Talk Bronx New York

          US Census Bureau is taking its show on the road

2010 is census year in America - and there is a lot riding on this drive to count everyone in the country. Some $400bn (£251bn) of federal money is allocated according to the population in each of the 50 states, and so are Congressional seats.

However, immigrant communities are often suspicious of the census, fearing the information could be used to deport those in the US illegally. Some Hispanic leaders are even calling for a boycott of the census, as I found out on a snowy morning in New York.

A troupe of dancers were braving the cold outside the Bronx Borough Hall, trying to drum up interest in the 2010 census.

Welcome to the Census Bureau road tour: census officials are criss-crossing the US with their signature blue trailers between now and April, targeting communities where traditionally people have been reluctant to be counted.

If you want better services, allow yourself to be counted, I am guaranteeing that nothing bad will happen to you

Ruben Diaz Jr,
Bronx Borough President

In the Bronx, just 56% of people returned the census in 2000, a “horrible” result, according to Bronx Borough president Ruben Diaz Jr.

He says the Bronx lost federal dollars and even seats in Congress because of undercounting.

Ligia Jaquez of the US Census Bureau is here to persuade people it is worth their while to fill out the form.

“It’s the benefits that you bring to your community,” she says.

“The government and the state use that data, for funding for new roads, new schools, for emergency services. When your community isn’t counted properly then the funding will be low.”

But not everyone wants to be counted. Read more..

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The mayor, along with Bronx State Senator Jeff Klein, held a press conference in Morris Park this morning to announced the introduction of a state law that would make it illegal to carry guns while drunk.

The “drunk guns” law would work much like the state’s drunk driving laws, which make it illegal to drive a vehicle if your blood-alcohol level is above .08 percent. A violation would be considered a class-A misdemeanor offense and punishments could include a year in jail and/or a $10,000 fine. It could also lead to the revocation of gun licenses.

“Guns and alcohol are a deadly mix,” said Senator Klein, in a statement sent out after the announcement. “The time is now for us to get serious about penalties for those who chose to carry a gun while intoxicated.” Read more..

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Like a thousand other coming-of-age-in-an-ethnic-family dramas, “Falling Awake” puts good intentions and appealing performances into the balance against clichés of dead-end neighborhoods and rebellious (but sensitive) youth.

Jay (Andrew Cisneros) spends his days playing guitar for tips in City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan and his nights pumping gas closer to home, in the Bronx. His father is a doorman; his sister lives at home with her two children; and his brother is in Iraq, but you could have guessed all that.

As Jay works on his songs and dreams of escape, a fight at a house party inexorably leads to a moment of greater violence, because that’s what happens in this type of movie, along with shouts of “You don’t know anything about me” and a lot of bellowing by the angry father (Nestor Serrano). Between scenes handed down from “Boyz n the Hood” and “West Side Story,” the film’s moment-to-moment depiction of life on the stoops of Soundview in the South Bronx feels authentic, and Mr. Cisneros has an easy rapport with Flaco Navaja and Michael Rivera, who play Jay’s best friends. Read more..

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Lance Cpl. Edwin Marrero, U.S.M.C., your past beckons.

Courtesy of Olga Torres Edwin Marrero

Two battered photo albums testify to the South Bronx life you put on hold when you shipped off to Vietnam as a teenage jarhead in 1969. Carmen vows, on the back of the prints, that she misses and needs you. Martha, primly friendly, sends her love. You look downright suave at a club with another girl, drinks on the table and cigarette in hand. And there are your relatives, getting goofy at home while you were slogging through rice paddies.

Forty years ago, in Vietnam, you gave these albums to Mike Torres, a fellow Marine from Jersey City, when your own duffel bag was too full to make the trip back to the Bronx. Mike came home a few weeks later. But for reasons he never fully explained to his wife, Olga, he was never able to locate you to give them back. Mike died last June.

Courtesy of Olga Torres Mike Torres

Now, Olga wants you to have them.

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A city cop was charged Wednesday with helping to plan a ripoff of drug dealers.

Miguel Burgos, 32, allegedly gave his unnamed co-conspirators a police scanner and a hydraulic jack used by emergency workers for a 2008 caper.

Burgos was arrested Tuesday afternoon while on his way to work at the 52nd Precinct in the Bronx.

He has been suspended from the NYPD, a source said.

A cop since 2004, he appeared in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday where he was arraigned on a conspiracy charge that carries up to 20 years in prison.

He pleaded not guilty and was freed on $100,000 bond.

“I can’t talk about it, I have nothing to say,” Burgos he said as he left. Read more..

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