World Cup fever is beginning to hit New York\u2019s immigrant communities where wariness of the Trump administration\u2019s deportation crackdown has weighed on foot traffic.<\/p>\n
In Brooklyn\u2019s \u201cLittle Haiti,\u201d street blocks once busy with merchants were quiet earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Mahalia Desrosiers, a project manager for the civic group Little Haiti BK,\u00a0has seen some businesses shut down even though the neighborhood has not actually been raided by immigration agents.<\/p>\n
But she is becoming more confident the community will rediscover its joie de vivre as Haiti\u2019s first World Cup appearance in more than 50 years quickly approaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the World Cup will give people a sense of life, of hope, energy,\u201d Desrosiers told AFP. \u201cHaitians will put their flag on everything. We will paint this town red and blue.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials have been canvassing immigrant neighborhoods ahead of the first games on June 11 to publicize FIFA-related opportunities.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s tourism agency is preparing a FIFA calendar of events so\u00a0visitors can experience matches in neighborhoods with the most passion at stake. They also plan to post short videos promoting watch parties to social media.<\/p>\n
Another program, the Five Borough Winners Special, will supply eating and drinking establishments with complementary drinking cups celebrating the soccer extravaganza.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith FIFA it\u2019s an opportunity to maybe reach a new market, reach a new group of people that may not have visited your business before,\u201d said Jacques Brunvil, a senior liaison executive with the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS).<\/p>\n
There are five dishwasher-friendly commemorative cups, one for each New York City borough. The city is hoping tourists will collect all five and post the bounty online.<\/p>\n
The set consists of \u201ctaxi yellow for the Bronx, coffee cup blue for Brooklyn, ferry orange for Manhattan, thank you red for Queens and Liberty green for Staten Island,\u201d said an NYC Tourism spokesperson.<\/p>\n
As of May 20, about 600 businesses had signed up for the program.<\/p>\n
Brunvil envisions the boroughs as the backdrop to a kind of roving sports festival celebrating New York\u2019s diversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think that depending on the game, we\u2019ll see groups of people migrating to different parts of the city, whether it be Little Haiti to watch the Haiti game or an area like Little Senegal to watch that game,\u201d Brunvil said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople will move so that they can feel the vibrancy with the fans of that different country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Cheaper than going \u2013<\/p>\n
Immigrant communities in New York have felt under siege since Trump returned to the White House and launched his mass deportation drive.<\/p>\n
City officials have described the toll anecdotally but say they lack the tools to quantify the economic impact.<\/p>\n
At a City Council hearing this month, SBS Chief of Staff Haris Khan said his agency doesn\u2019t collect sales data from individual businesses or employ software to monitor foot traffic.<\/p>\n
SBS does track real estate indicators, but \u201cjust because occupancy rates are healthy, doesn\u2019t really mean we\u2019re in a great place for our immigrant communities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Khan told the hearing his agency saw the World Cup as an opportunity, but he was \u201ccertain it won\u2019t completely alleviate a year and a half worth of pain for some of these businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Golden Blue Bar & Restaurant, business has been uneven, with the Little Haiti venue\u2019s initial opening in 2020 hit by the pandemic before the more recent worries about immigration raids.<\/p>\n
But Amantha Chery, who helps manage the restaurant owned by her parents, expressed confidence the community will come out to celebrate. Tickets for Haiti\u2019s first match against Scotland on June 13 are currently more than $600 on Stubhub.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the (ticket) prices, it\u2019s better for us,\u201d Chery said.<\/p>\n
The restaurant, known for its \u201cMini Golden Delight\u201d plantains and empanadas, has two televisions in the main dining room, plus a garden room that can house a wide screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a struggle with how Haiti has been represented in the press \u2026 with how \u2018Haiti\u2019s so dangerous\u2019 and all that stuff,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there\u2019s so much resilience and beauty in our culture with our people. I\u2019m just happy that we\u2019re finally in the press for something amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World Cup fever is beginning to hit New York\u2019s immigrant communities where wariness of the Trump administration\u2019s deportation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4883,94814,9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-242551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-international","tag-mna","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}