New York City’s migrant commissioner Fatima Shama Mansouri paid a visit to the Atlas building in Antwerp on Tuesday evening. Mansouri: “The concept of ‘foreigner’ does not exist in New York”.
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According to Mansouri, Antwerp and New York have many similarities in terms of diversity. “New York has 8.4 million inhabitants representing 193 different countries. The inhabitants speak about 176 different languages. 40 percent of ‘New Yorkers’ were born outside the United States while 60 percent are second-generation immigrants,” said Mansouri. Antwerp itself has 172 different nationalities. The Atlas building where Mansouri came to speak opened its doors in 2006. The building fulfills a central counter function related to integration and diversity.
In 2009, Mansouri was appointed the New York City migrant commissioner by Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York. She talked about the daily challenges she faces to improve the lives of migrants in New York and empower their position. “Some migrants come from countries where the government has abandoned them, so we want to help them as best we can. We see ourselves as mediators and hope to be successful,” said Mansouri. She emphasizes that the inhabitants of her city are proud of all these different nationalities. The fact that one particular culture lives in one neighborhood does not have to be negative. She admits that there is little diversity in the city government. She tries to respond to this by working closely with citizens and by relaying their problems to Bloomberg. Manzouri: “That way we can solve problems between the different cultures in a sustainable way.”
The Commissioner himself was born in the Bronx and is the youngest of five children. Her mother, a Brazilian Catholic, and father, a Palestinian Muslim, immigrated to the United States in the early 1960s. GARDENjournalist, Bert De Vroey, who led the conversation, wanted to know how long someone remains an immigrant in New York and whether she had ever heard of the word immigrant. Mansouri: “In New York we don’t call anyone a stranger, everyone is a ‘New Yorker’. With us you are African-American or Latino-American, but never a ‘stranger’.”
Lisa Akinyi May
Foto Wim Hendrix
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