of these migrants having been shipped across the country, dehumanized pawns in a concerted reactionary anti-immigrant offensive led by southern governors. And they have arrived, unfortunately, to meet more of the same racism albeit from a different source.<\/p>\n

\"Protesters
Photo by Aaron Amaral.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Politicians from Brooklyn\u2019s large and long-standing Chinese community are using the arrival of the asylum seekers to whip up a hysteria. Coming from both parties and aligned community groups\u2014themselves often representing first- generation (Chinese) immigrants\u2014the politicians have organized a series of anti-migrant protests. Standing under the banner of multiple U.S. flags and carrying signs\u2014mirroring the crime hysteria fed by the mayor (Eric Adams), the New York Post, and the NYPD\u2014a couple hundred came out last weekend to protest the migrants\u2019 arrivals.<\/p>\n

The broader response from the Sunset Park community reflects both significant support for the asylum seekers but also the real weaknesses of the immigrant rights movement and the Left. At present, the immediate response has been limited to community charity groups and mutual aid efforts. Untouched are the major questions, including the causes of unprecedented global migrancy, why this is understood as a \u201cborder\u201d crisis, and how to respond to the 100 thousand refugees shipped to the City, which is now spending $4 billion a year to provide inadequate support. These are questions that, for now, are being evaded and erased by this depressing backlash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aaron Amaral<\/strong> reports on one of the latest of two hundred sites in New York City where newly arriving asylum seekers are being temporarily warehoused, and the contradictory community response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[474,243,159],"class_list":["post-10891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-anti-immigrant-backlash","tag-immigrant-rights","tag-immigration"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/social_crisis_report_feature_card.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}