Wiseman’s opening shot looks down on a grid of streets beneath the
number 7 elevated subway train. Then he quickly descends to the street
level. His film lyrically depicts multicolored shops, men praying in a
mosque, a meeting of LGBT residents at the Jewish Center of Jackson
Heights and a gathering at the local office of Make the Road New York,
an organization that fights for Latino and working-class communities.
Most of my ventures into Jackson Heights in Queens over the last 30
years have been to eat Indian food on 74th Street. Wiseman’s film, however, shifted my attention to the Latinos of Jackson Heights and their
precarious economic situation, which is threatened by gentrification.
The film’s genius lies in its attention to individual speakers’ eloquent
descriptions of their predicaments, translated in subtitles where necessary. In one scene, a woman recounts a harrowing border crossing. In
another, a man says to other Latinos, “We give our lives and our sweat
so this nation moves forward! Let’s be proud of ourselves, of our work,
and of our countries.”
At one point, a small businessman explains how economic development
plans for the neighborhood can backfire: they raise real estate taxes,
which then lead to rent increases that drive out small businesses – the
very economic engine that sustained the neighborhood in the first
place.
Uniting around a cause
In heterogeneous Jackson Heights, getting city dwellers to organize
around common goals is one of the great challenges of democratic
politics.
The past is a reminder, however, that solidarity reaps rewards.
In the early 20th century, Jewish and Italian garment workers marched
together to win better working conditions. During the Great Depression and World War II, immigrants and their children in New York
City – led by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and supported by federal New
Deal programs – made Gotham a more just and egalitarian city.
The urban New Deal order collapsed under its own contradictions (it
didn’t serve blacks as well as it served whites). Still, as I learned while
researching my book “Crossing Broadway: Washington Heights and the
Promise of New York City,” upper Manhattan was saved from housing decay, arson, high crime and the worst effects of poverty by the
combined efforts of Dominican, Jewish, Irish and African-American
activists.
As Wiseman details in his film, the accomplishments of LGBT activists
in Jackson Heights have allowed the community to learn to live with
differences and oppose violence.
I was dimly aware that Jackson Heights had a history of anti-gay violence. But I was