}
A group of friends were meeting at the Filthy Rich Barbershop in Woodside to discuss what they could do to help with the relief effort in the Philippines. They settled on the idea of raising money through individual donations and fundraising events, setting a goal of $10,000 to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan.
But there was a problem: How could they be sure the money would go to the right place?
The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe commemorates what believers say was the day in 1531 that the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, an Indian peasant, near Mexico City. The vision is captured in an artist’s rendering of the Virgin Mary known as Guadalupe, and is one of the most important symbols of Catholicism in Mexico.
The feast is a holiday in Mexico, but not in New York, home to an estimated 500,000 people of Mexican heritage. Now the Tepeyac Association is hoping to convince the City Council to approve a recognized day off of work for Mexicans in New York City every Dec. 12. The organization, which provides services to Mexican immigrants, plans to hold a rally after this year’s holiday mass to bring attention to the cause.
The Tepeyac Association is named after the hill near Mexico City where Saint Juan Diego’s sighting believed to have taken place.
After about three days of being isolated in “the Box” away from his fellow detainees at Rikers Island, Ismael Nazario was beginning to break.
“That’s when it started to take it’s toll,” he said, conjuring memories of his time in punitive segregation — solitary confinement — in one of the nation’s biggest jail complexes. “I was just like, ‘Yo, I cannot be here like this.’”
