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The WTC's Aftermath and its Affect on Latinos

by Carol Amoruso, Hispanic Village Feature Writer

New York City marked the passing of 6 months following the World Trade Center cataclysm by announcing the closing of Manhattan's two disaster relief centers and the cut-off of financial assistance to workers affected by the blasts. The announcement was met with a demonstration and dissenting press conference called by community activists and a void that is proving difficult to fill.

Going back to the days immediately succeeding the terrorists' blasts, we find a New York Times article of the 12th September poignantly chronicling the searches, by family and loved ones, for people gone missing in the carnage: a husband and wife who worked at mega-insurance firm, Marsh and McLennan, an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, a trader on the New York Stock Exchange, a vice-president at Chase, a uniformed firefighter. Similar images of search and reward or search and despair were drawn in human interest stories nation and world wide. Except for those interspersed stories of uniformed service people whose heroics stole some of our tears, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, CNN, for the most part portrayed the victims as successful corporate climbers who left behind a neat home in Jersey or Westchester, or lower Manhattan, an intact nuclear family, and an SUV. Toppled by the falling towers were those at the top.

The corporate media's editorial choices were backed up by the Justice Department which, in mounting its case against accused conspirator, Zacarias Moussaoui, chose to allow "relatives of people who worked at financial companies in the World Trade Center" to testify first. (The Houston Chronicle, 25th March, 2002)

Human girders

Left for the 8, 16, or 24 page community tabloids are other heart-rending stories, those of the uncounted number of people who, just as tragically, fell, jumped, crumbled and were catapulted to their death that day. Of the nearly 3,000 individuals whose death or disappearance have been reported, it is conservatively estimated by the City that over one quarter were immigrants. Another, unattributable figure boosts that figure to 1200. Many of them never had the luxury of living as a nuclear family, they may have been sharing one room with 5 other immigrants in East Harlem or Bushwick, and had nothing but a MetroCard (electronic multi-trip passes on the City's transportation system) for getting around.

The under-eulogized were the men and women who formed the World Trade Center's infrastructure, human girders that held up the towers, invisible behind the steel, glass, concrete and cables of Morgan Stanley or Cantor Fitzgerald. They were the maintenance crews, food service workers, messengers and delivery men, small shop owners and their staff, hotel employees from across the plaza. And, of these, at least a quarter were Latinos, with Puerto Ricans excluded from that number due to their U.S. citizenship. (Estimated figures breaking down the number of dead along ethnic lines have not yet been tabulated.)

The New York Immigrant Coalition recently announced statistics culled by the Fiscal Policy Institute that show that over half the 75,000 survivors dislocated by the tragedy were immigrants, tending to support the higher figure of deaths at 1200. The Institute is currently attempting to ascertain how many of these, certain to be a large percentage, are undocumented, with no papers, no lease, no family, few friends or friends lost, and no benefits.

Sobering is the fact that many of the dead will remain uncounted, the undocumented whose families and loved ones fear coming forward, or, thousands of miles away, in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, beyond, have no information with which to begin to search. Those who survived or whose families have come forward, will now have a harder, if not impossible time, receiving financial aid.

Asociacion Tepeyac

The Latino activist community sprung quickly into action after the disaster. Asociacion Tepeyac was the first to come to Latinos' aid. As if by providence, they are located in lower Manhattan just on the far side of the zone where all traffic and services were shut down. Their offices were deluged, within hours of the blasts, by survivors fleeing Ground Zero. With 32 staff members, about a third of them volunteers, but no available funds at that point, they set to work to try to find survivors, securing photos, descriptions, scouring the hospitals for the missing, injured, surviving, and fielding the hundreds of calls that came in—again providentially, theirs were amongst the few phone lines in lower Manhattan still functioning—from overwhelmed loved ones in Mexico and beyond.

An organization that has, in a few short years, become a powerful voice for worker and immigrant rights, representing mostly Mexicans, Tepeyac continues to advocate for the disaster's dislocated and missing and for their families here and throughout the Latin world. Esperanza Chacon, Asociacion Tepeyac's Director of Urgent Services, says that the most needy now are the families of the undocumented and the undocumented workers themselves. "They are not eligible for unemployment benefits. Not food stamps, not for housing, not for nothing," she notes ruefully.

While most of those affected have remained here—some lack the funds to return home, others fear confronting the unremitting poverty they left, others are optimistic that an upswinging economy will provide them with work again--on occasion, they have even had to see a victim home. Ms. Chacon tells of a worker living here alone, who wasn't at the site of the blasts, but in whom severe trauma and paranoid delusions were triggered. "He believed everybody was standing behind him, trying to kill him, and he began to look for ghosts everywhere. This is one of the cases where we knew that he belongs with his family." Staff at the Asociacion were able to find his family in Mexico and return him safely home.

PRLDEF

Upon the opening of the two main assistance centers immediately following the attacks, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund came on the scene to appraise the situation. They found great confusion as well as a great need for translators, for advocates on behalf of the overwhelming number of immigrants, Hispanic and other, and the need for sensitivity training.

Carmen Calderon, PRLDEF's Head of Intake saw well-meaning volunteers, working for relief organizations such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army, people who came from many parts of the country, who may have been, nevertheless, culturally insensitive and thus daunting to the already fearful. "Very nice people," she said, "but some of them were not culturally sensitive. It was a learning process. They didn't understand why people living in the United States didn't speak English, or how you couldn't have a Social Security card."

PRLDEF quickly established Project Ayuda (Help) and have since trained over three hundred volunteers in Spanish, Chinese, Kreyol and other languages as translators and case managers. Their legal department has been vigorous as well in handling individual and class cases relating to entitlements.

Other support organizations

Other Latino organizations involved include the Alianza Dominicana, a multi-service center which works primarily with Dominicans. As if Alianza's resources hadn't been stretched to the breaking point with World Trade Center losses, just two months later Flight 587, bound for Santo Domingo, crashed, killing everyone aboard, nearly all of them Dominicans forcing Alianza to step back somewhat from WTC efforts and quell the chaos surrounding 500 grieving families. And finally, a fourth organization, the Latino Workers Project, which organizes Latinos against unfair working conditions, has recently come on board, giving Latinos a very vocal slice of the advocacy pie.

The hard cash is gone from the major sources of financial assistance, but not to worry says Jeanine Moss, Special Counsel for Communications of the September 11th Fund, which disbursed assistance from the major donors. "Entitlements for displaced workers only were cut off on March 11. Only for cash, not for the other services," she volunteered and continued, "We need to move on to other forms of assistance. We need to be training people to get back to work. Skills training, language training."

But Carmen Calderon is not so sanguine. "Usually the ones that receive this training don't qualify for any government benefits," she said, "and that's why they're being pushed in the direction of this bilingual education and skills training. Because there are no jobs available, or there's limited jobs available. They're not offering people jobs, and that's what they need. That's what's going to pay the rent. And put food on the table and help support the families." She concluded macabrely, "A lot of people are going to fall between the cracks."

Not giving up

The activist groups have not shut their doors. They continue to advocate for the victims—Asociacion Tepeyac has a current caseload of 60 WTC families—and are committed to accept new cases, whether the need be financial or for other services: for the documented who have had their benefits cut off, for those just now being let go of their jobs, their employers having failed to keep afloat, and for those whose dwindling resources have run out.

The Latino organizations are currently working behind the scenes with other advocacy groups spearheading an effort to engage the smaller- funded charities to provide financial assistance and services to those left stranded by the March 11th cut-offs and to convince the major funders to come up with an equitable transition plan. They promise to soon go public with specific objectives and organizations on board. September 11th has proved that organized Latinos are a serious voice for action in this city.