Bensonhurst Schools

In early February, the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College apparently releases data from reports co-sponsored by the Brooklyn Community Foundation.  According to their studies,  (also published by BensonhurstBean, a news blog) the population of Asians has increased from 23% to 33.7% in the years 2000 to 2009.

Obviously, this correlates with what Joe Salvo said at the beginning of this semester: basically, there is an increase in the population of Asians, in neighborhoods all around New York City.

My findings did reflect these statistics,  if not necessarily the whole “multi-ethnic cooperation” part.  My first visit to Bensonhurst included a trip to St. Cabrini’s Academy and P.S. 128, located within several blocks from each other. Because I was just scouting the location, and just trying to get a feel for the neighborhood as a whole, my photos reflect the “outside,” it’s obvious that these are just glimpses of the neighborhood as a whole.  My “mini-interviews” with cross guards, school security personnel, and random passerby of different ethnicities all agreed on one thing: that the face of Bensonhurst is in fact changing.

The first person I encountered and had enough courage to ask a quick question to was a young Orthodox Jewish father taking a walk with his two children.  He told me he had spent the last 35 years in this neighborhood and he was confident that the population had gone from being “predominantly Polish and Italian” to “more Soviet Jews and Chinese, definitely.” As I walked towards St. Cabrini’s, I noticed that what he said held true; I saw several different groups of adults, all walking together in (presumably) their own ethnic groups.

The cross guards I spoke to at St. Cabrini’s told me in basic terms that  they definitely noticed more elementary school-agedAsian students. Then the security guard at the public school close by said (and I quote!) “oh yeah, more Spanish people and Orientals, for sure.”  I was too much ofa wuss to correct her; I’m sure she meant say “Hispanic-Americans or Spanish-speaking peoples as well as Eastern Asian-Americans.”

I figured it would be inappropriate to stand around waiting to take photos of schoolchildren (for obvious reasons) and so I walked back to the stores near the train station.  That’s when I noticed a similarity between Jackson Heights and Bensonhurst; they both had that centralization of diversity under the train tracks! (Perhaps it’s not that noticeable in the photo to the right…I tried.)

And as I was noticing the different storefronts where the growing Asian influence was especially apparent, I also saw the cutest example of ‘cooperation, collaboration and diversity’: this trio of little girls, probably around the age of 8, one Muslim wearing ahijab, one Black, and one of Eastern Asian descent, holding hands and skipping along 86th street toward the train station.