Roger Sanjek’s article, “Color-Full before Colorblind: The Emergence of Multiracial Neighborhood Politics in Queens, New York City,” created a timeline of Queens Community Boards, particularly in the Elmhurst-Corona neighborhood. Originally a overwhelmingly white area known as Lefrak City, Elmhurst-Corona began to see an increase in minority residents during the 1970s, following the ban on restrictive covenants. Sanjek makes several interesting points to explain how the local politics shifted with the ethnographic populations.
A notable point is that this time period is also characterized by the city’s fiscal crisis, which really left Queens at a disadvantage; Sanjek even says that Manhattan was the “favored son.” WIth so many cuts to public services such as sanitation, libraries, schools, and fire departments, Queens citizens took it upon themselves to fight back, so to speak. Originally there were wardens who relayed grievances to the respective department or institution. Eventually, community boards grew out of this, and Sanjek timelines how these went from being solely white enterprises, but through gradual additions of Asians, Latinos, and African-Americans, community boards became as multiethnic, or “color-full,” as the community itself.
Another interesting point is how the shift to being more diverse coincided with a shift in gender as well. Sanjek relays how more women contributed to creating a “network of cross-racial ties in Elmhurst-Corona” and how this is attributed to socialization and gender characterization (this reminded me to Gilligan’s In a Different Voice-different moralities between genders). However, I find that Lucy Schilero put it best by saying, “…we have to live with one another or we won’t survive.” This statement rings true for all neighborhoods and perhaps Elmhurst-Corona can be a model for a well-functioning, multiracial community engaged in local politics.
Contrastingly, the Hum article, “Planning in Neighborhoods with Multiple Publics: Opportunities and Challenges for Community-Based Nonprofit Organizations,” exposes the downfalls of community boards, in particular their inability to reconcile class and racial differences. Often community board members aren’t representative of the community because it requires a generous portion of time to partake in such an activity. Many lower-class and immigrant citizens have to work, often long hours, to support their families, so they do not have the luxury to give up ample amounts of time to sit on a community board. Therefore, many community boards consist of privileged white folks who do not necessarily have the interests of minorities or the poor in mind.
