nothin Burwell Confronts Language Barrier | New Haven Independent

Burwell Confronts Language Barrier

Aliyya Swaby Photo

Burwell gets Lloyd’s vote.

Thomas Burwell called up to a woman standing on her balcony on Houston Street in Fair Haven: Do you speak English?”

No,” she responded.

At her welcoming gesture, he stuck an orange campaign flier in the corner of her front door anyway.

A non-Spanish-speaker in a ward full of Latino immigrants, Burwell is waging a Democratic primary challenge for alder in Ward 14 alder against incumbent Santiago Berrios-Bones. It is one of eight alder primaries taking place around town on Sept. 16.

He said he doesn’t need Spanish to communicate with people who want their politicians to be more accessible and responsive to their needs.

People look you in the eye and read your body language and know you’re a genuine honest person,” he said. They know you’re committed to serving the community.”

This is the second time Burwell is running against Berrios-Bones, after losing to him in the 2013 election. He is being as cautious as possible this time around. Instead of leaving fliers under doors, he is going for a slower process” of quality sit-down conversations, he said.

I don’t want to make mistakes. I kind of lost last year. I don’t really want to do that again,” he said.

Burwell is the co-chair of Ward 14 and received the ward endorsement in June, while Berrios-Bones boycotted the endorsement hearing in favor of petitioning his way onto the ballot for the primary. The Democratic Town Committee ended up making no endorsement in the race.

Burwell said it has been a challenge to gain trust among people who see him as a stranger knocking on their door asking for a vote.”

Burwell said he has canvassed every house five or six times each. This past Friday, he walked down a few Fair Haven streets to catch the people who never responded to his knocking or calls over more than two months of canvassing. He pointed out the houses where people would likely vote for Berrios-Bones and those where families had promised him their votes.

He stopped by a few whose votes were still up for grabs. Stacy Lloyd answered the door, looking nervous at first but slowly warming up as Burwell asked for her support. I don’t really know who’s running or whatever,” she said at first.

What do you expect of a city alder?” Burwell asked.

To help the community get better and help kids have more activities,” she responded.

Burwell gave her a sheet of paper with his contact information. He said he wanted Fair Haven neighbors to be the first to know about newly posted job positions in the city and to host more free community events.

I’ll vote for you,” Lloyd said. She tentatively promised the support of her 23-year-old son, though she warned, He’s got his own mind.”

A part-time student who plans to complete a degree in civil engineering at the University of New Haven, Burwell said he sees a human element to improving Fair Haven’s infrastructure. For example, flatter sidewalks, he said, would allow greater mobility for the neighborhood’s large aging population. He is currently taking a leave of absence from school to campaign.

Canvassing on Sundays, he brings a translator with him, but it isn’t always necessary. A very small part of the ward is only Spanish speaking,” he said. Many of the monolingual Spanish speakers are elderly and living in the neighborhood’s senior housing.

A couple of months ago, he stopped by River Run, a senior home at 50 Grand Ave., with a few boxes of pizza. They didn’t understand a word of what I was saying. We were eating pizza and trying to do as best as we could,” Burwell said. The language barrier was not an issue.”

He has pitched to seniors the idea of using their centers’ community rooms to host events and offer regular health services.

Burwell said his priority is getting neighbors to be more active participants in their government. If he could accomplish one thing as alder, he said it would be boosting civic engagement, ensuring people feel better about the neighborhood.”

He said he wants Fair Haven to draw visitors from other parts of New Haven and the state. To accomplish that, the alder has to make the neighborhood safer, by pushing police to crack down on prostitution on Ferry and Chamber Streets, finding a way to get public security cameras on major streets like Grand Avenue, and working with city agencies to re-purpose blighted homes, he said. And he said he hopes to increase the diversity of businesses along Grand Avenue, to get more than barbershops and bakeries” to attract shoppers and tourists.

Previous coverage of the Sept. 16 Democratic alder primaries:

Robinson-Thorpe Ready For Primary Fight
8 Primaries On Tap

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