Author: ruhlwrite

Liz Schwartz is sitting on her living room sofa talking about effective communication. She speaks clearly and concisely, choosing her words with care and confidence in this, a casual conversation. Her pronunciation is impeccably generic: Your ears would never be able to guess where she’s from. And that’s the point. Sort of. “Everyone has an accent,” says Liz. “I have a New York accent.” I still don’t hear it. “You’re not from New York,” she says before I can tell her this.…

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The room is filled with folding tables whose tops are clad in sheets of black plastic, and Marci Freede is standing on a step ladder in one corner. She’s looking at a wall that’s lined with scores of cheerful, colorful 16-inch by 20-inch paintings, and when she takes one down, it leaves a gap like a missing tooth. Marci, an enthusiastic woman with honey-hued hair that shines like the sun, wants me to examine it closely to make a very important point: You can learn to paint one just like this…

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When Renée Edwards opens the bright blue IKEA shopping bag, a big smile breaks across her serene face. Inside, coiled like a coiffure’s curls, are scores of rainbow-colored jump ropes. Kids don’t play Double Dutch any more, and it sure is a shame. “When I see some little sisters sitting on a bench, I bring out the ropes,” she says. If they don’t jump at the chance, she shows them how to blow bubbles. If that doesn’t work, Renée, a cheerful commander, thinks of other ways to keep…

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It was a driver’s license that determined Jaime Jinete’s future. Jaime, the owner of Nicole’s Cleaners, didn’t know much English when he came to America, but he was fluent when it came to the language of cars. Before he can elaborate, a man in a suit comes in to drop off six dress shirts. Jaime and his father, Jairo Blanco, greet him by name and tag the garments. This gives us time to look around. The storefront, a walk-in closet sandwiched between a barber shop and a computer emergency…

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Please, whatever you do, don’t say “project.” Andre T. Stith (that’s Smith with a T instead of an M, he says) doesn’t object to the word in and of itself. He grew up in and lives in Astoria Houses. He wants to make it as clear as a bright blue sky without clouds that it’s his home, not a housing project. Project? What does that word mean anyway? I’m not a project, he declares, I’m a person. “If you have to call it something, call it a development,” he says. “I had a…

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