Dispatch from a Crisis: A Breath of Fresh Air in Tompkins Square Park

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Kim Sillen
December 13, 2024

I started this article a week before Election Day. I’d been thinking about how to write a column after perhaps the most consequential race America has seen, knowing that the possible winner was likely to undermine many of the causes I hold dear, and for which I volunteer.

Immigration, a central topic in the election, is my focus— particularly how we can help ameliorate the crisis locally. Despite differing views on asylum and how it’s granted or denied, I’d like to think that most people reading this prefer that others don’t suffer. While we can’t control policy, we can craft our response to the presence of asylum-seekers within our own communities.

The work of Lillian Wald, the leading advocate of immigrants’ rights at the turn of the century ( named by the New York Times as one of the “12 Greatest Living Women” in 1922), greatly inspired me in graduate school. Not coincidental to my interest in Wald, her historic home and the Henry Street Settlement she founded remain a stone’s throw away from my own Manhattan residence. While researching her speeches in the New York Public Library’s microfilm archives, I came across a discourse from 1907 that inspired me to write an academic paper: The Utilization of the Immigrant.

Although the title sounds flinchingly mercenary to today’s ears, Wald’s thesis was that the “armies” of people entering America brought immense social, economic and cultural benefits to our nation. Not a starry-eyed dreamer, Wald spearheaded many governmental accomplishments on local, state and national fronts. In 1905 she conceived of a Federal Children’s Bureau to end child labor and promote children’s health, an idea that became a reality in 1912. (Wald declined the request to head the department, continuing to run Henry Street instead.)

While all of Wald’s speech enthralled me—especially her hand-written notes scrawled in the margins some 110 years before—there was one passage that particularly captured my imagination:

The legislative machinery of this country should march with the spirit of the times and will if the people so demand.

When I wrote the paper in 2018, I believed in the possibility of what the people might “so demand.”  But the spirit of the times feels different now; the legislative machinery of the incoming federal government is certainly not going to whir in favor of the asylum-seeker. But this does not mean that we, as citizens, cannot help make their situation as humane as possible.

A little more than a year ago, I became aware of hundreds of asylum-seekers in New York City’s Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, close to St. Brigid’s church. St. Brigid’s had become a principal “reticketing center,” where immigrants went to find shelter after reaching the 30-day limit wherever they had previously been. For someone who does not live in New York, this might sound like the makings of a calamity, of lawlessness.  It was not.

From what I could see from the get-go, the asylum seekers (predominantly a mix of French- and Spanish-speakers) were respectful, polite and eager to work. They were hungry, and their despair hung over me. One weekend I set out to make as many egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches as I could. Even with an eye on cost and time-efficiency, my assembly line production only yielded 25 sandwiches.

When I stumbled upon Tompkins Distro, an ad-hoc mutual aid group in the park, I had to get involved. Whereas the City didn’t seem to be providing for these people, a friendly, organized group of mostly very young adults was dishing out hundreds of hot meals, sandwiches and snacks from tables set up right there on the sidewalk, in an orderly fashion to an impossibly long line of new immigrants. They also distributed toiletries by the hundreds nearby. I inquired about what agency or organization had sponsored the event.

I was shocked to learn there was no funding, only individuals and restaurants pitching in. I witnessed this happening—and growing— every Saturday for over a year, with Tompkins Distro joining forces with East Village Neighbors Who Care  and EV Loves NYC.

Now with access to another local church’s commercial kitchen and community room, this coalition also provides hot lunches weekdays at their Cafewal cafeteria. They run English classes and wrangle up volunteers who speak most of the immigrants’ languages, while also ensuring that they have warm coats and necessities. What moves me greatly is that our new neighbors are part of a supportive community, integrated into our corner of the city. I believe we are better for it, and for the volunteers establishing new community amongst each other.

If this resembles the kind of country you’d like to live in, please consider supporting the East Village effort by contributing to EV Loves NYC or East Village Neighbors Who Care. Alternatively, see if there’s a mutual aid group in your own community, or even start one. 

Although my hope in the legislative machinery of this country has diminished, I hold onto the conviction that this rhythm of compassion might reverberate through the earth we stand on and resonate into the future.

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Author: Kim Sillen is the Deputy Director of Creative Service at NYC DOT. She cofounded The Largest Generation (now See Gen Z Vote), a youth voter advocacy internship for college students in 2020, which created digital campaigns and infographics for colleges and organizations across the U.S. that were looking to reach potential Gen Z voters. More recently, she partnered with Lift Every Vote, which utilized her research on preregistration. [email protected]

 

 

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