Class Project Proposal
In March alone, New York City has already witnessed two major parades in celebration of different cultures: the St. Patrick’s Day parade and the upcoming Greek parade in celebration of Greek heritage. Though these are only two examples, most New Yorkers are aware of the numerous annual parades that flood the streets of NYC each year, such as the Puerto Rican parade, Jamaican parade, and others. To take a deeper look into not only the cultural significance of having such celebrations, but what it takes to construct such a large, community wide event would make for an insightful and educational final project.
Combining this idea with what Anand has proposed (delving into cultural festivals and how they operate here and how it may differ from the country of origin) could also make for a really fun project in which the class would either go as a group or split into numerous groups to cover different parades/festivals around NYC. Each of these festivals/parades can offer heavy insight into vastly different cultures and would allow us as students to study not only the people, but the music, dance, and hopefully food of each culture. In May alone, the Cuban, Turkish American, and Norwegian American parades are to take place and though they are late, they would be great events for our class to attend. In April, the Cherry Blossom festival takes place at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, and this would definitely be a great event to attend for an insight into Japanese culture.
For more analytical purposes, if the information is available, students could also assess how these parades and festivals affect the surrounding area and immigrant/cultural group economically. Each festival/parade has an abundance of volunteers to ease the fiscal burden, but to create and run such an event must have serious financial needs. These events also can create great economic opportunities for people of the culture, as many set up stands and sell food and other items that represent their backgrounds. Some of these parades and events could potentially be major income factors for many people and immigrants, and it would be interesting to find out if that is true.
Researching cultural festivals and parades around would provide our class a fun, interesting (and hopefully tasty) way to take a more in depth look at groups that reside in NYC.
