Transcript of A Sunday in the Park

I'm Ayesha Rosco, and you're listening to the Sunday story from Up First.

You know that morning city park smell? It's like the smell of dewy earth and fresh-cut grass and evaporating beer from the night before. I love that smell.

Earlier this year, NPR's immigration reporter, Jasmine Garst, and producer, Xavier Lopez, spent a day in one of their favorite places in the world, a park in Queens, New York. It's called Flushing Meadows Park.

It's my park. It's a couple of blocks away from where I grew up in Queens.

I also live in Queens.

Queens has been called the most diverse urban place on the planet. Almost half of its population is made up of immigrants from over 120 countries. And Flushing Meadows Park is a microcosm of immigrant life.

This is a place where immigrants from all over the world come to get some fresh air and to relax and to really just have fun.

It's also for Xavier and Jasmine, like their backyard, where they can go anytime they need to recharge and remember what really matters, to be in community. For me, that place is actually a house, two doors down from my house. It's the home of my dear friend and neighbor, Ms. Veneta. I've lived in my neighborhood for 15 years now. All my kids were born here, and we have gotten to know our neighbors very well between birthday parties and christenings and helping each other when we get stuck in the snow and just keeping an eye on each other's kids and dogs. Yeah, that's Teddy, who's always in the window of my other next door neighbor. And Ms. Veneta, she's like the heartbeat of this neighborhood for me. Her place is surrounded by this nice little porch, and inside it's always dimly lit. She got some outlets she got to work on. But it's a second home for my kids. If If they want to show her something or just say, Hey, they'll run down the pavement between our front door and hers. If they lose a tooth, she'll have some money for them. Inside her place, the news is always on, and she's always got a snack in the kitchen, maybe some pumpkin seeds for Annalice or some toast for Gabrielle, or hot dogs for Reggie.

And if I ever need somebody, And boy, have I needed somebody at times, she's been there. Her home has been our safe space. And it's because of that, it's so hard to imagine living anywhere else. But I do plan on starting a fresh chapter soon. We're planning on moving in the new year. But wherever I go, I know I don't ever want to be too far from Ms. Vanetta, so we can stop by and visit. On today's episode of the Sunday Story, In the spirit of places that feel like home, we're going to play you a part of an episode that originally ran on NPR's Cold Switch podcast. It's a portrait of a community, a small slice of everyday life for the people who call Queens Home. And while you listen, maybe go take take a walk to one of your places and stay until the end because I have a little request for you as we go into the new year. An invitation to send in a audio postcard from a place that you call your own. All that after the break. All this year, NPR traveled the country, hearing from voters not just about the issues, but about their hopes for the country's future.

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Okay, so first of all, Queens has the best food in all of New York, and this park is excellent in terms of food. I'd say better than any park in New York.

Yeah, I think that's probably an accurate assessment. I feel like that's just Queens, generally. There's just a lot of great food here. And I feel like partially it's because there's a lot of immigrants here. Nearly half of the people in Queens are immigrants from more than 120 countries. And you can see some of that represented here at the park. I see a lot of Latinos and Asian folks who make the park their community, and people of all ages, older folks that come here to feed the animals, and the young people that come here to just hang out. They're throughout the apart, having barbecues with families or picnics with their friends.

Also, there's a huge Ecuadorian community here, and it's growing.

Yeah, there's a lot of Ecuadorian immigrants here, like me. I came here back in 2002. Back then, there was already a small Ecuadorian population here. But in the last couple of years, New York has seen one of the biggest Ecuadorian populations in the US, and it's mostly here in Queens. Right now, we're at the Ecuadorian Festival. This is a festival that happens every year or so in August around Ecuadorian Independence Day.

There's two guys selling ice cream here. Hola. Hola. They're cousins.

No, todavía no. El.

Luis is short. He's very handsome. He has a baby face, dimples, and some stub. He's young, but I noticed there's some grays in there, too.

Luis's cousin is tall. He wears glasses and his hair's sparkling in a way that makes you feel like he's It's all there, too.. Luis is shy, but his cousin is such a hype man. And they have this dynamic. Think Richie and me in the bear vibes, but it's about selling helados at the Ecuadorian Festival.

El Ozo.

Exactly. Cousin, primo. His primo keeps pushing Luis to talk to us while pointing an helado at him the entire time..

Primo says, You should do it, man. Do the interview. Don't be so shy. And Luis starts telling us his history.

About how the situation in Ecuador, it's gotten pretty violent. Yeah.

I mean, cartel violence has driven a lot of the recent immigration out of Ecuador, and it's impacted almost every Ecuadorian I've met here in New York.

My family included.

So Luis told us he did what so many people do in order to come to the US. He hired a coyote, which is like a guide that brings you up through Central America and Mexico to the US border, and he paid this guy about $20,000. Which is not an uncommon fee to get you all the way from South America to the US.

Coming to the US is expensive, he says. But he got here. He crossed the US-Mexical border and turned himself in, said he needed asylum.

He comes to New York.

. He has this $20,000 debt to the coyote who brought him here. So many migrants find themselves in that situation, owing a lot of money, basically to a cartel. And those are not people you want to owe money to.

And keep this in mind, when migrants like Luis arrive, they don't have permission to work here legally.

So Luis, he gets a job in construction, but he also decides to do street vending gigs. The clock is ticking. Every penny and every second counts.

But he says there's this one additional hurdle.

He's really shy.

So he starts reading this book.

Atomic Habits by James Clear, a motivational speaker from Ohio. Build better habits, eat healthier, and take more risks, be more open, be more of a businessman, grow as a person, challenge yourself.

It's very Americana meets Ecuadoriana. So when he heard about this Ecuadorian festival happening at the park today, he thought, be a businessman, challenge yourself, go sell some ice cream.

Still, he says when he got here, he froze up. You got to stand here. It's hundreds of people, really loud music blaring, other vendors yelling over you.

.

And then he thought about his aunt. When he was a kid back in Ecuador, Luis used to sell flowers on the street with her..

Roses, yellow roses, tulips, all kinds of tulips. She would tell him, Listen, you can't afford to be shy.

So he says he repeated this mantra. I got to keep going. I got to fight. I got to go back home for my dad one day. I got to keep going.

And he took a deep breath, and he yelled it.

All this ice cream talk is making me hungry. You want to go get some food?

Let's go sit down and eat something.

That's really good. You like it?

Yeah.

It's so nice out today. I'm really glad we got to do this today.

Yeah. It's the perfect day to do this. I'm really glad we got out here. I'm just so glad that we got to spend a day at the park. I'm an immigration reporter. And I work a lot between... I spend time at the US-Mexical border, and then I come back to New York. And this last trip to the US-Mexical border was really hard. Is it okay if I talk about something heavy? I met a mom who had just crossed, and she had a toddler. They were actually from Ecuador. And he He was passed out. They had been walking all night, and he was passed out, and something had stung him in the eye, and he just looked like someone had beaten the shit out of him. And it's just... She was like, Please help me. And I flagged down, eventually, a border patrol car came by, and I flagged it down, and I was like, Hey, there's a miner. I think he's probably five years old. He's passed out. And the guy just drove off. And eventually, an hour later, they came back, but we were trying to get this kid to stay awake. This kid looked rocky or something.

It was bad. And And in the next couple of days, I couldn't cry. I was like, Why the fuck can't I cry? And I got back to New York, and I got back to Queens, I take a day off. I grab a coffee from those little cards. I'm like, I'm going to go to the park with a coffee. This coffee stand person says, Do you want cream or sugar? And I just started sobbing. And I realized a couple of things. I realized what an important space a park is for me, a safe space. And I also realized that mom and that kid, I don't know. I don't know where they are. I don't know. They were heading to the Carolinas, I think, but you never know. And One day, they will get to have a picnic in a park like this one. They will have a life. I just met them on the worst day of their life, and they will get to be somewhere like this. It just really made me think about, I don't want my reporting to just be the worst day of immigrants' lives. I also want it to be a normal day or a beautiful day.

I'm sorry, did I ruin our day at the park? No, no. I didn't mean to ruin our day at the park. No, no, no. That's why I wanted to do this so bad. And to hang out with you.

Yeah, you're cool, Jasmine.

Do you want to walk a little more?

Yeah, let's go. Come on.

So, listeners, it's me again. Remember that walk I told you to take? Where did you go? This is our last episode of the year, and we wanted to step into the new year with a question for you all. What's a special place in your life? One that you visit weekly or even daily. When you feel depleted, it fills you up. It can be anywhere. Your community center, your gym, a weekly singing class, It might even be a very special aisle at your local grocery store. What is that place in your community that lifts you up? If you have a place like this, we want to know about it. You can send a two to three-minute voice memo to us at upfirstsunday@mpr. Org. You can even include some sounds from that space. Remember, this is radio, so we love to hear good sounds. Tell us your name and where you're speaking to us from, and we might share it in an episode this coming year. Thank you for spending your Sundays with us. Till next year, I'm Ayesha Rosco, and this is the Sunday Story. This episode of the Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yann.

Gilly Moon mastered the episode. The Code Switch episode was produced by Xavier Lopez, Jasmine Gard, Margaret Serino, and Christina Kala. It was edited by Courtney Stein and Leah Danela. It was mastered by James Willets. The Sunday Story team includes Andrew Mambo, Jennie Schmidt, and Liana Simstrom. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. Up first is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend. And Happy New Year.

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