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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For all the talk you've probably heard about the large number of asylum seekers coming to New York in the last year, that talk for most of you would've been primarily in English, reporting on people who primarily speak Spanish. Now, we're going to invite some of you who are bilingual to call in and report on what you're seeing or hearing in the Spanish language press about the asylum seekers and reaction to their arrival in various Spanish-speaking communities in and around the city. What are you seeing in Spanish-language media? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

We'll also ask how you think Mayor Adams is doing for Latino New Yorkers. One article making news right now is the one on Politico called Eric Adams no habla Español about the mayor's apparent lack of effort to speak even a little symbolic Spanish as a sign of caring as his Anglo predecessors, Bill de Blasio and Mike Bloomberg, did no matter how lamely or comical. Here's Mayor Adams this past Sunday at the Dominican Day Parade at the Dominican flag raising there. He starts in this clip by praising Congressman Adriano Espaillat of Manhattan in the Bronx, the first Dominican immigrant elected to Congress.

Mayor Eric Adams: An American's story coming to this country, not understanding English, sitting inside a classroom, trying to navigate the challenges and complexities. It shows the greatness of this country. You can go from one level to another level, and now he's on the congressional floor making policies that will impact all of us. All of these employees that I have here that are part of this administration, it's reflective of the city.

There's a real presence of those who have Spanish as a second language or a first language, are part of this administration. We made history when we appointed my good friend and brother Eddie Caban to be the first Spanish-speaking police commissioner in the history of New York. We did it again with Commissioner Molina in the Department of Correction, the first time in history. You see the barriers being dropped over and over again because this is one city and everyone must be a part of the city.

Brian Lehrer: The mayor on Sunday at the Dominican Day Parade. Bilingual listeners, how's Mayor Adams doing? 212-433-WNYC. Do you care if he doesn't try to speak a few words in Spanish as much as his predecessors? What are you seeing or hearing in the Spanish language press about him that people who only read or hear the English language press may not be getting? Also, about the asylum seeker surge that, again, many English-only listeners may not know the reporting on. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Joining us for this is Debralee Santos, editor-in-chief of two bilingual publications in the city, the Manhattan Times and The Bronx Free Press. They publish in both languages. Thanks for coming on, Debralee. Welcome back to WNYC.

Debralee Santos: Thanks, Brian. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: I'll start with my general question for the listeners for you, and you can take it any way you want, do you think you're reporting things in your papers that people consuming only English-language media might be missing?

Debralee Santos: I think that we're unique in that from the founding of both publications, the idea was that they would serve as a conduit for as much of the outward, the external conversations, the ones that were being aimed across the city as they were at the ones being held within, or not being held within the micro-ecosystems of the city so that there was an opportunity with these publications to have people who were on either side of Broadway, for example, in Northern Manhattan, and for that matter in the Bronx, who were across that borough.

We're not necessarily having with each other because it was just difficult to do so in the same way. Language serves to unify as much as it also can to create silos. The idea was from the very beginning to envelop everyone at the same time, both across dialects, across accents, but also across generations to be able to have conversations about the topics of the day in a way that was synonymous. Then from there, you would expect that there'd be even greater dialogue.

Brian Lehrer: How much do you see different communities, however you want to define that, by nationality or neighborhood or race or income, whatever, within Latino New York reacting differently or mostly uniformly, if that's the answer to the asylum seeker influx?

Debralee Santos: Well, I think that that's a mistake that mainstream media often makes in brandishing a very broad brush when it comes to asylum seekers or migrants, to begin with, or immigrants, whichever term politically, socio-culturally fits for that matter, whatever the government is asking people to tick off on their government forms. I think the idea is that there is no one-size-fits-all for this conversation. For that matter, many Latinos don't even necessarily consider themselves very tied to that immigrant conversation. They've been here for many generations.

They could trace their own family lineage to well beyond this current news cycle and find themselves well drawn to the conversation on the same level as many other denizens of the city are. What's happening? How are we being taxed? How can we be helpful? How can we continue to uplift the city as a constantly reimagined renewed space for all comers? Sometimes they don't necessarily find themselves as identifying with what is happening literally on the ground, particularly if you look at even Roosevelt Hotel.

I think it's important for us to look at this a little more with a broader lens and to imagine that everyone who looks at this, particularly if they either speak Spanish, identify as Latino, or are being identified as Latino, have a natural immediate affinity for this conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Are there certain communities, however you define those communities, within Latino New York reacting more positively or more negatively? Is it describable in that way?

Debralee Santos: I don't think that's quite the way I would describe it. I think it's more a question of imagining a couple of things. The school year is just about to start. More families, Latino and otherwise, are quite focused on the fact that this is going to be yet another year just fresh off, as we emerge, if you can say that, from the pandemic. Where are we with our achievement, our reading gains or math gains? Where are we with our achievement, the scores? Where are my children? What do they need?

Then when you look at the dire warnings being broadcast by both the mayor and others about what the migrant seekers and that conversation, what it has cost the city, what it will cost the city when you look at some of the spaces being repurposed during the course of the summer, school spaces specifically for migrants, although that was very quickly scuttled, it can only lead to what seems to be a very specific, very family-based conversation. What is happening to my family, with my family, and how is this going to impact it?

Now, that may seem very narrow and to some degree perhaps selfish, but when you buttress that against the fact that most families are still struggling in a post-pandemic space, it's as much about holding both those truths and wanting to be good neighbors and wanting to be the kind of communities that embraced others, including perhaps your own family at a different point in time and also, trying to figure out how the hell you make sense of what this new world order looks like for your own family.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Juan in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Juan.

Juan: Hi. Thank you. I've called the show a few times. I really love NPR. I really love the show. I was brought to this country as a young immigrant myself. I became a US citizen through my mother turning a US citizen while I was a minor, so it was kind of just granted to me. I feel like that there isn't a legitimacy to inviting all the asylum seekers here because you can't get them to the workforce immediately. There are no cultural centers. There are no places of actual refuge where they can integrate into society. There's just truly lack of innovation and creative ideas with the money that the city has, which is so much.

Because there is no active seeking of bilingual immigrants or just bilingual Latinos, this is just great stagnation. Even as a business owner, how can I contract asylum seekers if the city doesn't allow me to and they have to go through a process of God knows how long? What are we supposed to do with this? That's all.

Brian Lehrer: I'm curious, Juan, if you are bilingual.

Juan: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Are you seeing any different coverage in Spanish-speaking media if you consume any Spanish-speaking media that you think is worth pointing out?

Juan: Yes, I do.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Juan: No, I would say that it's more generalizations of just the coverage of it, the plights of it. I think the details are a little more intimate because as a Spanish consumer, you hear it in your native language, you hear it in your roots, and you hear the plight of it. They're running from governments and countries that don't allow them, basically, even to just live. Whatever it is. If you're an asylum seeker, that's what you're saying, that your government is not allowing you to basically do anything. Now, inviting people like that here, it's very costly to everybody. Why is there no transition in the civil laws? It makes it seem like a big hoax and people tend to tune out.

Brian Lehrer: Juan, thank you for not tuning out to this show, and thank you for adding a lot. Keep calling us. Joelle in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joelle.

Jarrell: Oh, you're speaking with me? My name is Jarrell in English.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, Jarrell. I apologize.

Jarrell: Yes. Hi. [laughs] No problem.

Brian Lehrer: Were you going to say it in Spanish?

Jarrell: No. Well, in Mexico, I use the name Rosita. It's much easier. Jarrell's impossible for them to say. I live in the Belmar building, which is, it's the building that has that silly show. Only Murders in the Building is supposedly filmed here. It's Upper West Side, and across the street are two shelters created out of a hotel. Ever since they were created, I've been trying to make contact with people. I brought clothes over and the director said, "Oh, you can only give us clothes with the tags still on." Anyway, that went on.

I speak with them, the people who are outside their home. Just to cut to the chase maybe, last night, I spoke to a woman. I thought she was much older, but she turned out to be 27 with a 36-year-old husband and three kids, one still in Peru, of course, a 15-year-old. She wanted work. She was thrilled beyond measure to speak to me. I can give her work, and I can give her husband work. I need a handyman. I need help in the-- Anyway, so-- but it was wonderful. We were able to-- I gave him my [unintelligible 00:13:25].

Brian Lehrer: Was she surprised to hear you are a non-Latina, I take it, but speaking Spanish to her?

Jarrell: Yes, she was thrilled. Her life is so tough, but she doesn't go into [unintelligible 00:13:47], but she's thrilled when I tell her, "You've had a tough life," because I've had a tough life. I've had a very tough life. Even though I've worked for 30 years at the New York Times, I have a little blah, blah, blah, wrote a book, blah, blah, blah, I didn't have parents, so I can relate to these people. That doesn't mean that the people who don't have tough lives can't relate to them, but she was thrilled. I'm going to give them work. We exchanged phone numbers. We were able to do that. I gave them--

Brian Lehrer: That's great. It's a good story, Jarrell. I'm going to leave it there, and I really appreciate you chiming in with that story of contact and the way you're relating and they're relating to you in that family. As we continue to invite calls from bilingual listeners on whether you're consuming anything different in the Spanish-language media than the English-language media about the asylum seekers or about how Mayor Adams is doing generally with respect to Spanish-speaking New Yorkers, our guest is Debralee Santos, editor-in-chief of The Bronx Free Press and the Manhattan Times, neighborhood newspapers that both publish in both languages.

212-433-WNYC for anyone else who's bilingual who wants to have input here, especially on what you're seeing in the Spanish-language media that English-only media consumers just may not be aware of. 212-433-9692. Here's Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso with a little of his take on the asylum seekers and the response to them on Tuesday.

Antonio Reynoso: Federal government tells us no.

?Asylum seeker: That ain't right.

Antonio Reynoso: It's one thing to not help us. It's another thing to get in our way, which is what it seems like the federal government is doing now. Not only are they not wanting to help us, they want to stop us from making progress.

Brian Lehrer: Debralee, is Borough President Reynoso saying anything there that the mayor wouldn't say about the federal government?

Debralee Santos: I think he's certainly saying it with a degree of emphasis that the mayor might be disinclined to use publicly. I think that if you look at the migrant crisis simply from a political lens and simply from the lens of New York State/New York City, which would be I think a really small conversation but one that's still valuable in terms of context, you are looking at a lot of friendly fire between in an interparty conversation between Democrats. No one wants to loudly clap back against Biden, who's facing a tsunami of challenges as he gears up for his own reelection campaign.

You don't want to be particularly given the beacon that New York City/New York State is often trumpeted. Whether that's true or not is a different conversation. Let's place the asterisk where it belongs of a blue bastion. It means that you don't want to have its chief leaders out there denouncing the White House and by extension the president for what is a lackluster or utterly woeful response to this conversation. I think that you're seeing that there are different individuals within the party who feel more inclined, who feel that their valuability will cost the president less as they move forward in this.

Because fundamentally, again, if we were to then move out of the political conversation alone, let's be clear, the federal government does, in fact, need to move into this space and to the void in order for this to work, and work it must, because they're not stopping, they're still coming. We're turning into a season where a number of inflection points are going to become very, very, very important. The weather will change, and people sleeping on the streets and potentially risking their lives is a non-starter and should be.

30% of the asylum seekers are currently children, and that grows. They will need to be enrolled in schools that are probably not prepared for that influx. You have a sea of workers, and I'm going to specifically direct our attention to the women in this group, many of whom we've seen already pedaling fruit and other wares on subways and in other public spaces with children strapped on their backs. They're also going to be forced to do very different things as the opportunities to be outside and to work as they can on the margins begin to dwindle even more.

We're looking at a vast chasm of opportunity for exploitation on a scale that advocates tell us we really should be concerned about. That's all going to happen in a matter of weeks/months while we're continuing to manage even greater numbers of asylum seekers coming directly to New York City.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think about this business of Eric Adams not speaking Spanish? I mentioned the political article, Eric Adams no habla Español, and I see you were quoted in that article. What do you make of it? What do you think any Latino New Yorkers make of it?

Debralee Santos: I think that Eric Adams is the second Black mayor in the history of the City of New York, occupying just from a host of different vantage points a very unique space in the conversation. I think when you look at the history of his time in the public sphere and the relationship that he's built up over his time in both within the police force and in different successive political offices, the degree to which he has allied himself and worked directly with a number of Latino elected officials, representatives, community advocates, while I'm not suggesting that that somehow is sort of a gimme, it would, in fact, undercut the criticism that many others who step into that space who do not have that vast history with these communities would often face.

I looked to our two previous mayors and the earnest efforts that they undertook to learn the language, I don't think it was simply that they wanted to acquire new language skills. It was also a direct public attempt to remind people that just because they're not of these communities, the Black and brown communities that really have helped to bring Democratic mayors to city hall, that they still could frankly walk the walk and talk the talk. I think Eric Adams's beliefs, and that's for somebody else to determine, that affinity over so many years, decades really, will allow for room for grace and would supersede the typical criticism.

Brian Lehrer: Here, just maybe for a little comic relief, maybe for a little nostalgia for some people, is a few seconds of Mayor Michael Bloomberg saying a few words in Spanish. This goes back to 2012 when he was warning people in October of that year that Hurricane Sandy was on the way.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Let me summarize today's announcement for our Spanish-speaking New Yorkers, [Spanish language].

Brian Lehrer: People used to laugh, Debralee. Maybe we even laughed together about this back then about his heavily English-accented Spanish and that it was sort of lame but also endearing.

Debralee Santos: I was laughing as we heard the clip. It's not the first time that someone has taken a language and done their very best and cut it down to bits as they muscle their way through. I suspect that I would only cause no small lack of endearment if I were to do the same with another language with which I just don't have the facility, and so kudos to anyone who tries. I think the idea that the more we poke fun at someone for trying, regardless of what we think their motive to be, the more we disinhibit people from trying something new.

I don't want to be the person who does that. Learn Spanish by all means. To everyone who's listening, learn Spanish, learn another language, take it up, get it out into the sphere, use it. It's a beautiful thing.

Brian Lehrer: Eric Adams is not making that same effort, but you are saying it doesn't probably matter that much because he's got such a long history as New York's second Black mayor and coming out of the community he said he came out of, of interacting with Latino and Spanish-speaking communities on the ground in a way that Michael Bloomberg never would have. Rod in Washington Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rod.

Rod: Hey, Brian. I love your show, the way you connect people to New York. I just love what you do. I'd like to add about the mayor. He was recently here in Quisqueya Plaza back in September for the hurricane that happened in DR. He was out there talking about what he did with his team to distribute food and supplies to the residents over there. I think he's doing a good job just being a visible presence in the community.

I've seen him twice already. I've never seen a mayor so many times, and honestly, I think he's just too cool to speak Spanish. The other mayors come off lame. Mayor Adams is a very flashy dude. He wears his suits, he looks very nice, he talks like a New Yorker. He's just too cool to be seen talking Spanish is what I feel.

Brian Lehrer: Rod, thank you very much. Too cool to speak Spanish, says Rod. I'm reminded by my producer that after playing that Bloomberg clip, it jogged her memory there were lots of Saturday Night Live skits at that time that included that kind of attempt by Bloomberg. To wrap this up, where do you think they have to go now? I think we heard from the first caller, Juan in the Bronx, that the Spanish-language media, if I can summarize some of what he was saying, I think he was saying they're reporting more on the asylum seekers as us, whereas the English-language media is reporting more on the asylum seekers as them. It would be good if that could all be woven together, but what do you see as the next big hurdle in the story?

Debralee Santos: Well, I think I mentioned it earlier. I'm concerned about what this looks like as we burrow more deeply into the year and some concerns that across the board are true for all families. Schooling, housing certainly continues to be one for these families. I think you're looking at things that are going to mushroom, and Brian, as you know as beautiful as fall and winter are in the city, it means we spend a great deal less time in the visible public sphere.

That means that a lot of Black-market conversations, again, are diving more deeply underground and are less visible, so a lot of what we see and claiming to believe is an issue now, and we're clutching our pearls about now will largely be disappeared as it were into the ether. It doesn't mean it's not still happening, it doesn't mean it's not worsening, and that exploitation, particularly when you look at language barriers, are not going to worsen. Again, I want us to focus on the women among us that are coming to the city and finding that opportunities are scarce.

More so even for their male counterparts if they have children, even more so, their concerns triplicate. I want us to be mindful that there are going to be things that just because they're no longer visible as the visceral scenes of people laying out on the street overnight outside hotels or were, we're going to have to do a little bit more work here even for ourselves as journalists to pay more attention.

As listeners and viewers, we need to ask questions. Where did everyone go? What is happening now? These people didn't just disappear. Where was the woman I saw panhandling with that child strapped across her back and another one sleeping by her feet? I don't see her anymore. I was glad to buy my fruit from her, but where is she now? That's not going to happen just once, but it's going to happen over and over again. The last thing I'll say about--

Brian Lehrer: Yes, go ahead.

Debralee Santos: It's just the mayor being cool for school when it comes to Spanish or any other language. I think the gentleman that spoke just a moment ago probably has it right too. Fundamentally, the mayor is someone who-- I don't know whether he thinks of himself as too cool for school, but certainly, he likes to project, and his public persona is one of invulnerability to a large degree, so being one that is tripping over words and accents being sort of misfiring is probably not that public conversation that he wants to have himself.

Brian Lehrer: Eric Adams too cool for escuela, as is Debralee Santos, editor-in-chief of the Manhattan Times and The Bronx Free Press community newspapers, publishing in both English and Spanish. Thanks so much, Debralee.

Debralee Santos: It's a pleasure, Brian. Thank you.

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