AMERICAN DREAM ON HOLD
This past June, the Guyanese community in New York came under the spotlight when law enforcement officials said that the terror plot to blow up JFK International Airport allegedly was devised by three men from Guyana. “I was taken aback,” says Dolly Hassan, a Guyanese immigration lawyer in Queens. Regardless of the local community’s reaction, the government was given a new country in a different region of the world to focus its attention on, raising questions about possible immigration issues for the Guyanese. Although it can be difficult to get papers to live in the U.S. legally, for countries in the Middle East known for producing terror cells the process is much longer or completely impossible. It remains to be seen if Guyana will become part of this list, but some are saying that applications are already meeting serious delays at the border. “There has certainly been more scrutiny on applicants from Guyana,” says Guyanese immigration attorney Albert Baldeo, citing deeper background checks into multiple generations of family history. Baldeo primarily works with clients from Guyana and has noticed “longer waiting periods for applications from Guyana” since the terror plot was discovered in June. Dawn DeSouza, a Guyanese national with family in the U.S. has noticed that obtaining even a tourist visa has become more problematic and those who have never had one “can’t even get one now,” she says. DeSouza was surprised when her family could not get tourist visas to come to the U.S. for a wedding in July. However, Dolly Hassan says that the immigration department has a “reputation for massive delays” and is “characterized by sloth,” but does not think this necessarily has to do with the JFK terror plot. Hassan believes the focus to be on the individual and their name, implying that the government is profiling Guyanese applicants with Muslim names. Profiling may be homeland security’s answer to the terror problem. “It has gotten tougher for Muslims, or people with Muslim names,” says Gary Girdhari, a non-Muslim member of Ozone Park’s Guyanese community and editor of the Guyana Journal a monthly newsmagazine. Girdhari cites a Guyanese Muslim he sponsored who has faced more rigorous questioning than he did. Despite the immigration department’s recent slow-down in processing Guyanese applications, Hassan is hopeful. She says the Guyanese community has not taken the terror plot very seriously and notes that the community is not very politically motivated. The Guyanese are one of the largest, yet still lesser known immigrant communities in New York City. Guyanese immigrants are the fourth largest group behind Chinese, Dominicans and Jamaicans in the city according to the NYC department of city planning’s 2000 census. South Richmond Hill’s Liberty Avenue in southern Queens boasts the most vibrant of Guyanese culture leaving many to call it “little Guyana.” Slews of markets stock traditional roti, curry and cassava sauce and Indian, Muslim and Caribbean music rings through the streets characterizing Guyana’s diverse people. As for those in Guyana with American dreams, Girdhari recalls a Guyanese saying significant during the country’s civil unrest in the 1960s, “the stricter the government, the wiser the people.” It was true in Guyana and it is true today in the U.S., immigrants will find a way to come to America.
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