Idea for Class Project
New York has become a salad of immigrant groups. Most of the new immigrant groups hold on to their cultural identities as best as they can and sometimes adapt it to fit New York Culture. For my part of the class project, I want to make a map of Indian clothing stores all over Queens and Brooklyn. Queens has the majority of the shops and Brooklyn is recently growing new stores. I know there are some Indian shops in Bronx but I personally don’t feel comfortable there so I wouldn’t visit there.
The locations of the stores could tell a lot about where the people are settling and what kind of demands there are. It’s important to note that Indian clothing stores serve both Indian and Bengali ethnic groups. But shopping peaks depend on the holidays of each culture, both traditional and religious. By making a map of the stores, we can see, in addition to where people are settling, also which kind of people shop there and when. It will shed light on holidays, and the age groups that frequent the shops. Also, by talking to some store owners, we can get idea of where they had to alter their stock to meet the demands of “New York-ified” customers. We can also find out about how non-Indian customers respond to the ethnic stores. I see some white people shopping at Indian stones so it would be cool to find out how those dynamics work out.
