Caro & Jonathan
I met a couple walking down the street with their dogs, they’re both 20 years old. Caro is half Chilean and half Puerto Rican and Jonathan is half Puerto Rican and half American.
- Caro has lived in JH for all her life and Jonathan for 13 years, he moved here from Astoria and he feels like home.
- They say that this is an incredibly diverse place and that makes it very different from other neighborhoods
- “Everybody knows you here”, Latin community is very close
- A lot of community activities, especially for younger people
- There are very few schools so you end up knowing everyone your age
- social media that makes the community closer and a lot of events that help create the bond, otherwise everyone just cares for themselves
- C considers herself from a lot of places because of all the cultural mix
- J says that just by spending a few hours in JH you learn something new about another culture and that everyone is open to sharing something about their own cultures.
- The Asian and Latin community don’t interact that much, but some of the customs are shared
- They would like to have more places to have fun and socialize, interact with others. There are not a lot of places for kids to be safe and play in a good environment.
- They don’t like that there are a lot of bars around the main streets and Caro feels unsafe walking around there alone at night because some people under the influence have harassed her in the past. Unsafe for women at night
- They like the parks now because the neighborhood fixed them and made it safer to be there
- They would like for more dog parks and spaces for animals, there’s only one and it’s very far away
- Having more community spaces could help bring the community together
- There’s nothing “fun” around the neighborhood, they would like more social spaces like an arcade, mall, movie theater, amusement park because they closed down the movie theater to build a target
- Having a fun place to be would help keep kids out of trouble
Luis
I met Luis working at a Flower Shop in Northern Boulevard, I didn’t record the interview but I did voice notes right after talking to him
- Has lived here for 6 years, with his dad. They both work here
- From Mexico
- A lot of Latin community
- Very noisy
- He has a kid
- JH its safer than Mexico City
- He wouldn’t change anything about the neighborhood
- He thinks it’s better maintained than Mexico City, so he likes it a lot
- He likes the parks and considers them to be a lot in quantity
- His family speaks Spanish and he thinks that in the Latin community they interact and bond over being Latin even if they’re from different countries
- Not a lot of interaction between Latin and Asian community
- There’s not a lot of sidewalk life, people are more individualistic
- You don’t find the street social life you can find in Latin America
The Oblea Lady
She always sells obleas outside of the subway, she’s from Colombia
- lived in JH for 22 years, she really likes it because it’s very diverse and the Latin community is very big
- Everyone is focused on working and getting home so there’s not a lot of room for social life
- People are more individualistic
- Each community interacts with themselves, not a lot of mixed cultural interactions
- She would like for the streets to be cleaner and the parks to be better-taken care of
- It’s a bit dangerous at night because there are a lot of drunk people coming from all the bars
- Safer spaces for children
- There’s usually people drinking or smoking weed in the parks so there’s not a real safe space for kids to interact.
Reflection
I mainly spoke in Spanish with all the people I talked to so I felt more comfortable asking them for an interview since we bonded over being Latin. A lot of the hypothesis I had about the neighborhood were confirmed by them, like that the Latin and Asian community don’t interact very much but I was really surprised to hear that they really liked the parks and green spaces and didn’t consider them to be missing from the neighborhood even though that’s what I had learned about the neighborhood in the first introductory video about Jackson Heights.
I found that the younger people felt a bigger sense of community and social interactions with strangers, for example, they knew everyone in their buildings and they’re blocks, but the older people thought that everyone is more individualistic and that if you go to the deli around your house they don’t know you as they would in Latin America. So we can see that the people who work in the neighborhood don’t get to socialize with others very often and they perceive other people to be individualistic.
Also I was surprised to hear that they didn’t like the bars around the area and that these cause a problem for them and the feeling of safety around the neighborhood.
