Thread: Influx of Mexicans Injects New Life in Bronx Neighborhood

Influx of Mexicans Injects New Life in Bronx Neighborhood

By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: July 7, 2010

In 1986, when he was 14, Ramiro Cariño slipped across the Mexican border and made his way to New York. He moved in with an older sister on 187th Street in Belmont, the neighborhood known as the Little Italy of the Bronx.

Mr. Cariño was not quite sure where he had landed: the main language on the street was Italian, that nation’s flag adorned storefronts and homes, and Italian restaurants and shops selling pasta, bread and cheese were everywhere.

Today, the accents of Spanish predominate. Mexicans have become a mainstay, toiling in the shops along Arthur Avenue and filling the apartments around the neighborhood’s edge. And in just the last few years, some have opened their own businesses, from restaurants to shops selling clothing, DVDs, Mexican Western wear and soccer equipment.
Mr. Cariño, who survived his early years in the neighborhood by scavenging bottles and, at times, food from garbage cans, started his own enterprise last fall: El Sureño, a small food store and Mexican restaurant.
As the ranks of Mexicans in New York have exploded in recent decades, their impact on neighborhoods where they have settled in the largest numbers has been well documented, like East Harlem, Mott Haven in the South Bronx and Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
But Belmont offers a glimpse of how Mexicans are gaining a foothold in other parts of the city that are less clearly labeled and where their numbers are far smaller. Slowly and quietly, the neighborhood’s Mexican population appears to have reached the cusp of a breakthrough, injecting new life into the area, placing demands on its services and challenging the old ways.
Still, it remains unclear whether that budding prosperity will translate into real political and economic power — a question with big implications for a city in which Mexicans are now the fastest-growing major immigrant group.
Mr. Cariño is hedging his bets. With three children in public school, he has not given up his day job cooking at a deli elsewhere in the Bronx. He works there from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., then returns to his restaurant and cooks until 10 p.m.
“I don’t yet feel like a success yet, but I want to triumph,â€

In 1986, when he was 14, Ramiro Cariño slipped across the Mexican border and made his way to New York

Another puff piece about the former illegal aliens. I note that the year that Carino entered was the year that we had the last massive amnesty, the country was supposed to be cracking down on illegal immigration. Instead there was massive fraud and ten times as many as predicted were authorized. I wonder whether this man like too many assisted bringing in more illegals or is one of the few who invested in productive assets were they were from.

Any community that has a few extra Mexicans should send them to N.Y.C.

The way this is written, one would believe that the "new life" in the neighborhood is an improvement.

Somehow, after seeing the result of the massive influx in our once beautiful suburban neighborhoods that now resemble the barrios, I am unconvinced.