There are about 20 houses on my block and when my mom moved in over 20 years, she was one of the few nonwhite residents on the block. Almost all of the other houses had elderly white couples living in them. Our block is only a few streets above Jamaica avenue, the distinct border between two very differently colored halves of Richmond Hill. Below the division are predominantly south asian, carribean and hispanic households. North of the division are where most of the white people in our community live. Seeing as how we are situated just above the border, over the 20 years our block has become about 2-1, with the nonwhite side having a clear majority.
How did this displacement happen? I don’t think there was tension or violence. People jut followed the crowd. The white people were decreasing in number on our block so other white people found blocks that had mostly white people. Everyone else moved to blocks where they saw friends or fellow countrymen living.
Herman mentioned religious reasons. For the Hasidic Jews, they really congregated towards the North where other Hasidic Jews were. You see this every Saturday as you see the groups of men with their suits and long bears trekking back north after leaving synagogue. You see Sikh women in their salwars going to the grocery stores around the temple on the south side. You see the Christians in the middle where the churches are located.
Color also dictates. Like I said before, the north is obviously lighter than the south, the south obviously darker than the north.
More than anything, though, it’s common customs, traditions, and just ways-of-doing-things. The general idea that seems to be inherent in most people is that it’s good to stay with people of your own flock. In Anbinder’s excerpts, fear seemed to be why people had to either extinguish or move away from a new group of people. It’s like people subconsciously (more consciously hundreds of years ago) view each other as different species and this is survival of the fittest. Any effort is helped with numbers, and when you’re numbers decrease, you’re scared. What will the other side do?
-Christina John
