A copy of the constitution of the United States is in display at the lobby of Federal Plaza 26, which houses the U.S. CItizenship and Immigration Services. (Photo by Marina Lopes)

Hundreds of men and women in turbans, saris and business suits wait quietly in the New York District Office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, clutching identical white manila folders that contain their legal documents. Standing in a single file line that snakes around the lobby, Jose , an illegal immigrant facing deportation, is not alone.

His team of supporters includes two pastors, a lawyer and three volunteers, all part of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City, an organization calling for an end to the Department of Homeland Security’s involvement at Rikers Island.

Jose was arrested and held at Rikers pending an arraignment on his case. Although all criminal charges against him were dropped, he was transferred to federal custody, detained for a year and is now facing deportation. Jose’s hearing has been delayed until January. (To avoid identifying him, the Uptowner has agreed to change his name and omit details of his case.)

But future arrests of undocumented immigrants may bring less harsh consequences. In November, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a landmark law that will end collaboration between New York law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities in detaining illegal immigrants who, like Jose, have no criminal records. The law will take effect in March.

For 16 years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, has arranged with municipal, county and state law enforcement to help identify illegal immigrants, under a program known as Agreements of Cooperation in Communities,  or ACCESS.

The New York Police Department, for example,  has allowed the immigration agency to receive case information on detainees and to maintain a trailer at Rikers Island. Last year, 2,552 inmates were released from the city’s Department of Corrections directly into federal custody, according to the law.

Spearheaded by East Harlem Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, the law comes at a time when states like Arizona and Alabama have expanded their ability to enforce federal immigration law.  But Bradley Shaw, a Washington Heights immigration lawyer familiar with the law, said New York views immigrants differently.

“In New York City, immigrants are part of our daily life. We connect with them on a one to one basis,” he said. “That changes people’s hearts, because they realize why people are here. They are here to work, take care of their family.”

Although immigration laws are civil and not criminal, ACCESS is geared toward police departments because they often are the first to get custody of undocumented immigrants, said Shaw.

“If you get arrested at a traffic stop and they run a background check or ask for ID,  and you cannot show that you are a legal resident or have authorization to be here, you are detained,” said Shaw.

In the past decade, the federal government has requested that a police department inform Immigration and Customs Enforcement if an illegal immigrant is released on bail or if charges are dropped.  The agency requests that police detain the person for up to 48 hours. “ICE will then come and pick them up,” said Shaw.

The New Sanctuary Coalition started its campaign in August 2009, joining with Make The Road New York and the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights to inform the public about ACCESS and to call for an end to immigration authorities’ involvement in New York City jails.

“A lot of how this actually functions or doesn’t function is hidden,” said the Rev. Kaji Spellman, who accompanied Jose to his court hearing and co-chairs the New Sanctuary Coalition.  “When stuff isn’t visible, it can’t be challenged. Even our presence is a challenge.”

In addition to accompanying undocumented immigrants to court appearances, New Sanctuary mobilizes political and religious support to try to prevent deportation.

Mark-Viverito said that advocates from Open Road New York and the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law approached her with a legislative strategy to end deportation of immigrants with no criminal record.

“Many of us were not aware that there was a direct relationship between the Department of Homeland Security and our correctional facilities, and that there were actually federal agents based in Rikers Island,” she said.

Mark-Viverito met with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and held rallies and information sessions to promote the bill. “Considering that it was historic legislation, there was kind of a concern that maybe we didn’t have the authority to legislate,” Viverito said.  ”So there was a lot of back and forth in terms of tweaking the legislation.”

Once Quinn was on board, the next challenge was convincing Bloomberg to shift his position on the ACCESS program, said Mark-Viverito.

“The administration was indicating along the way that they were not supportive of the changes we were trying to enact,” she said. “We tried to encourage them to make administrative changes so that we wouldn’t have to legislate it. They were not open to that.”

According to Mark-Viverito, the Bloomberg administration felt no need to change the way the Criminal Detention Program operated.

“They weren’t convinced despite the fact that, according to the Department of Correction’s own data, it was clear that 50 to 55 percent of the people having these detainers dropped on them were people who had no criminal past and were for low offenses, misdemeanors,” she said.

After meeting with representatives of the Department of Homeland Security and the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections, the City Council had a second hearing.

“When we finally were able to draft legislation and show them that there was a way that we could fulfill what we were asking for and still keep people safe, they saw that they couldn’t fight it, I guess,” said Mark-Viverito of the Bloomberg administration.

“What do you do in situations where there is not a major criminal background to warrant holding this person? That’s what this law is trying to address,” Shaw said

The law prevents the Department of Corrections from holding individuals once charges are dropped and from notifying federal authorities of their release. It does not apply to illegal immigrants who are charged with crimes, have cases pending or are on a terrorist watch list.

While he praises the law, New Sanctuary organizer Ravi Ragbir said that the coalition’s work is far from over.

“It’s a first step, because the people impacted by this law are a small fraction of the ones who need help,” said Ragbir.

Mark-Viverito said the law acknowledges the economic contributions all immigrants make to the city.  Immigrants represent 43 percent of the city’s overall workforce and contribute 32 percent of the City’s revenue, according to the law. “The future of the city’s cultural and economic growth is at risk because of a current political climate that is focused on the deportation of immigrants,” the law states.

“My hope is that we can encourage other municipalities that have similar relationships to the ones that we do with the Department of Homeland Security to enact similar legislation,” said Mark-Viverito. “So that is the next step, that we can take this to other areas and maybe encourage people to think about it as well.”

Jacki C. cofounded the NYSYLC and established a mentorship program for immigrant teens. (Photo by Yumna Mohamed)

Adapting to life in the United States was not easy for Jacki C. She was 14 when she made the trip from Puebla, Mexico, with her sister and uncle to join her parents, who had immigrated to New York illegally a year earlier.

After attending high school in Washington Heights, she wanted to further her studies, but guidance counselors could offer little advice on applying to colleges without immigration papers.

“Undocumented high school students are often misinformed by their guidance counselors and teachers,” said Jacki, who asked that her full name be withheld. “They have no training in dealing with these kids´ challenges, so they tell them their only option is to forget about college, they should just get their GED and then get a job.”

That’s why Jacki introduced the mentorship program, a pilot project of the New York State Youth Leadership Council, to ensure that young illegal immigrants learn about their options to attend college in New York and that they get the help they need to take these chances. Jacki co-founded the New York State Youth Leadership Council in 2007 to push for equal access to higher education for undocumented immigrants.

About 765,000 students between 13 and 18 years old arrived in the United States illegally in their early teens, and 65,000 students without immigration status graduate from U.S. high schools every year, according to a 2007 study by the Migration Policy Institute.

The youth group´s program pairs high school students with illegal immigrant status with mentors who are also without papers and have been through the  challenges of applying to, and paying for, college.

“That’s what makes this program so unique,” said Jacki. “The mentors have been there and the students can see themselves reflected and can say, `If they did it while undocumented, I can do it, too.´”

In its first year, the program served a small group of eight mentors and nine students, seven of them now enrolled in colleges, some even with small scholarships. Students who showed the most need for support were chosen to participate. The first cycle started in January, when high school seniors were paired with their mentors.

Although New York State passed a 2002 law providing illegal immigrants access to in-state tuition rates, few students are aware of this, Jacki said. Even those who are often find themselves overwhelmed by the application process,  different than for students with legal status.

“There are residency forms and affidavits to complete and students who don´t know how to go about this are charged international fees, which are two or three times more,” she said. “Undocumented students don´t qualify for financial aid and when they can´t afford to pay these rates, they feel like college is beyond their dreams.”

Janeth, 18, one of the first students to go through the mentor program, arrived from Mexico at age 2 and has lived most of her life in East Harlem. Surprisingly, she was one of only two undocumented students in her high school, where she felt the teachers and principal didn´t have time for her. While Janeth´s friends were applying to Ivy League schools, she simply felt lost.

“There was no one who wanted to guide me,” she said. “It´s hard to meet people like yourself who have the same challenges, and you can´t go around telling people you are undocumented.”

Janeth´s mentor, Bernice, helped her learn more about scholarship options and campus life. Now in her first year at CUNY’s Bronx community college, Janeth wants to major in psychology and hopes to mentor other students someday.

“I know, especially in my community, kids don´t apply to college when they´re undocumented,” she said. “I would like to help them get a different perspective.”

In light of the growing debate around equal access to education, more universities are making it clear that they welcome students from all backgrounds.

“CUNY is open to all, and its services are available for students regardless of their immigration status,” said Sofia Carreño, spokeswoman for CUNY Citizenship Now, which offers immigration services to students and to the community.

She added that while undocumented students don’t qualify for state and federal financial aid, CUNY has some privately-financed scholarships for those who show outstanding academic performance.

After moving to the United States from Quito, Ecuador, at 7, Gabriel Aldana, 24, is finally on his way to getting a green card thanks to his U.S.-born brother, who turned 21 this year and can now sponsor his family´s citizenship applications. Unaware of the in-state tuition law, Gabriel got his finance degree from Baruch College because it was more affordable than paying out-of-state tuition at one of the colleges he preferred.  Only after he graduated and became involved in immigrant youth advocacy did he recognize his missed opportunity.

“I thought I was the only student in this situation,” said Gabriel,  a recruiter at the non-profit AIDS organization GMHC. “But then I connected with people who were in the same situation, pushing this image of what it means to be undocumented and the injustice of not having access to higher education.”

Marco, the student he mentors, has enrolled in college, but Gabriel maintains contact  and once a month takes him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, prompting Marco to take an art history course. They also work to expand their vocabularies by regularly texting each other new words and definitions.

The Department of Education does train high school guidance counselors to deal with students who are illegal immigrants,said spokesman Thomas Francis.

“Our goal is to have every counselor provide the guidance students need to move on to college and beyond,” he said. “We have an extensive training program available for counselors so they can be prepared, and we encourage them to work with individual students to address whatever questions they might have.”

Jacki hopes to expand the mentorship program to all five boroughs and to individual high schools. The group is also working to start “college clinics,” one-day events where mentors visit high schools and set up stations where students can  work on their college applications.

Through the mentoring program, the group wants to push for the state and federal passage of the  DREAM Act, a bill that was reintroduced in the Senate in March 2011 after being first introduced in 2001, which would give permanent residence status to illegal immigrants who attended college in the United States.

“With a DREAM team on campuses,” Jacki said,”we can teach undocumented students to drop the fear and stop being afraid of their status.”

El Hadji Seck sells Diabetes Solution (top-right shelf) from his shop on 116th Street. (Photo by Gabriel Stargardter)

In Le Petit Senegal, Harlem’s main African neighborhood stretching along West 116^th Street, a hybridized approach to health care prevails.

El Hadji Seck, a Senegalese shopkeeper, said he sells three or four rainbow-colored bottles of Diabetes Solution a week. The $25 concoction, a blend of Molinga leaf, aloe vera and oregano oil, isn’t approved by the Food and Drug Administration — or anyone. But Seck, a diagnosed diabetic since 1997, said he took it alongside his prescribed medication to alleviate pain. He extolled the solution’s effects, but added he hadn’t told his physician that he was taking it.

The modern African diaspora in New York began in the early 1980s; according to the non-profit African Services Community, one in 20 New Yorkers today is African-born. A 2009 American Community Survey estimated that 20,819 African-born immigrants lived in Manhattan, but experts believe the true number could be three times that.

Health groups and religious leaders report that Harlem’s pan-African community, a geographically and religiously diverse group, has grown increasingly competent at managing basic health care needs. But those same health groups say it’s still a battle to get Africans to eschew traditional medicines and take preventive steps, like HIV testing and diabetes checkups.

For many, like Seck, a fusion of Western drugs with traditional medicines represents an acceptable compromise. “For some illnesses you have to use our ancestors’ medicine, because sometimes modern medicine can’t cure it,” he said.

If forced to choose, Seck said he would stick to his prescriptions. But he knew of one diabetic customer who had stopped taking prescribed medication in favor of Diabetes Solution. “A lot of diabetic people in my country take leaves and roots, and they lowered their blood sugar, but then they died from something else,” he said. “That’s why I won’t leave my doctor’s medicine.”

Imam Suleimane Konate, who heads the Masjid Aqsa mosque on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, has for years led the charge for a more active approach to health care among his predominantly West African congregation. At the Medina Clinic on West 116^th Street, which he helped found, his image looms on a wall poster advocating HIV testing. Speaking outside the mosque after Sunday evening prayers, his message was equally direct.  “There used to be a fear, but no more,” Konate said.

The fears he spoke of are not uniquely African. For all immigrants, seeking medical assistance can be a daunting task. The undocumented fear deportation. Language barriers and financial anxieties discourage others. Konate acknowledged these issues – “the problem was immigration” – but said they’d been largely resolved. “Our people  have no problem,” he said. “The success is great.”

Such successes are often clear to see. The Senegalese Association in America, for instance, has forged strong ties with local health care providers. “If you go to Citi Care with the association’s membership card, the first visit is free,” said organization president Papa Drame. The organization hosts a walk-in clinic staffed by Harlem Hospital nurses at its 116^th Street office every few months. More than 90 people attended the last session in July.

In fact, health services abound for those in need, a message emphasized by all health organizations working with the African community. Four years ago, Aka Kakou, 44, a cabdriver from the Ivory Coast, underwent a hernia operation. He was treated and, after qualifying for cheaper care, was  presented with a bill so small he couldn’t remember the exact figure.

He wasn’t intimidated by the process, and while he thought newer immigrants might be, he insisted the road to understanding was short. “If you don’t know, then you get sick, and then you know,” he said.

Such successes can mask persistent problems, however. Immigrants may be unaware of their health options. The African Services Committee is located next to a taxi garage on West 127^th Street, for instance. But despite the prominent sign above its entrance, a colorful silhouette of the African continent, few of the West African taxi drivers assembled below seemed aware of its existence.

As the drivers waited to begin their night shifts, they traded misinformation. Costs constituted a major concern. With many sending money back to their home countries, they feared the impact of a hefty bill. “You go to the hospital and pray for the best,” said Aziz Lee, 40, from Senegal.

For two years, Charles Shorter, executive director of the Ryan/Adair community health center at 565 Manhattan Ave., has tried to combat community ignorance. His organization joined the African Services Committee to better serve the center’s growing number of African patients. Ryan/Adair worked with translators and local religious leaders to offer culturally sensitive care. Some African Muslim men, for example, were unwilling to let their wives be seen alone by a doctor. “It’s been quite slow, but we’ve been building trust and they can see that,” Shorter said.

Stephanie Kaplan from the African Services Committee pointed to a decline in HIV testing among Africans to illustrate the need for persistence. She had noticed a general distrust of doctors among some patients, particularly a resistance to preventive care and a continuing stigma of HIV. “There is a pervasive cultural myth that you don’t go to the doctor until you are ill,” she said.

While Papa Drame emphasized his organization’s efforts in creating health awareness, he looked quizzical when asked about preventive care, reinforcing Kaplan’s concerns. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Usually they go to the hospital when they feel ill.”

Ecuadoreans play volleyball next to the Hudson River. (Photo by Gabriel Stargardter)

A few feet from the shore of the Hudson River Greenway sit two concrete volleyball courts, constructed by upper Manhattan Ecuadoreans. While anglers cast, individuals and small families, most immigrants from the Andean towns of Alausi and La Moya, gather on summer evenings to play Ecuador’s national sport.

With salsa bellowing from parked cars and the rumble of Henry Hudson Parkway, the courts may not provide the quietest haven for this small, largely undocumented group to play their Ecuadorean variation of the game, but it’s one of the few places they have.

Construction worker Jorge Ortiz, 46, brings the balls for the volleyball games and sometimes organizes collections for Ecuadoreans in need. After 19 years in New York, he still lacks official documentation and hopes he and his wife Olga, 42, can become legal permanent residents when their 3-year-old daughter  turns 21.

“Of all the people here,” he says in Spanish, pointing to the assembled players and families, “not one of them has papers. This is a real impediment to getting any form of political representation.”

According to the 2010 census, 14,132 Ecuadoreans live in Manhattan, mainly in Harlem and Washington Heights. They constitute the city’s smallest Ecuadorian community – 98,512 live in Queens and 23,206 in Brooklyn – and  its most neglected. Unlike Ecuadorians in Queens, they lack political clout.

Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez represents District 10, the 85 percent Latino community where many Manhattan Ecuadoreans live. Of Dominican descent, Rodriguez has co-sponsored a bill allowing those with permanent residency to vote in local elections.

But Mark Krikorian, who directs the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, doubts the situation will change any time soon, despite calls from a coalition of academics, immigration activists and local political leaders. “Illegal immigrants aren’t supposed to have any political representation in a country where they’re not supposed to be residing,” he says. “Even the New York Times, of all places, is against voting for non-citizens.”

Assemblyman Francisco Moya of Queens, the only elected official of Ecuadorean descent in the United States, blames the community’s recent arrival for the lack of political representation. Unlike more established Latino groups, Ecuadoreans only started arriving in the last 20 years. Nonetheless, Moya says, many Ecuadoreans from other boroughs wanted to vote for him when he ran in Corona and Jackson Heights last year. “We had to tell them, ‘Sorry, you’re not in the district.’”

Beside the volleyball courts, Karina Soto, 18, sits with a group of mothers and young children watching the men play. “I would love to vote,” she says in Spanish, the only language heard around the court. “I would love to choose my representatives. I feel lesser, isolated.” She is optimistic, though, and hopes a reform to current immigration law will help her gain citizenship.

Not all members of the community share her passion for politics. Apathy appears rife among the men. “I don’t know anything about politics,” says Hector Ciguenzia, 36, who arrived in New York in 1991  and now sits awaiting the next game. Jhonny Yunda, 30, agrees: “I’m not very into politics.”

Both say they feel estranged from the predominantly Quito-based immigrants in Queens, even though they attend the annual Ecuadorean parade there. “There’s no one who organizes cultural events here. I would love to go if there was one,” says Ciguenzia.

Problems persist for these less visible Ecuadoreans. “A lot of abuse takes place among undocumented workers,” notes Moya, who says he works closely with the New York Immigration Coalition and the Consulate General of Ecuador to improve life for illegal immigrants.

At another informal meeting point for many of upper Manhattan’s Ecuadoreans, the Ecuatoriana restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue, Raul Santian, 37, sits watching a televised game of Mexican soccer. He says he is still paying off the $13,000 he paid to be smuggled into the country five years ago.

To make things worse, he just lost his job as a chef downtown after falling ill for four days. He laments the lack of community support for local Ecuadoreans. “My friend gave me the number for a group in Queens, but I haven’t called it yet,” he says. He doesn’t even know the group’s name.

None of the city’s three major community groups — Alianza Ecuatoriana Internacional, Juventud Ecuatoriana and the Comite Civico, all Queens-based — undertake projects in Manhattan. Walter Sinche, founder of the Alianza, which promotes immigrant rights, community health and cultural preservation, blames native geographical divisions for the dearth of local leaders. Upper Manhattan’s Ecuadoreans tend to come  from El Austro, a five-province Andean region. “The people from El Austro have no culture of civic participation,” Sinche claims.

Uptown, however, “if there is a community support group,” Soto says, “we don’t know about it.” The women seated around her nod. All crave help with child care. “Lots of us have children, but we all work, so looking after them is difficult,” adds Miriam Gahui, 30. Computing and English classes also top their wish lists; of the six women assembled, only Gauhi’s 6-year-old daughter, Emily, speaks English.

Thoughts turn to the fall, end of their outdoor season. “In winter we all meet in a school gym to play volleyball,” says Adriana Troya, a 15-year New York resident, still without documentation. “We sometimes go to the Ecuadorean restaurant, but they don’t really offer anything for the community. They just benefit from it.”

Lying in bed at his West 141th Street apartment, he writhed in agony. Pain shot through his left leg; blood soaked through the bandages wrapped around his thigh and oozed down his calf. Images of his family – his father, brother, wife and infant son, refugees in Mali, raced through his mind. If he should die, he thought, who would take care of them?

Three days earlier, on Aug. 23, Ndiaye, a Mauritian refugee who arrived in Harlem in September 2006, tackled an armed robber at DD Fashion Store in the Bronx. The assailant fled without the goods, but left Ndiaye with three bullet holes and some modest media fanfare.

Now recovering, visiting a physical therapist and taking ESL classes, he’s about to learn his future. Last Wednesday, Ndiaye, 22,  appeared before a judge for a master calendar immigration hearing to prove he has legal representation, the first step in the arbitration of his refugee status. Ndiaye will reappear in court in April.

Ndiaye has been nervous about this process for months. If his refugee claim is eventually denied, he’ll be deported. Brian I. Kaplan, Ndiaye’s lawyer, declined to comment on case specifics.

On the afternoon of the attempted robbery, however, Ndiaye had little doubt of the outcome. “I was going to win,” he said. “I had to.”

The harrowing fight – captured on a store surveillance tape – erupted after a customer pulled a gun as Ndiaye was ringing up his purchases. Handing the customer a bag of clothing, Ndiaye noticed the gun in the man’s shaking right hand. In a flurry, Ndiaye jumped to his right; the man, startled, fired the gun, and Ndiaye leaped on his back, grabbing his wrists and trying to wrestle the gun from his hand. After crashing into a display case, Ndiaye managed to pin the assailant to the ground – but two shots pierced the inside of Ndiaye’s left thigh. In a final fit of strength, he ripped the gun out of the man’s hand, and took a third shot to his thigh. The shooter escaped as Ndiaye lay face down on the floor, his pants wet with blood.

His actions were primal. Aside from childhood horseplay he had never been in a fight. “I was scared,” Ndiaye said. “I was just trying to protect myself.” The next 18 hours were a blur. Bystanders outside the store rushed in and called an ambulance. They doused water over his shaved head; Ndiaye, a Muslim, was observing the Ramadan daily fast and wouldn’t consume even a sip. He was taken to Lincoln Hospital where he refused to call his family, not wanting to worry them.

The ensuing news coverage painted Ndiaye as a hero, a title he has yet to grow comfortable with. “If they call me a hero, I accept it,” he said. “But I thank God, the police, the people at the hospital; I thank everybody.” Ndiaye, who had lost his job at a Queens Dunkin’ Donuts when it closed, was only filling in at the Bronx store for his vacationing cousin.

“I feel so bad,” said his cousin, back from vacation and standing next to a quadruple-screen security monitor. He declined to give his name because the robber was still at large. “I should have been here.”

Despite the tumult Ndiaye has experienced in recent months, it doesn’t compare to his bleak and precarious former life in Mauritania, an existence marred by enslavement.

Ndiaye was born into a nomadic tribe historically oppressed by Mauritania’s “white Moor” ruling class, the Bedan. Although recent anti-slavery legislation in Mauritania attempted to eradicate such subjugation, it mostly amounted to a public relations move, said Bakary Tandia, a Mauritanian case manager and policy advocate at the African Services Committee in Harlem. Tandia estimated 40 to 45 percent of the nation’s population consists of enslaved or formerly enslaved people, commonly identified as Harateens, literally meaning “freed slaves.”

Mauritania has been rocked by political strife in recent years, including military coups in 2005 and 2008. Despite efforts to stabilize the government, said Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves, an international human rights organization, “human rights are still being suppressed.”

A woman holds a baby while sitting next to the grave of a child at the cemetery in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico October 31, 2009. Mexicans pay homage to their dead relatives by preparing meals and decorating the graves on the first two days of November. The Day of the Dead festival has its origins in a pre-Hispanic Aztec belief that the dead return to Earth one day each year to visit their loved ones. REUTERS/Claudia Dau

By Sam Petulla and Rebecca Huval

Amid a large papier-mâché skull, fresh flowers and a burning veladora candle, a Michael Jackson puppet sticks up, frozen in a timeless, glowing toe-stand.

Hundreds have passed by this scene to celebrate the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday where friends and family memorialize the recently deceased, praying, talking, singing, or dancing for their souls, trying to speak to them.

The Day of the Dead — or El Día de los Muertos — is said to date to the B.C. years and is usually celebrated Nov. 1 and 2, coinciding with the Roman Catholic observances of All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls’ Day (Nov.2). Anyone is allowed to fill the altar with objects — known as offrendas — with offerings, where they become part of the ceremony.

The tradition’s origins might lie thousands of miles south, but uptown many people participate in the ceremonies.

“There’s not a dead person without my remembrance,” said Lydia Cobos, 55, fashioning paper into the shape of a flower for an altar setup at the Union Settlement Organization in East Harlem.

Alfredo Flores, 39, went to El Museo Del Barrio to celebrate and watch a dance performance. “My wife’s Dominican so I’m the only Mexican in the house,” Flores said. “I don’t have residency, so I can’t travel. I brought them here. We were talking about the tradition to remember what’s it’s like.”
Many, despite coming out and trying to celebrate, said New York City can never be home to a true Day of the Dead festival — the cultural divide is too vast.

“It’s the environment in New York that swallows us with work, and we lose some traditions,” said Jose Luis Marino, 38, who attended El Museo Del Barrio’s celebration. “We don’t have the time or family here.”

Magdalena Victoria, 28, who lives in Washington Heights, agreed. “We’re losing that tradition to time,” Victoria said. “There’s not time here in New York with my factory job.”

And although she made it to El Museo Del Barrio to celebrate, Victoria expressed disappointment with how the tradition has changed. “Now, we talk on the phone, with my mom and brothers, to remember the dead. We say things like, ‘My grandfather used to really enjoy the countryside,’” she said, adding, “We celebrate Halloween more now, with my two kids.”

Elena Guevara, 32, celebrated at the Union Settlement Organization, but was nostalgic for Mexico’s ceremonies. “Mom goes to Mexico and puts up the ofrenda for the grandmother. I miss helping my mom prepare the altar and buying yellow flowers at the market to prepare,” she said.

For others, who in Mexico would have made an altar at home and celebrated privately, the practical matters of city life have changed things, leading them to celebrate however they can.

“My apartment’s made of wood, “ said Marino. “So it would catch on fire if I used candles. I celebrate in my way and meditate for me, and see the dead ones in my sleep.”

Some have given up celebrating altogether.

“It’s not the same quality as celebrating it in my mother country,” said Albert Roberto, who watched the Union Settlement celebration from a distance. “It doesn’t feel the same. There, they have parties, and camp out in the churches all night. Here, they don’t.”

But despite the cultural divide, others have pieced together a new ceremony out of the old traditions and what is customary in any American town or city — pumpkin buckets of candy and Halloween.

“We celebrate everything the way we would in Mexico, “ said Luz Aguirre, an administrative assistant at Mano a Mano, an organization that promotes Mexican culture. “We have our own altar, though it’s a little different. My kids is crazy about Halloween. Right now, she’s dressed up as a fairy running around like crazy. But I know to be mindful of that while introducing her to Day of the Dead and keep doing it. I just add the American element. Sometimes we can’t find the graveyard of our people, so we’re celebrating at places like this and work around what you don’t have. “

“When you come here and don’t have it, you recreate it,” Aguirre said. “It’s my culture. You can’t leave it behind.”