Anyone who lives within New York City knows how prominent diversity is within our city, but it doesn’t mean that we all live in perfect harmony. A number of communities isolate themselves from the rest of the city due to a common cultural identity, but in reality a majority of communities are made up of a variety of differing cultures due to a common socioeconomic status. Accompanied with these multicultural communities comes discrimination between ethnic minorities, the strive to achieve local authority, and the fight to make a mark on the community so that their presence is known. Each of the articles proves the existence of multicultural strife with the arrival of the Latino population, or the “Latino Invasion.”
Miyares goes into great detail on the arrival of Latinos over the past few decades, and how each new group seems to conquer a territory once controlled by a previous minority group. First it was the Cubans who controlled certain neighborhoods, then the Puerto Ricans took over, then the Dominicans, until finally the Mexicans seemed to be the final Latino group to invade the streets of New York City (the focus of Davila’s article). Group after group of immigrants introduced the emergence of multiethnic streetscapes in which multiple cultural groups would have to live in the same neighborhood and learn to adapt, assimilate, and more importantly get along with one another. Each cultural group wants to have an identity and feel like they have representation, which is typically hard to come by within these multiethnic communities. Tarry Hum’s article on Sunset Park, Brooklyn reveals how the Latino population and Asian population live together within one neighborhood. Unfortunately, Latinos feel that they are underrepresented due to Sunset Parks designation as another “Chinatown,” whereas the Asian population feels unwelcome due to discrimination from the Latino population. Each group wants to feel that they have some sort of power over the land, but doesn’t realize the importance each group has achieving the success of the community.
Today, enclaves still exist where there is a majority of one cultural group controlling the community, but I believe that this is not going to last. The future points towards these multiethnic communities inhabited by not one, but two, or maybe even three cultural populations that contribute to the cultural identities and successfulness of these neighborhoods. Hopefully, people will learn to work together and live peacefully instead of fighting with one another to make their presence known within a community. New York City is known for a plethora of different cultures that each makes their presence known by the impact they have on the city and that alone should be enough.
