Immigrant resource guide

The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at St. John’s University has released “The Immigrant Experience in New York City: A Resource Guide” in order to serve a large population of the community.
Noticing the large amount of immigrants who reside in New York City despite the lack of resources for them, CLACS director Dr. Alina Camacho-Gingerich led an effort to combat this problem. A grant proposal called “Helping the Community Help Themselves” was put together. CLACS received funding from New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development, the Verizon Foundation and Councilmember Hiram Monserrate.
First, CLACS hired three ESL instructors to teach three different levels of English classes to the community. They then created a series of workshops to address issues such as education, psychological adjustments and immigration laws.
“We decided that after all of our research and all of our work we wanted to share that information even more with a larger population and that’s how this book was born,” said Camacho-Gingerich, who was the editor of the resource guide. She continued, “It’s really one of a kind in the City of New York.”
Chapters in the book were written by Clover Hall, Ed.D., Frank Biafora, Ph.D., Rafael A. Javier, Ph.D., Janice D. Villiers, J.D., Shondel Nero, Ed.D., Grace Ibnez-Friedman, Ed.D., Jared Littman, MPA, Adrian Sandoval, MA and Daniel Porcella, BS.
The resource guide’s chapters look at statistics regarding immigrants in the city, problems that they face, psychological issues, immigration law, higher education, and grant writing, among others.
“Because we’re a Vincentian university, our concern is always to help the underprivileged, the poor and especially the new immigrant families that need so much help,” Camacho-Gingerich said. “With that Vincentian mission in mind we decided to pool all of our experience together to help our communities.”
“The Immigrant Experience in New York City: A Resource Guide” will be sent to community organizations, schools, churches, institutions of higher learning and libraries.
Camacho-Gingerich said that she hopes this resource guide will be the first in a series that CLACS publishes. Pending getting more funding, she said they want to have more workshops and ESL classes in 2008.
For information on the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at St. John’s University, the resource guide or upcoming programs, e-mail clacs@stjohns.edu or call 718-990-5829.