ASTORIA, NY – By Suman Ragunathan, FI2W Consultant

In Astoria, Queens, an ethnically diverse immigrant neighborhood just minutes away from Midtown Manhattan, Saeeda Nadeem was on her way to vote for the first time after 15 years in the U.S.Saeeda, a housewife originally from Pakistan, became a citizen two years ago in 2006, and was excited to vote this year.She pointed to the differences between the candidates — a difference she described as “black and white.”

Saeeda’s husband, Mohammad, a hotel concierge –also originally from Pakistan– has been in the U.S. for 21 years and has been voting for twelve years. He said he was casting his vote because he wanted change:”The economy is going down — it’s very hard to live here, and we want hope.”He noted that he and Saeeda, who have three children born in the U.S., had been paying attention to election issues and the debates.Mohammad said he was voting for Barack Obama “because he said he would work on immigration policy.”

Saeeda and Mohammad went to P.S. 234 in Astoria, where they were told that they were at the wrong polling site. They were sent to another polling site across the street, P.S. 17.They later returned to P.S. 234, their first stop, where –though they both live at the same address– Mohammad voted. He then accompanied his wife back to P.S. 17 to vote.

Exit pollsters surveying Asian American voters at P.S. 234 reported helpful poll workers, a variety of interpreters available to assist voters in languages other than English, and very few voters being asked for identification in order to be able to vote.

Across the street, P.S. 17 was a different scene.Lines at times extended beyond the door of the Henry David Thoreau School as residents filed in to vote. Unfortunately, widespread voting barriers accompanied the long lines.

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NEW YORK – Aswini Anburajan, FI2W reporter

Union Square is buzzing with vendors and election volunteers. There are even people from Comedy Central who are handing out buttons for the cable channel’s “Indecision 2008.” Some of the vendors have proclaimed an early victory for Obama, selling T-shirts that proclaim him the winner of today’s election.

Though it wasn’t St. Patrick’s day, one vendor sold bright green t-shirts with shamrocks in the place of a heart to show support for Obama.

I’ve yet to see a McCain sign or meet a voter who is voting for him.

Lorraine Guest stands near the subway entrance in Union Square handing out fliers about Obama. She’s the president of her local AFSCME union and has been knocking doors for the senator from Illinois in Pennsylvania.

Guest said that she hit the polls early this morning, but the line was three blocks long near her home on 92nd street between Amsterdam and Columbus.

Up in Harlem, long lines continued until noon, as people came during their lunch breaks to vote. Those who came out of the polls shouted encouragement to those waiting, telling them to hold on and not give up and go home.

NASHUA, NH – By Eduardo A. de Oliveira, New England Ethnic News and FI2W

Heloisa Galvão, president of the Brazilian Women’s Group in Massachusetts, is concerned that immigrant voters don’t have all the information they need to vote today.

“Yesterday we received at least nine calls from people who simply didn’t know where they should go to vote,” said Galvão, who headed to a polling place in Jamaica Plain at 7 am.

Today, the Women’s Group, a grassroots non-profit organization that trains Brazilian housecleaners to use products based on natural formulas, will have two staffers by the phone to help voters.

According to Immigration and Naturalization data, 53,045 Brazilians were naturalized in this country between 1991 and 2007. In Massachusetts, at least 3,900 became American citizens between 2004 and last August.

During two informal polls taken by the Vem Viver show at local station WSRO, Portuguese speakers showed high support for Barack Obama. The Democratic candidate led his opponent, John McCain, by big margins both days the surveys were conducted: 14 to 6 yesterday, and 39 to 10 on Friday.

Despite heavy support for the Democrats, many in the community believe that won’t be the case in the future. With at least sixty evangelical churches serving Brazilians in the state, some predict Republican support will spike in coming years.

[Brazilian Women’s Group can be reached at 617-787-0557, extensions 14 or 15.]

DETROIT, MI – By Martina Guzman, FI2W Reporter

Undeterred by long lines, Latino voters in Southwest Detroit came out in droves today to cast their ballot for president.

“This is the election where Latinos are really going to count,” said 77-year-old Bill Ojeda, a Korean War veteran. Ojeda was a little shy about saying he voted for Obama, but quickly remarked that he liked Obama’s philosophy in dealing with global conflict.

“I don’t mind taking care of the world but I think we should take care of America first,” Ojeda said.

The unusually warm weather for November made voting seem like a community event. Neighbors exchanged friendly ‘hellos’ and asked each other about whom to vote for in local races. Latina mothers, grandmothers and first-time voters arrived together. Twenty-year-old Eliseo Fuentes was thrilled to be voting for the first time. He was well informed, articulate and said immigration is the most important issue for him.

“Neither candidate is talking about immigration,” he said. Ultimately, Fuentes made his decision based on who he though would be better equipped to handle America’s financial crisis. “We live here and we need someone who can take care of the economy now,” he said.

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NASHUA, NH – By Eduardo A. de Oliveira, New England Ethnic News and FI2W

Election Day progresses without any major disruption. Early this morning, a lady was spotted wearing an Obama T-shirt close to the voting booth and was simply asked to cover it with her coat.

Foot traffic appears similar to that in all city wards, but things are expected to step up a bit at lunch hour.

Turnout of immigrant voters at polling places is steady. According to Census data, New Hampshire has 32,000 Latinos, and increasing Russian and Vietnamese populations.

“I feel great and proud to be able to vote. As an immigrant I fight my way to be where I am in this country,” said Kimberly Tau, a Vietnamese stay-at-home mom.

For Tau, a Nashua resident who migrated to the U.S. some 25 years ago, “this is the day you can truly stand for what you believe in.” This election season, she says, local issues matters as much as a national crisis. Tau says she truly believes that in American elections are fair because, “back in my country a lot of time voting was fixed”.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – Macollvie Jean-Francois, Sun Sentinel reporter.

It’s an overcast, slightly chilly, dry day in South Florida: perfect voting weather, if the experts are correct.

Lines at precincts in the Fort Lauderdale area were long earlier in the day, when polls opened at 7 a.m. They have been moving, and speeding up as the morning progresses. The average wait has been about one to one and a half hours.

Cateline Hjardemaal, who is pregnant, said in Miramar she spent only about fifteen minutes in line, until poll workers noticed her jutting tummy.

“It was easy,” Hjardemaal, a Haitian-American, said. “I need a change. I hope [government programs] will be back to the way they were before. Today, everything is about cutting. They cut, cut everything.”

NASHUA, NH – By Eduardo A. de Oliveira, New England Ethnic News and FI2W

The battleground state of New Hampshire is made of early bird voters.
One hour after the polls opened at 6.m., 10 percent of registered voters in Ward 1, in Nashua, had already cast ballot at the Broad Street Elementary School. About 6,400 voters are registered at Ward 1.

Registration booths are busy, too (NH allows Election Day voter registration). According to Greg Poston, a retired American Airlines pilot and a volunteer, in the first 3 hours today about 100 people had filled new voter registration form.

In this corner of southern New Hampshire, immigrant voters are participating, although it was not yet confirmed if their voting volume is high at this point.

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Voting in Harlem, by CarbonNYC/Flickr

NEW YORK – Aswini Anburajan, FI2W Reporter

Keith Shaka Daway is “sixty and a few months.” Originally from Trinidad, he says today is a chance to “vindicate” all his “ancestors” and the “freedom fighters” who have gone before him.

“Nat Turner, John Brown, and aaaaallll of ’em. I’m pulling that lever just for them, not for me,” he said, standing in line to vote at Madison Avenue and 120th street. “It’s a vindication because Barack Obama has sparked something international.”

“All those abolitionists and all the Quakers,” Daway continued, would feel that what they worked for had come to fruition.

On the reaction in Trinidad to a potential Obama victory?

“It’s carnival,” Daway laughed. “Backin’ up’n dancing, it’s music in the streets, rum-drinking, partying for at least seventy hours.”

NEW YORK, By Aswini Anburajan, FI2W Reporter

Carmen Garcia came prepared for the long wait at the polls today. She and her husband brought metal folding chairs in anticipation of the long lines.

Every five or ten minutes, the older couple from Puerto Rico, get up and carry their chairs a few feet further.

They won’t say who they’re voting for.

“It’s a secret,” Carmen insists. But she does say that she hopes change is coming.

The Garcias aren’t the only ones who brought chairs. Voters are bracing themselves for the wait, talking on their cell phones and introducing themselves to each other.

NEW YORK – By Aswini Anburajan, FI2W Reporter

Sadekh is an immigrant from Senegal. Standing in a line to vote in Harlem’s Little Senegal on 116th St. and Fifth Avenue –a line that’s down the block and represents about a two-hour wait– he is adamant that he’s not voting for Obama because he’s black.

He won’t give me his last name or let me record the interview but he says that he’s been voting for the past sixteen years.

“If I’m just voting for Obama because he’s black,” he asks rhetorically, “how did I vote for all these white guys?”

He says it will take more than just Obama’s getting into office to change world attitudes about the U.S.  His comments are in stark contrast to those of many of the voters around him, who say that the world will see the U.S. very differently if Obama is elected.

Still, black voters –both African immigrants and African Americans– do say that they never thought this day would come.

Gloria Mackey, a long time Harlem resident turned around to ask this reporter indignantly, “How do you think I feel?” when asked what she thought about voting for an African American.

“I marched in Selma. I marched on Washington,” she said.

A voter came out of the polls and walked past the long line and said, “It’s a two hour wait.”

“That’s all. That’s nothing,” Mackey said. She’d already been waiting a long time.