Three years ago, fewer than 10 Nepali immigrants took English classes at Adhikaar, a Queens group that supports transplants from the small South Asian nation.

Now, nearly 100 Nepalese, who are part of a flourishing population planting roots in the borough, pack into eight classes a week with hopes of overcoming one of the biggest obstacles in their new life -- the language barrier.

अधिकार अर्थात् अधिकार फर सोसल जस्टिस एण्ड ह्युमन राइट्स। यो संस्थाले आफ्नो स्थापनाको ५ वर्ष पूरा गरेको छ। यसले आफ्नो ५ वर्षे जीवनमा धेरै नेपालीलाई सहयोग गरेको छ। सन् २००५ जुलाईमा स्थापना भएको 'अधिकार' ले हरेक वर्ष ५ सयभन्दा बढी नेपालीलाई स्वास्थ्य सेवाका अतिरिक्त निःशुल्क ट्याक्स, इमिग्रेसन, श्रम अधिकार, दोभासे आदिका कार्यशाला, गोष्ठी एवं तालिम आदि संचालन गर्दै आएको छ।

by Luna Ranjit
DEC 31 - Fifteen years ago, when I first came to the US as a student, meeting another Nepali or having a Nepali meal used to be worth writing home about. A Nepali community was here, but it was spread out across the country without any hub. Only a couple of hundred new Nepalis came each year, and some of them went back. I pined for momos and gundruk and achar. I went to Indian restaurants whenever I could because they were the closest things I could find to replace the taste of Nepal.

QUEENS, N.Y.--Sunita K., a petite, 46-year-old woman with freckled skin, peeked through the door of a 7-Eleven in Queens, trying to catch a glimpse of the person behind the billing counter. She was searching for Indian faces, confused by similar brown-skinned Hispanic ones. A Nepalese immigrant, Sunita speaks only a few words of English and was hoping to find a benevolent Hindi-speaking Indian to give her a job. Any job.

Kavita is a manicurist in a nail salon. She's worried because some of the salon products she uses on clients have been giving her frequent headaches and asthma attacks.

By Lizzy Ratner, The Nation

On a sparkling afternoon, four domestic workers sat in the basement offices of Adhikaar, a women-led Nepali rights group in Queens, discussing the Bill of Rights. Escapees of Nepal's civil strife, they were mostly middle-aged and older, and their tales ranged from nasty, name-calling employers, to seventeen-hour workdays for $4 an hour, to one woman's four-year nightmare toiling for a family that refused to pay her or let her leave. 

The rally was held to urge the passage of a domestic workers rights bill that has long been stalled in the state Legislature.

"This is optional," began Luna Ranjit, president of Adhikaar, a Nepali immigrant group in Queens that has just begun a survey of the estimated 30,000 Nepalese who live in the city. "You don't have to answer any of the questions you don't feel comfortable with."