The Spanish-language translation of a letter to voters, sent out by the Westchester County Board of Elections, has a certain error: the wrong date for the general election. County officials say they’re planning a round of bilingual, automated calls tomorrow to clarify the date.

The letter notifies voters about the availability at the polls of ballot marking devices, the new voting machines that will accommodate those with special needs. The English version notes the correct date for the general election, Nov.4, but the attached Spanish version puts the date at Nov. 9.

The Board of Elections failed to catch the error, Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz said. The phone calls are meant to clear up any confusion that might result, he said, adding that he doubted anyone was unaware that Tuesday’s the day.

“If you don’t know Election Day is Nov. 4, I think you’ve been sleeping for quite some time,” he said. The county will call voters in Cortlandt, Mamaroneck, Mount Kisco, Peekskill and Scarsdale, and additional areas if the need arises.

This comes as Westchester remains under a consent decree meant to ensure Spanish-language assistance at the polls and in written material.

The Westchester Hispanic Coalition contacted the Board of Elections today after hearing of the mistake.

“We’re happy that they’re moving quickly, and that they’ve admitted the mistake immediately,” said supervising attorney Patrick Young. “But we do hope that in the future they will give the same scrutiny to what’s put out in Spanish as to what’s put out in English.”

As new citizens, immigrants tend to be idealistic about American democracy, he said. “It’s extremely important that we not give them any reason to think that our democracy is
anything other that completely honest and above-board,” he said.

We’ve got some new data on how many people registered to vote this year in Westchester County, and Hispanic enrollment appears to be surging.

Hispanics are about 8 percent of the voter rolls in Westchester, but they account for 14 percent of registrations this year, says Tim Henderson of our Journal News data desk. (He’s making estimates based on Hispanic surnames — not an official tally, but a common means of estimating the number.)

Latinos account for about 18 percent the the overall Westchester population, so their share of the voter rolls still lags, relative to others.

In Port Chester, about 24 percent of registered voters are Hispanic. But Hispanics appear to account for 40 percent of new registrations, more than 300 out of 755.

Similar trend in Carmel, Putnam County: Latinos account for 7 percent of enrolled voters, but 13 percent of the newly enrolled.

And the Hispanics are trending Democratic. The big picture: More than 8,000 Hispanics have registered to vote this year in the Lower Hudson Valley, and that will bolster the Democrats’ edge in Tuesday’s election. Hispanics registered Democratic at a 4 to 1 rate in Westchester and Rockland counties, and 2-1 in Putnam. The estimates are based on an analysis of Hispanic names on the voter rolls in October.

Neita Allen is celebrating her 100th birthday today at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers. Reporter Len Maniace has a story in today’s Journal News about the good cheer, and also the dilemma, that this Jamaican woman has brought to the hospital staff.

Allen came to Yonkers a few years ago to be with her son, since deceased. She is undocumented, with no insurance and apparently nowhere to go. She’s been hospitalized since a fall in December.

While the health care professionals discuss the policy issue at hand, Allen shares with Len a memory from her youth in Green Island, Jamaica.

A big sister take me on her back and take me out in the deep and she would say, ‘Hold on.’ I would hold on and she would take me all the way out until I couldn’t see, and the land was like a pin.

The full story is posted below.

(Photos: Seth Harrison/The Journal News )

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The documentary “The Golden Venture: A Journey into America’s Immigration Nightmare” is being screened this Sunday in Nyack by the Rockland Family Shelter and other organizations. It follows up on the survivors from the freighter that ran aground off Queens in June 1993, with 286 smuggled Chinese immigrants aboard. The film’s web site has a nice collection of written material about the incident, the media frenzy and the pertinent immigration issues.

The director, Peter Cohn, and editor, Thavi Phrasavath, will take questions after the 4:30 p.m. screening at the Nyack Center. Co-sponsors are the Rockland Immigration Coalition, the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Nyack Center, Asian Women Allied in Kinship and Equality, and the Rivertown Film Society. A donation of $6 is requested.

Below is a 2006 Journal News article about the film. Let us know if you’ve seen the movie and what you thought.

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In the Spanish-language bookstore Librería Ficciones, in Port Chester, one book is displayed quite prominently: “La Audacia de la Esperanza,” by Barack Obama. The front door is covered with a “Westchester for Obama” sign.

Paula Farrier, above, runs the store and edits the Port Chester paper América Latina, a publication of Westmore News. Normally the paper wouldn’t make an endorsement, she said, but she decided that this year would be different. An editorial in América Latina says Obama has the potential to end the nation’s conflict over race, religion and culture, while John McCain has backed away from progressive positions because of his party’s conservative base. The NYC-based El Diario newspaper also endorsed Obama.

The other day a Chilean customer was perusing the Spanish version of Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope.” Her eye went straight to its subtitle: “Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.”

Bianca Jagger lives in Manhattan with a U.S. tourist visa. Apparently that caught up to her in the midst of a legal dispute over whether she is entitled to keep her rent-stabilized, $4,600 a month, Park Avenue apartment.

The upshot, reports AP: Her tourist status conflicts with the “primary residence” requirement for rent stabilization. Jagger, a Nicaragua native and a British citizen, didn’t submit evidence to resolve that conflict, according to the judges. As a result the court did not venture into another question, The New York Law Journal reports: whether someone living illegally in the United States could prove that they have primary residence in New York for rent regulation purposes.

I recently visited some of the new tenants now living at 50 Main Street in  Brewster. The senior apartment building, which is run by state Sen. Vincent Leibell’s nonprofit housing agency, is seen as a way to spur revitalization in the village. But naysayers have long argued that Brewster will never have a rebirth unless the day laborer population in that area is obsolete.

Over the weekend, I visited Port Chester where Peruvian restaurants line the main stretch and uber chef Mario Batali recently opened his new restaurant, The Tarry Lodge. I work in Mount Kisco where trendy restaurants and bar/lounges open constantly while Guatemalan men still stand around the train depot looking for work. What this tells me is that coexistence is possible, that you can mix the average with the glitzy or the citizen with the non-citizen. Perhaps that’s why New York City is considered the best city in the world.

I wonder why Brewster is slow to grasp that concept. After talking with some of the new Main Street arrivals, I learned that to those who reside right there in the heart of downtown, the day laborers are not a burden to them and that they don’t bother anybody. I don’t know about you, but I’m inclined to believe those who live there rather than those who occasionally drive by or pontificate from afar.
Read more about 50 Main St., tomorrow on lohud.com and The Journal News.

Earlier this month I met Yuri Vargas, a 25-year-old student at Westchester Community College. She’s an immigrant from Costa Rica who won’t be a citizen in time to vote this November. Still, her level of civic engagement puts the average citizen to shame.

Yuri (that’s her above) has been to debate parties, made donations, read up on the issues, and called other Latino students to urge them to vote. She’s written stories about the election for the college newspaper, The Viking News, and found in her reporting that international students were often better informed about the election than other students.

“I think that democracy is based on the voices of the people, and it’s a government by the people, for the people,” she says. “Even if I’m not a citizen, I am living here. I have been living here legally for four years. I pay my taxes, I come to school. … I certainly understand why I can’t vote, but at the same time I do feel voiceless, because I do feel part of this country, and it is my home.

“I still have my voice and my actions. I guess that is my little contribution and that doesn’t make me feel so frustrated.”

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There’s a community of Italian immigrants, all from the town of Andretta, living here in Harrison, Westchester County, New York, I learned last week. They went to the Columbus Day parade in Manhattan, but not just to wave the flag. I caught up with them on Fifth Avenue.

Their club, Comunita Andrettese, is fighting plans for a huge landfill in their hometown. They held a protest rally in the hope of getting attention from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

There’s something very Westchester about fighting a landfill, but this effort had an international, not-in-my-old-country twist.

The group is worried that project would contaminate water used for drinking and for irrigating the Puglia region of Italy. It’s part of a larger story about the garbage crisis in Naples. To immigrants here — those I spoke to worked in construction, plumbing, engineering and management — the plan would ruin the peaceful agricultural area they  return to annually to visit relatives.

You can click here for a blog on the topic or visit this online forum. Both will allow you to practice your Italian — the word of the day being “discarica,” or landfill.

 

When immigrants take the oath of citizenship in White Plains, they waste no time registering to vote. The Westchester County Board of Elections usually registers 50 to 60 people after these ceremonies, held about twice a month in the jury room at the county courthouse. On Wednesday, 103 new citizens registered to vote. Not only that, but some volunteered to work at the polls Nov. 4.

The registration deadline to vote in the November election was Oct. 10, but immigrants who were naturalized after that date have until Oct. 24.

Here are Olga Rivera and Bill Clark, bilingual inspectors for the Board of Elections, counting up registration forms:

Both were impressed by the level of interest in voting this year. Clark said it reminded him of 1992, when Bill Clinton was running. For me, it was fascinating to speak to brand-new Americans about how they felt about the elections. Everyone has a story, and they can view American politics through the lens of experience in their countries of origin. I’m writing a story about that for the weekend.

Czech-born Patricie Drake (in top photo, at right) said she was becoming a voter just in time for a critical presidential election. “It seems like this one matters so much,” she said.