Out of the three reading, Berger’s work resonated with me more than the other two. Mehta also had some passages that also rang true to me. However, I found Ellick’s to be the least relatable to my own experiences in Queens. Berger mentioned how New York City has the most diverse population and I can instantly connect with that as I do find it weird if a certain ethnicity seems to be prominent more than others. I also can easily imagine how people of different ethnicities can become friends and work together towards a certain goal. The situation that Berger gave was how Theodore and Schneiweiss, a Trinidadian and a Chicago born Jew respectively, became good friends and cooperated together to donate school supplies to homeless children.
Mehta’s words and discoveries on the apartment building also seemed to resonate well with me. The building is a community where the people help and learn from each other. They are not necessarily abandoning their culture but they pay no attention to backgrounds when it comes to dealing with one another. In fact, the idea of being a good neighbor seems to echo throughout the building. However, I do believe that this just may be a special case. I do believe that people can be good neighbors without having to be the same race and am sure it’s fairly common but this seems to be an extreme case. Maybe because they all are seeking help in some form that they turn to each other and strengthen their bonds. This idea can apply to the people that are not as friendly in the building like Usman. He is a hardworking and most likely generous man, but because he is the provider he has become more dependent on himself and did not need to seek help from his neighbors.
Even though I do find some truth in Ellick’s words, I found his reading to be the least relatable. It seems that he tried too hard to find Queens diversity so that he was forcing himself to see what should have been discovered naturally. The continuous tries to get into the Korean bar was really sad. By the end of the article, it was plain to see that the owner only lets Koreans into her bar. In that sense, it’s not the most diverse place to be. Of course it would have been an experience to visit a place surrounded by a culture that’s not your own, but it’s harder to experience the culture if the people themselves are not welcoming and willing to teach you. With that in mind, there are plenty of other places to go to experience diversity that are not closed off. In addition, he mentioned that people seemed unfriendly when “documenting the neighborhood’s colorful streets”. Well the image of him walking around with a notepad and pencil while intensely studying the people and places, it just may look like he’s “snitching” or invading a personal part of people’s daily lives. If he wanted to experience the diversity of Queens, he should have done so in a less scientific way and more so naturally. Ellick could have just walked down the streets and find an interesting restaurant or think about the people that pass him by and then write about his day at home. People in Queens don’t leave the house and treat their day like a controlled experiment as Ellick did, instead they adventure into whatever the streets may take them whether heading to work or looking for a bite to eat.
