For Newark immigrants, this year’s Mayor’s holiday ‘message of hope’ has added meaning

Tuesday night’s tree lighting at Newark City Hall was a typically festive occasion, with holiday music performed by young singers, a precocious master of ceremonies, and a “Message of Hope” by Mayor Ras J. Baraka to those present, many of them immigrants or second generation descendets.

“Hope is what brought people hundreds and thousands of miles on boats from islands and Eastern Europe and places all over the world to right here in the City of Newark, hoping that the streets were paved with gold and that the stories they heard as babies were true,” added Baraka, who’s among several Democrats running for governor in 2025. “We can’t lose hope. Hope is never false, is never wrong. Hope is the thing that the Devil hates the most.”

Baraka agreed that immigrants should be concerned, just as people with limited access to health insurance should be concerned with the former and future president’s vow to scale back the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.

“People are bracing for a difficult time, and they should be,” he said.

But he remained hopeful.

“We’ve been in worse times throughout the history of this country,” Baraka said. “We’ve got to have hope. If they (slaves) had hope then, then it’s nothing for us to have a little bit of hope now.”