Mehta, Berger, and Ellick bring light to three communities, even a specific building, in Brooklyn and Queens that exhibit ethnic diversity. Neighborhood structure, sometimes still divided by racial suspicion and economic differences, can be considered as cohabitation rather than a melting of ethnicities. Nonetheless, the neighborhoods of Corona, Queens, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, and Jackson Heights, Queens reveal a unique social experiment.
The simple, everyday interactions between neighbors, whether that be stopping to sharing food, participating in a neighborhood play, or spending time at a karaoke bar, the authors take the time to document capture the realness of such diverse communities. In Corona, Queens, Mehta notes, in a particular apartment complex called Calloway Château, the lengthy list of ethnicities including Uzbeks, Afghans, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Koreans, Filipinos, Ukrainians, Russians, Argentines, Colombians, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Peruvians, African-Americans, and Guyanese. Something genuine Mehta observes among the activities of this singular building is the constant exchange of food, whether it be for holidays or for lending a helping hand.
In Berger’s piece describing the neighborhood in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, he notes a particular stage production of To Kill a Mockingbird conducted with the help of fellow neighbors, as well as their porches, and attended by the entire community – almost 1000 people of varying ethnicities and ages. A reviewer of the show detailed the gathering as a “people’s theater” regardless of race.
Ellick’s encounter in Jackson Heights, Queens at an, at first, exclusive Korean karaoke bar depicts the racial segregation within an integrated ethnic neighborhood. However, such an experience opened this author’s world to the possibilities of learning more about new people, once you get through the front door.
Ellick also described in his article his inability to access the “ethnic underground” of Jackson Heights and he attributes this downfall partly to being a white American situated in an ethnic mosaic neighborhood – together, and yet, still separated by cultural differences and suspicions.
