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In Queens, where some 16 percent of the population lives at the poverty level—the percentage among South Asian youth is just over 22 percent, according to the Census. It’s within that segment where SAYA, a nonprofit organization that runs a number of leadership development programs for some 600 children and youth in the city’s South Asian community, concentrates its efforts. “The popular notion is that everyone in the South Asian community is successful economically, but that’s not necessarily the case,” says Udai Tambar, executive director of SAYA. “The South Asian community is still very young right now. We have an opportunity to prevent a permanent underclass from being created in this city, and that means engaging and empowering as many youths as possible.”

City Limits Magazine


July 2010:
A Troubled Age

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Curtis Stephen
Curtis Stephen
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Meanwhile, New York’s Haitian young have faced a peculiar dilemma: whether or not to claim their heritage or instead try to melt into the larger sea of black New York. Fela Pierre-Louis, a 25-year-old Haitian, well remembers being the source of derogatory verbal barbs as a city public school student. “People used to ask me if I had AIDS and told me that I stunk when I didn’t,” she says. “Nobody wanted to be Haitian.”

Pierre-Louis leads the youth development program at Dwa Fanm—which translates to women’s rights in Creole—a Brooklyn nonprofit group focused on human rights issues for Haitian women. In her work, Pierre-Louis is noticing that more teens are “owning up to being Haitian” compared with when she grew up.

On a late afternoon in May, near the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Clarendon Road in East Flatbush—the site of the annual Haitian Flag Day celebration—Dana Baptiste, 20, is fully absorbed by the action onstage. The neighborhood is the heart of the city’s Haitian community.

Performing the infectious rhythm called Rara Nap Danse (a Creole reference to Carnival) on the expansive stage is the 14-member Brooklyn-based percussion band Brother High. Baptiste, who migrated from Haiti to the city eight years ago, finds herself standing in a spot where she’s long wanted to be. “In Haiti, rara is street music, and religious people aren’t really into that,” she says before smiling. “I always wanted to come here, and [my parents] wouldn’t let me. But I’m an adult now.”

As she turns in the direction of her two female companions, Baptiste vigorously pumps her fist into the air. “Haitian girls rock,” she says. “Haitian girls rock.”