Barnard-Columbia Urban Review Spring 2025 Issue 9

Barnard Columbia

Spring 2025, Issue 9

By Ananya Pal

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Artwork

PHOTOGRAPHY

Eve Moss

ARTWORK

Lixin Yan

EXECUTIVE BOARD

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ISHAAN BARRETT CC ’26

MANAGING EDITOR

MADELEINE MARTIN, BC ’27

LAYOUT EDITOR & TREASUERER

AMANDA CASSEL, BC ‘25

PUBLICITY DIRECTOR

JACQUELINE ARTIAGA, BC ’25

EVENTS COORDINATOR

MAYA FELSTEHAUSEN, BC ’25

OUTREACH DIRECTOR

ABIGAIL JACK, BC '25

GENERAL BODY

SENIOR EDITORS

SOFIE LEDOR, BC '26

ARAIYA SHAH, BC '25

STAFF EDITORS

OLIVIA JOHNSON, BC 28

EVE MOSS, BC '28

TARA SRIDHARAN, BC '28

NAOMI WEBB, BC ‘27

MARTHA CASTRO, BC ‘26

LAYOUT STAFF

SOPHIE STRANDBERG, BC '27

COVER ARTIST

ISHAAN BARRETT, CC '26

AUTHORS

JACQUELINE ARTIAGA, BC '25

MAYA FELSTENAUSEN, BC '25

REBECCA CRANDALL, CC '26

ELIZABETH FROST, BC ‘27

ERICA LEE, BC ‘26

ELEANOR HUTCHINSON, BC ‘27

ART CONTRIBUTORS

EVE MOSS BC '28

LIXIN YAN, BC 'XX

STAFF WRITERS

ELIZABETH FROST, BC ‘27

ERICA LEE, BC ‘26

ELEANOR HUTCHINSON, BC ‘27

Letter from the Exective Board

As the Executive Board of the Barnard-Columbia Urban Review (BCUR), we would like to express our great pride and appreciation for all the hard work, commitment, and intellectual courage that went into this, the ninth issue of the Barnard-Columbia Urban-Review.

This edition includes a deep dive into the city we call home, New York City. Authors explored congestion pricing to evaluate new city policies; subway and park busking to investigate how informal performers utilize urban space; neighborhoods in Morningside Heights, Little Egypt, and Manhattan and Flushing Chinatowns to consider how communities shape their environments into places of familiarity; and the city’s history of slavery and its relationship to Black New Yorkers. Going beyond New York, authors investigate suburban planning in Riverside, Illinois; the effects of highway development in Los Angeles; and the prevalence of redlining in Chicago. Zooming out to the global scale, our journal traverses abroad to East Asia, from exploring the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in Seoul, South Korea; to examining the colonial histories and state-building practices of the U.S. and Japan in Okinawa.

At BCUR, we are committed to growing our contributors as well as our audience. Particularly as an interdisciplinary academic journal, we aspire to include as many perspectives as possible. In our pursuit for articles, we utilize our mailing list, the Urban Studies email list, and our Instagram. Additionally, our executive board and staff members call for submissions in their academic classes reaching beyond urban studies to political science, economics, English, and beyond. With these different platforms of outreach, our journals have included perspectives from across our undergraduate institutions and at other leading institutions across the country. For our future issues, we remain committed to diversity of perspective and seek to expand our existing collection of writers and readers.

In the production of this journal, we centered our review process on two main criteria. The first was the novelty of the scholarship presented by our authors. Whenever possible, BCUR strives to maintain an array of research that breaks ground on new issues and problems that benefit from the attention of our readers. In that regard, featuring work on a wide range of urban studies topics and methodologies became a cornerstone of our review process. The second criteria was clarity of communication and the way scholarship is presented as an iterative process. Through the art of writing, BCUR sought articles that investigated critical urban issues, but arrived at findings that never claimed to “settle” a specific concept or result. Through these two features of our review process, BCUR curated a body of articles from a wide selection of authors that engage novel and innovative subject matter with an attention to the role of research as an ongoing project of scholarly inquiry.

As research funding at universities like Columbia continues to come under threat from the Trump administration, we believe that environments like BCUR are crucial to promote pieces that would not otherwise see the spotlight. We thank the Urban Studies Program, especially Aaron Passell, for creating a brave environment that our selected pieces could grow and thrive in. This edition of BCUR stands as a testament to the importance of works that push the zeitgeist into new forms of thought.

In the next year, we’re looking forward to building a consistent and growing staff, pulling in students from across the Barnard and Columbia communities to build on our understanding of the Urban across disciplines. In further building out our research infrastructure, we are hoping to publish our work within the Columbia University Archives system for community access, expanding our reach and establishing our legacy as the only urban studies journal and publication on campus and first undergraduate journal in the nation. This will work in tandem with the expanded engagement of our campus and community, aiming to build our relationship with New York City as students, researchers, and young people, as we explore different avenues through which to embody and experience the city. Holding BCUR as a space for community and critical engagement is of the utmost importance for our staff, as we aim to navigate a changing political climate and city.

Lastly, we would like to thank everyone that made this journal possible. To our writers, thank you for your interest, bravery, dedication, and patience through this process of editing and publishing your exceptional work. To our staff reviewers and senior editors, thank you for your commitment to academic expression and excellence as well as your compassion in working with our writers. To the Urban Studies Department, thank you for your continued support for all the BCUR stands for and allowing us to be the main student group aligned with the department. Last but not least, thank you to our incoming executive board members for your excitement and ambition.

In absolute gratitude,

The Barnard-Columbia Urban Review Executive Board

Senior Notes

Over the past four years, BCUR has become my informal academic home. As I have taken on more responsibility within the club—moving from Publicity Board member and peer reviewer to Publicity Director and contributing author—BCUR has not only shaped my relationship with Barnard and Columbia, but with New York City as a whole. It has been a pleasure to watch this organization flourish and I look forward to reading each issue as an alumna.

- Jacqueline Artiaga, BC '25

Starting out in BCUR as a first-year, looking to find an academic home, I am so grateful to have found such an incredible community. From starting out as web manager and launching the new website, to running events, to having the honor to serve as Co-Editor-in-Chief in my junior year, and finally, concluding my time with BCUR as a contributing author, it has been such a rewarding experience to be a part of this journal. I’ve met so many incredible people throughout my four years at BCUR, and I am excited to see how BCUR will continue to grow and evolve!

- Maya Felstehausen, BC '25

BCUR provided an awesome community of urban studies majors on campus, which is so important given our status within the university. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know everyone on the board and involved in the production of the journal and I wish BCUR all the best for the future!

- Abigail Jack, BC '25

I am so grateful to have found a home in BCUR over the last three years. Joining as a peer reviewer during my sophomore year was such a positive step in my academic journey, learning to trust myself as an editor as much as a writer. It has been a pleasure to serve on the executive board for the past two years. I have loved redesigning the print edition and I am so proud to have worked with the BCUR staff on each and every one. I am so excited to see where Madeleine, Ishaan, and the rest of the executive board take the journal next year and beyond. Thank you for letting me be a part of this incredible organization!

- Amanda Cassel, BC '25

JOYFUL DISRUPTIONS: BUSKING IN WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK

BY HELEN GOODMAN Barnard College ‘27

I. INTRODUCTION

On a beautiful autumn Monday afternoon, a cool breeze brushed my hair past my face as I sat and watched the passersby in Washington Square. People of all ages walked quickly by, likely coming from work or school. Many seemed to be enjoying the crisp fall weather, but only a few were stopping and taking their time as they made their way through. There was constant movement around me, a well-controlled traffic flow between the various people who found themselves in the park that day. Very little was disrupting this flow, with most people staying in their own worlds: staring straight ahead, eyes locked on a destination, and speeding through the park at a typical New Yorker pace. There was a sense of separation between these people, a feeling that each of them was headed to their own location without much consideration for the trip or what they saw on the way. And then something changed. I watched as one man stopped in front of my spot and took a flat, square shaped piece of wood out of his backpack. As I wondered what he could possibly be doing with it, he pulled out a bright blue pair of tap shoes! After lacing up, he started a song on a small cylindrical speaker and began to tap out a brisk rhythm. Few had stopped to watch him as he had gotten ready, but once he started tapping, no one could ignore him any longer. The formerly laser-focused and deeply invested passersby became distracted, disrupted by his performance. Gone were the isolated pathways of before—now everyone who walked by took at least a second to watch this new element in front of them. There was a sense of joy in the air: I watched as each person who noticed him felt a smile break across their face—“What a lovely surprise!” they seemed to think.

What I observed that Monday afternoon was not an anomaly in my fieldwork—the same pattern emerged every time I visited the park. When there was no busker, people were isolated, less connected to the world around them. When a busker was there, the atmosphere changed. The routes that people took were different and the ways in which they interacted with one another changed. The people that I spoke with expressed an overwhelming excitement about buskers in the park—they saw them as fun, freeing, and an unexpected reprieve from their troubles. Many said they felt especially connected to the buskers in Washington Square Park, as they saw the park as a place of expression and freedom.

As I visited the park over the course of my fieldwork, I saw how these buskers served as joyful disruptions to the everyday life of passersby. These disruptions pulled people out of their isolation and connected them with others through the medium of music. In my ethnography, in conversation with historical sources, I explore how this idea of joyful disruption is both place-specific to Washington Square Park, and connected to a broader view of buskers in the modern era as essential representations of freedom of speech and self-expression.

II. SETTING AND METHODS

Washington Square Park, located in Greenwich Village adjacent to New York University, sits on the west side of Lower Manhattan as one of the area’s most popular attractions. The neighborhood, sometimes known simply as “The Village” is famous for its offbeat culture, beautiful architecture, and proliferation of artistic types. The park has been home to a long history, as residents have gathered there for community, protest, shopping, and much more. It is hard to understate the impact on the neighborhood: you would be hard pressed to find a Village resident who hasn’t wandered through Washington Square Park.

The park is filled with residents of the area, people who have chosen to make the Village their home. There is a large variety of people in the neighborhood and in the park, but the common theme that drives these residents is their connection to the Village—if not much else. There is a long history of music in the park as well: in the mid-twentieth century, it became known for its connections to the folk music community, and the Beat poets who had begun to take over the area. The “beatnik riot” of 1961 solidified the park as a place of freedom of expression in the music world, and the culture of buskers and music stuck ever since. The history and culture connect residents, even if they are not aware of the specific events that have led to this culture—many expressed it as a general “vibe” of the neighborhood.

I chose the park because of these connections to the music world—I wanted to observe buskers and their interactions in the park, and as I’d frequently spent time enjoying the music of West Village buskers, I thought it would be an opportune area. I believe busking adds a particular character to a neighborhood and brings an interesting color to the day-to-day strolls in New York. I’d originally been interested in the politics of space—the ways in which musicians carve out space for themselves in the park, who gets to occupy what areas—but I quickly realized a more fascinating relationship to follow: that of the public with the musicians.

Twice a week, for about six weeks, I visited Washington Square Park, sat on a small bench in the same spot, and observed and interviewed buskers and passersby who happened to be there for a few hours. Though I’d spent a lot of moments in the park before, usually just exploring in my free time, enjoying some nice weather, I’d never spent any significant time just sitting and watching. I chose to primarily observe and question, as I thought the nature of my project would be best served by watching the action rather than partaking in it. While I sometimes joined in—dancing with a group of people drawn together by a large brass band, for example—I mostly enjoyed sitting back on my bench and taking notes. Of course, I couldn’t extract myself entirely; the buskers’ atmosphere inevitably affected me. But I tried to keep my feelings separate. I love busking—a project rooted in it would intrinsically reflect that. The trick was to see if others felt the same way.

This was what my research eventually centered around: the interactions of the public with buskers, and the effect buskers

reacted to the buskers—how did their music and performances affect the way everyday passersby interacted with the park and with each other? This became my research question, and I would sit on my bench, recording my observations to track these connections. I interviewed seven passersby during my time in the park, and their names have been omitted for privacy when their testimony is used in this report. Through my interviews and observations, I was able to closely watch how people reacted to buskers and understand how they felt after interacting with one in Washington Square Park.

III. LINKING THE STUDY TO OTHER RESEARCH

“How do you feel about buskers?” The man sitting next to me on the bench looked surprised, his eyebrows shooting up, as if he hadn’t been expecting to be asked this. We’d been sitting side by side for about 15 minutes without speaking, watching the small guitar band play Bob Dylan-esque chords and harmonize, when I introduced myself and asked if I could interview him for my school project on busking. He laughed nervously. “I don’t know… I guess I like them? It’s nice to hear music. But I don’t know.” I prodded him a bit more, trying to understand his apprehension to answer definitively. “I guess… it’s not that I don’t like them. They’re actually really nice when you’re in a park or something. I mean, you know, obviously I like them, I just sat here watching them for 20 minutes. But it’s just like… I don’t want to see them all the time. Like when I’m on the train, you know, at 7 AM or something, it can get annoying. But I love them here. I guess it has to do with place?” This man may have felt uncomfortable giving his opinion on buskers, but his response was actually fairly common throughout my interviews. Most people expressed an enjoyment of buskers in the park, but there was a certain level of apprehension for declaring a love of buskers in general.

This apprehension is a well studied phenomenon. Paolo Prato explores how the production of music is affected by the experience of the listener—including their positionality. As he puts it, “Art is where it is and not what it is” (Prato 1984, 155). While many of my interviewees expressed excitement and joyful surprise upon finding a busker in the park, their happiness did not translate into a love of buskers in every situation. This can hardly be seen as surprising, as most things that people claim a general love of might not be exciting in every situation. But it is apparent that the attitude around buskers is particularly place-specific. Repeatedly, people expressed a love of buskers in the park, but this love contrasted with a frustration at finding them in other spaces. Prato explains this balance as architectural shock: “Shock generates marvel only if it occurs within habitual coordinates, otherwise it generates fear. Shock is tied to an original experience, one that shakes the quotidian” (Prato 1984, 155). Habitual coordinates are places one is used to—those in which one has ideas and perceptions already formed, habits of thinking. It is possible that Washington Square Park exists as a habitual coordinate, as buskers seem to generate joy—but how did this happen? Why is it that so many people have strong connections to the buskers in Washington Square?

Washington Square Park, and New York in general, has long been home to buskers and artists looking to capitalize on the heavy foot traffic that characterizes the area. Historically, Greenwich Village nurtured “beatniks” and “hippies” who cemented its reputation as a hub for offbeat culture and free expression. Perhaps this is why the park is so friendly to buskers: every corner offers music and

entertainment, and you’d struggle to find someone who’s angered or upset by the constant proliferation of performers. Those who know the Village now would not be surprised by the buskers that populate every corner of the park, but the city’s relationship with them has evolved significantly—it is not necessarily a given that Washington Square Park welcomes buskers today.

Buskers were, for a long time, viewed as a disruption to city life and an unwelcome presence on the streets of New York. They branded vagrants: grifters stealing tax dollars and profiting off welfare programs to maintain a state of laziness. The early twentieth century’s immigrant wave brought a strong culture of public street performance that exploded all over the streets of New York. Many of these immigrants were poor, perceived as either disruptors of the peace or as indolent loafers exploiting welfare programs. In the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned all street music in the city, deeming it akin to begging and not a valid profession or expression. In “‘Industry Cannot Go On without the Production of Some Noise’: New York City’s Street Music Ban and the Sound of Work in the New Deal Era,” Robert Hawkins links this ban to the rising tide of anti-communist sentiment in New York. Street musicians were a conundrum for the administration that was determined to wipe welfare programs clean of those taking advantage of them. As Hawkins put it, “Were they trying to work, or trying to avoid work?” (Hawkins 2012, 110). Eventually, officials concluded they were attempting to avoid work—a verdict the public did not support.

New Yorkers were outraged by LaGuardia’s ban, emphasizing their enjoyment of the music and its importance in their lives: “Letter after letter echoed the sentiments of Janette Heslin, who insisted, ‘Hurdy-gurdy players are not beggars, not any more than any person who holds a job is a beggar. They work and are paid for it by donations of an enjoying public.’” (Hawkins 2012, 112). Heslin’s letter was published at the very time of the ban, reflecting the common sentiment that buskers’ music enhanced public spaces and constituted legitimate work. New Yorkers, at least those not in government positions, could agree that buskers were a welcome and enjoyable part of the city. This attitude was echoed by the people I spoke to in my interviews: many saw busking as “important” and “entertaining”; one woman even said, “I think they’re awesome, I think they’re great for the community… they’re really uplifting.”

“Uplifting?” I asked. “Why do you say that?” She paused, as if to take in the moment, decide how she felt. We were sitting in the park on a cool October day, my fingers stiff from the chilled air, and a hot coffee in her hand from a nearby stand. The musicians, a small jazz band a few feet away from us, were bundled up in coats and scarves. Despite the cold weather, there was a sense of cheer in the air, as people chatted and smiled as they walked past. She responded, “I just… it’s nice to know that where we are, people have the right to just stop and play music. It’s a nice reminder of the freedoms we have.” Sitting in Washington Square Park, it was hard not to think about the gravity of her words in the context of the area’s history. Of course, there was LaGuardia’s ban, but even more impactful on buskers of the Village was the folk riot, or “beatnik riot” of 1961.

With a new wave of anti-communist sentiment sweeping the nation, the artists and bohemians of New York faced increased scrutiny and public scorn as the folk movement built itself out of the American Communist movement (Baretta & Eyerman 1996). The movement was incredibly radical, and used music to process and react to the political and social injustices of the time. The folk musicians who lived

in and around the Village in the mid-twentieth century saw themselves as remaking the world, while the old order saw them tearing it down. The tensions built up into a riot in April 1961, when a group of buskers were denied permits to play in Washington Square Park one Sunday afternoon. The musicians organized a protest march in place of their usual strumming, which was met by riot police, resulting in the aforementioned “beatnik riot” (Rose 2011). My interviewee connected buskers’ “uplifting” nature to freedom. While she might not have known the history of the repression of busking in New York and Washington Square, it is certainly important to understand how this context created the culture of busking we know today.

I would often watch people’s expressions as they strolled past the various buskers. At first, a glance, and then, a double take. “Oh!” their eyes seemed to say, connecting the source of the noise they were hearing to the busker in front of them. It was as if the music brought them out of their isolation and into this collective space. Many of the people I would watch could seem incredibly disengaged, their eyes straight ahead to their destination, barely noticing the world around them. But the buskers would jolt them out of their stupor. There was a level of disruption to their connections.

It is these disruptions that I found the most interesting. In “‘BUSKERS, HUSTLERS, AND STREET PERFORMERS.’ Down and Out in New Orleans: Transgressive Living in the Informal Economy,” Peter Marina researched buskers in neighborhoods across New Orleans. Many of the buskers must decide if they are willing to risk arrest or harassment based on their performance—there are often ordinances on who can perform, for how long, what they’re allowed to do, and even the volume at which they are allowed to perform. While there are no such ordinances in Washington Square Park, there is certainly a level of performance management that must be acquired: buskers must make choices on how they perform and what the most effective mode of disruption will be. There is no qualification to these disruptions, just a choice to disrupt (Marina 2017). However, in contrast to New Orleans, the goals of those in Washington Square Park are more focused on connections than money-making. When interviewed about why they chose to busk, multiple interviewees replied to the effect of “spreading joy.” The aim of these buskers, disruptive as it may be, is joy. There is a love that underlies the busking—one that creates disruptions and connections based on joy.

Once, I watched as a man slowed down significantly in front of a busker playing a Joni Mitchell song. He smiled, pulled out his phone to film, and sat down next to me, quietly humming along. I eventually asked him why he stopped, and he said that the music reminded him of his sister. He had sent the video to her, he said, because she sang “River” at their middle school talent show. In “Predicting Music Appreciation with Past Emotional Responses to Music,” Robert Woody and Kimberly Burns explore how connections to music affect listeners’ appreciation. The authors theorized that when a person has had previous experiences with a type of music, they are more likely to connect with it emotionally in the future. This case showed an emotional connection based on a memory. But what if the emotional connection is based on a shared culture?

While this man connected to the buskers through personal nostalgia, others were drawn to the buskers’ music through their relationship with the park itself. As one woman aptly put it, “It’s the village, of course there are buskers.” Prato’s ideas of positionality are directly related to Woody and Burns’ ideas of emotional connection—art is

both where you are and how you relate to it. Buskers are part of the understood culture of Washington Square Park. This expectation fosters connection when they disrupt passersby: the buskers are rooted in the Village’s long tradition of free expression and artistry. Pedestrians might not love buskers in all places, but most can’t help but smile at one beneath the iconic Washington Square arches.

IV. MAJOR FINDINGS/THEMES OF THE STUDY

We connect to music based on our positionality and our emotional response, and the buskers in Washington Square Park prove that these two factors are more intertwined than we might think. Buskers exist in Washington Square Park as joyful disruptors. Their music takes isolated passersby and brings them into a shared connection with one another through music. In my fieldwork, I observed how pedestrians in the park interacted with and reacted to buskers, and how these reactions felt and were thought of as unique to the park. Most interviewees described their joy from buskers in the park as singular, a separate feeling from their ideas about buskers on the whole. This is because of the history and culture that has shaped busking in the park: buskers are not just musicians, but represent a larger culture of freedom of speech and expression.

While buskers writ large cannot be categorized easily into adjectives such as “joyful” or “annoying,” it is easier to do so to those in Washington Square Park because of their history and significance in the area. You cannot separate the buskers from their history. Without that history, it would be impossible to busk in the park at all. The right of these performers to exercise those ideals as they choose is tied back to their history of resistance, and because of this buskers have become part of the natural fabric of the park. This history created connections between the buskers' impact on the park and their existence in the modern era. As Americans, we have a strong connection to our freedom of expression, and the buskers in Washington Square embody that right.

By existing in a space of culture and history around busking, the buskers of Washington Square Park are able to connect with and disrupt the isolated worlds of the park’s pedestrians. Their “habitual coordinates” (Prato 1984) are based around their history, allowing buskers to connect with passersby through their music. By connecting with them on both a musical and emotional level, the buskers affect the worlds of passersby. Through this disruption, they bring a joyful experience which is rooted directly in the culture of music in Washington Square Park.

V. PROPOSAL FOR FUTURE STUDY

In another proposal informed by this research, I’d like to explore this idea of joyful disruption based in culture and history in other sites and cities. I’d first like to explore this in subways. Many of my interviewees described a distaste towards buskers on subways. This idea created the basis for my ideas of positionality and setting, and I think a further exploration of buskers throughout the New York subway system would inform and strengthen the research in this work. My focus would likely shift with this change, as I anticipate there to be a correlation between the enjoyment of buskers and the area in which they’re being experienced. On the subway, I’d expect to see the opposite of joyful disruption: the performances done on the subway are not rooted in the same history and culture, and therefore do not get the same treatment as the Washington Square Park buskers. That said, there is a different history and culture surrounding subway

connected their feelings in some manner to “the Village.” When I tried to understand more, most would simply say: “It’s just the culture here.” While I had a similar feeling in my own experiences, it was hard for me to understand why and how each of us had the same connections despite our different backgrounds and experiences. In the end, I traced this shared feeling to the park’s history. Without the understanding of how the park has functioned with and around buskers, it is impossible to understand the amorphous feeling of “The Village.”

My research connects this history with other research on music, and brings forward the idea that not only are people connected to music, but they are connected to the music of Washington Square Park. Based on my observations, it didn’t seem to matter as much what music was playing: there would always be someone who would have an emotional connection to music, because there is always that connection to the Village itself through its history. Further research could look into how people react to buskers in other situations—could history, in some ways, make a disruption which is not joyful? Though the park’s history makes a case for disruption that is joyful based on a prior connection to expression through music, I imagine some areas would have connections to music which create negative disruptions. For example, it could be jarring or uncomfortable to see a busker at a memorial site—or, depending on the context, it could be hopeful. My research, though based specifically on Washington Square Park, primarily explores how context affects our understanding of music and how the park’s context turned these buskers into joyful disruptors.

hjg2125@barnard.edu

REFERENCES

Eyerman, Ron, and Scott Barretta. “From the 30s to the 60s: The Folk Music Revival in the United States.” Theory and Society 25, no. 4 (1996): 501–43.

Hawkins, Robert. “‘Industry Cannot Go On without the Production of Some Noise’: New York City’s Street Music Ban and the Sound of Work in the New Deal Era.” Journal of Social History 46, no. 1 (2012): 106–23.

Marina, Peter. “BUSKERS, HUSTLERS, AND STREET PERFORMERS.” In Down and Out in New Orleans: Transgressive Living in the Informal Economy, 72–98. Columbia University Press, 2017.

Prato, Paolo. “Music in the Streets: The Example of Washington Square Park in New York City.” Popular Music 4 (1984): 151–63. Rose, Joel. “How the Beatnik Riot Helped Kick off the ’60s.” NPR, April 9, 2011.

Woody, Robert H., and Kimberly J. Burns. “Predicting Music Appreciation with Past Emotional Responses to Music.” Journal of Research in Music Education 49, no. 1 (2001): 57–70.

TELEVISIONS OF LITTLE EGYPT: URBAN TRANSNATIONALISM IN THE ESTABLISHMENTS OF LIT-

BY ERICA LEE Columbia College ‘26

INTRODUCTION

In Queens between 28th Avenue and Astoria Boulevard (Antos 2021), Steinway Street is home to Little Egypt—both a physical space and cultural community. Little Egypt’s retail and dining establishments feature flashing televisions broadcasting sports games, news, scenic slideshows, and other bright programming. To understand the cultural and social implications behind these screens, I visited restaurants, hookah lounges, grocery stores, and cafes specifically along Steinway Street, documenting my surroundings and interviewing patrons, owners, and workers. My research uncovered cultural connections within these threads of light and sound. Mimicking Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) establishments, I found that televisions act as expressions of transnational urbanism by providing a sense of familiarity to owners visiting patrons.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Little Egypt as an Immigrant Community

In 1839, Astoria was primarily a sprawling land of country homes and mansions (Fertitta and Aresu 2009, 121). However, rapid industrialization in the late 19th century generated abundant job opportunities that attracted immigrants from across Europe. People from Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, Ireland, and Greece began settling in Astoria, transforming it into the epicenter of diverse immigrant communities it is today (Fertitta and Aresu 2009, 124). The distinct title—Little Egypt—emerged in the 1960s and 70s. In 1956, Egypt fell under the oppressive presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser. (Bilefsky 2011). In the following decade, the United States passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which eliminated its nationality-based immigration admission system (Chishti et al., 2015). Its abolishment dissolved previous bias towards European immigrants, granting Egyptians, other Middle Easterners, and North Africans more opportunities to move into the U.S. (Chishti et al., 2015). In other words, both tensions at home and shifts in U.S. international policy resulted in the development of Little Egypt in Astoria.

Little Egypt’s Retail and Dining Establishment Development

In the 1960s, Little Egypt became home to Moroccans, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Algerians, and other Middle Easterners (Mahmoud 2015, 29). This population influx spurred significant residential and retail construction, creating many Arab, immigrant-owned businesses in the area (Rosenberg 2018), such as restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, travel agencies, and immigrant advocacy groups (Mahmoud 2015, 29). The area is not completely populated by Arab immigrants, but it is characterized by the high concentration of residents from the MENA region. Non-Arabian businesses in Little Egypt are mostly essential services, and many still employ and cater to MENA peoples (Mahmoud 2015, 29).

Little Egypt as a MENA Cultural Epicenter

Due to its high population density of Egyptians and people from MENA, Little Egypt became a hotspot for political activism during

the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. In her architecture graduate thesis “An Analysis of a Middle Eastern Enclave: Little Egypt,” author Dina Mahmoud noted the community’s reaction to the resignation of former autocratic president Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011, “the streets of Little Egypt performed as a public square in place of Tahrir Square. The public street in the enclave acts as the main congregation space; it is where people immediately head after a break of major news, and it is where they are able to freely express their political views collectively” (Mahmoud 2015, 50). Similarly, in a New Yorker article published immediately after Mubarak’s announcement, writers Will Oremus and Natalie Holt describe Egyptians throughout New York and New Jersey gathering in Little Egypt to celebrate the news (Oremus and Holt 2011). Their article highlighted the continued significance of this space among people of Middle Eastern heritage. Little Egypt as a MENA Cultural Media Hub

Little Egypt’s Steinway Street not only acts as a gathering place for Arab immigrants to join in political solidarity but also critically functions as a space to collectively consume common media. Restaurants and cafes lining the street provide Egyptians and other Arabs with politically and culturally important television broadcasts: The African Cup of Nations, the FIFA World Cup, Al Jazeera, and Al-Arabiya (Mahmoud 2015, 66). Freddy Tadros, an immigrant from Egypt, stated that he “drops by El Khayam Café regularly after work to take his hookah and watch Dream TV (an Arabic satellite network)” (Oremus and Holt 2011). Oremus and Holt’s 2011 article features interviews with five Egyptians who stated that Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern news network, was the most consumed news source for each of them (Oremus and Holt 2011). Played either out loud or on mute, these Middle Eastern programs are a contemporary mainstay due to the area’s strong Arab consumer base (Hertzberg 2011).

METHODOLOGY

The following analysis is informed by preliminary fieldwork sessions between March 17 and March 19 from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm. I then completed observational and interview-based research on March 25 from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm and March 26 from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm. According to my background research, four types of establishments generally contain televisions: hookah lounges, restaurants, cafes, and grocery stores. Therefore, I interviewed workers, patrons, and owners at these locations. (Note: Because I conducted this research during Ramadan, fewer stores were open in the afternoon.)

I visited the following hookah lounges: Legacy Bar, Jazmin Lounge, Vitta, Aladdin Lounge, Eastern Nights, Taj Mahal, and After 8. In my experience, most attendants initially focused on my presence as a potential customer. However, after I clarified my research goals, all establishments except for Eastern Nights and Legacy Bar turned me away. I stopped by grocery stores Watany and Al-Zahraa, but Watany turned me away because of language barriers. The only restaurant I visited was Dar Yemma, which was closing when I arrived around 9:00 pm, and I also visited Caffe Borbone and Caffe Expresso. At both cafes, I conducted my interviews with Karen, another East Asian student ethnographer studying coffee shop culture in Little Egypt.

At each establishment, I led with the question “What’s playing

on the TV?” As a community outsider, I did not want to come off as intrusive or aggressive, so I did not stick to a strict script, instead aiming to establish a friendly rapport. Because of this approach, I chose not to record the interviews. I tried to keep the conversation going naturally, asking about how long they had been a customer or employee, how often they changed the TV channel, how they saw other people interact with the TV, etc. I never directly asked the interviewees about their national origins, attempting to avoid the tokenization of their experiences. However, in every interview except for one, the interviewee offered their nationality, and in response, I generally asked if they immigrated to the U.S. Moreover, I was often identified as an immigrant myself. Interviewees would ask me where I was from, dissatisfied with an answer like “New York City” or “Manhattan.” In my opinion, these responses were never malicious but rather attempts to connect with me.

ANALYSIS

Transnationalism can be defined as the extension of social, cultural, and political practices across national borders (Datta 2013, 88). Transnational urbanism, a term coined in 2001 by Michael Peter Smith, is the process through which migrants can construct and reconstruct the changeable city to fit their identities as both migrants and permanent residents of a new space (Datta 2013, 91). Author Ayona Datta writes that the everyday lives of migrants “simultaneously incorporat[e] aspects of being ‘there’ and ‘here’” (Datta 2013, 92). [quote analysis] Through my research, I have found that the televisions in many of Little Egypt’s dining and retail establishments are expressions of transnational urbanism, creating an atmosphere similar to those in the MENA region and generating a sense of familiarity for the patrons of the cafes, hookah lounges, grocery stores, and restaurants that I visited.

To understand the connection between Little Egypt establishments and MENA establishments, it is necessary to outline how MENA establishments utilize televisions. Research on televisions in hookah lounges, restaurants, and grocery stores is limited. However, television culture in cafes has been an object of analysis for several MENA researchers. In his book The Al Jazeera Effect, Phillip Seib comments, “walk into cafés from Morocco to Kuwait and you’ll see that the television in the corner is tuned to Al Jazeera” (Seib 2010, 20). In Little Egypt, the presence of Al Jazeera, NY1, and CNN suggests a meshing of American and immigrant culture. Both the practice of

watching the news and the combination of featured stations demonstrate transnationalism in Little Egypt. Additionally, sociologist Said Graiouid argues that televisions not only affect the auditory and visual landscape of cafes but also instill a sense of “belonging” (Graiouid 2011, 544) through the act of group spectatorship. His research in Morocco found that most people watch TV in cafes not because they lack accessibility to the program but because they “want to partake of the playful and exciting café ambiance” (Graiouid 2011, 545).

The atmospheres and customer dispositions of Caffe Borbone and Caffe Expresso align with Graiouid’s accounts (Figure 1 and Figure 2). Both cafes primarily served espresso drinks, providing cushioned seating areas for customers and displaying large televisions in the back. At a low volume, Caffe Borbone played CNN and Caffe Expresso NY1. In Caffe Borbone I spoke with Mikhail, a customer who recently immigrated to the US from Montenegro. He explained that the large European lifestyle and community attracted him to Little Egypt. When I asked him if he was watching the news on the TV, he waved his hand and said that no one actually watched it. When I asked him why it was on then, he responded, “just is.” Mikhail also specifically shared that he strongly believes that cafes must have a TV and comfortable seats for people to watch soccer. Idlir, an Albanian immigrant and frequenter of Caffe Borbone, added that when soccer games are on—especially when Morocco is playing—many gather to watch, so it can be hard to find a seat. His description revealed that televisions play an important role in creating community spaces within Little Egypt. I asked him why people might watch at a cafe instead of at home or at a sports bar, which is more common in the U.S. He seemed confused at my question before responding that in Albania, cafes are the main places to view sports games. Mikhail and Idlir’s perspectives demonstrate that televisions are common cafe features that serve similar community building purposes in both their native countries and Little Egypt.

On March 26, Zaki, the host of Dar Yemma and a Moroccan immigrant, explained that he uses the TV in the back of his restaurant solely for playing music (Figure 3). He showed me how he switches between different North African music playlists on YouTube, increasing the volume as the night progresses and patrons become more comfortable in the restaurant (Figure 4). Zaki’s use of the television was purely auditory, selecting videos of live bands, orchestras, and unchanging album covers without discrimination. Interestingly enough, when asked about the kinds of sound systems that they have

Figure 2: Caffe Expresso

Figure 1: Caffe Borbone

in Morocco, he simply told me that they were like the Dar Yemma television-speaker set up and that the owners wanted the restaurant’s interior to emulate Moroccan dining experiences. In other words, the television’s installation was more customary than practical, mimicking the function of TVs in North Africa in an attempt to create a welcoming and familiar atmosphere for Moroccan patrons.

Grocery store televisions were also examples of transnational urbanism. Although the stores I encountered did not seem to actively and intentionally evoke familiarity through their TVs, they did demonstrate TVs’ customary nature. In the grocery stores Al Zahraa and Watany, televisions hung above the cashier stations, occupying central locations and demarcating the front of the shop (Figure 5 and Figure 6). From the window of his large black car, Richy, the owner of Al Zahraa, explained that he opened his store 25 years ago after immigrating from Dubai. He usually played Arabic music videos on the television, but out of respect to Ramadan, he played YouTube audio recordings of the Quran (Figure 7). He seemed a little confused when I asked about the television and music, brushing off my question by stating that all the stores in the area have the same set up. When asked how customers seemed to react to the television and music, he said that he enjoys the music, and the customers seem to like it too. He plays the television because he thinks the store would feel “odd” without it.

Hookah lounges on Steinway Street, like those in the MENA region, feature televisions solely for patrons’ comfort and entertainment. Before turning me away because of my research interests, attendants at both the Jazmin Lounge and Eastern Nights offered to change the channel to suit my liking. Furthermore, the abundance and orientation of televisions granted anyone a clear view of at least one screen. These screens provided a majority of the light, and none of the lounges had the sound turned on. An anonymous attendant at the Taj Mahal hookah lounge found that people do not come for ESPN or Channel 1; they seem to enjoy it in the background, demonstrating how televisions play a role in setting a tone and feeling of hookah lounges (Figure 9). At Legacy Bar, an attendant named Ali told me that the bar sees a wide crowd of Moroccans, Arabs, Algerians, and more (Figure 8). He explained that people mostly come to the hookah lounge to watch sports or play games while chatting. In his experience, hookah bars in both Little Egypt and the MENA region have a television-based sports culture. In other words, hookah bar televisions cater to individual patrons, produce light, and provide visual entertainment to create familiar atmospheres for customers from the MENA region.

CONCLUSION

Cafes screened sports games and the news, restaurants played

Figure 4: Dar Yemma television

Figure 3: Dar Yemma

Figure 6: Taj Mahal

Figure 5: Legacy Bar

music, grocery stores featured music videos and cultural content, and hookah lounges provided all kinds of entertainment programs to cater to patrons’ desires. Whether or not the patrons actively watched the screens, each establishment I visited featured a television that influenced the store’s visual and auditory atmosphere. Plus, irrespective of whether establishment workers and owners intentionally or unintentionally used televisions to evoke a connection between the Little Egypt community and MENA region, these screens were identified as commonplace features in both locations. Overall, the televisions of Little Egypt act as expressions of transnational urbanism by mimicking establishments in the Middle East and North Africa and creating a sense of familiarity for their patrons.

el3193@columbia.edu

REFERENCES

American Social History Project Staff. “Living in Little Egypt | Now and Then: An American Social History Project Blog.” Accessed March 4, 2023. https://nowandthen.ashp.cuny.edu/2009/10/ living-in-little-egypt/.

Antos, Jason D. “Walk Like an Egyptian Along Astoria’s ‘Little Egypt.’” Give Me Astoria (blog), April 19, 2021. https://givemeastoria. com/2021/04/19/walk-like-an-egyptian/.

Ball, Muzaffar Chishti, Faye Hipsman Muzaffar Chishti, Faye Hipsman, and Isabel. “Fifty Years On, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act Continues to Reshape the United States.” migrationpolicy.org, October 15, 2015. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/ article/fifty-years-1965-immigration-and-nationality-act-continues-reshape-united-states.

Bilefsky, Dan. “Converging on Little Egypt, With Anger and Hope.” The New York Times, January 31, 2011, sec. New York. https://www. nytimes.com/2011/01/31/nyregion/31astoria.html.

Datta, Ayona. “Diaspora and Transnationalism in Urban Studies,” 88–105, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118320792.ch5.

Fahmy, Bynadine. “How 2 Women Are Keeping NYC’s ‘Little Egypt’ Alive amid Racism, Gentrification & Coronavirus.” SceneArabia. Accessed March 4, 2023. http://www.SceneArabia.com/Life/ Egyptian-American-Women-New-York-s-Little-Egypt-CommunitySteinway-Street.

Fertitta, Naomi, and Paul Aresu. New York: The Big City and Its Little Neighborhoods. New York, NY: Universe, 2009. http://books. google.com/books?id=W_opAQAAMAAJ.

Graiouid, Said. “A Place on the Terrace: Café Culture and the Public Sphere in Morocco.” Accessed April 3, 2023. https://doi. org/10.1080/13629380701480568.

Hershman, Robert, and Jr. Henry L. Griggs. “American Television News and the Middle East.” Middle East Journal 35, no. 4 (1981): 481–91.

Hertzberg, Hendrik. “Café Society.” The New Yorker, February 13, 2011. https://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/ caf-society.

Kasinitz, Philip. “The Sociology of Middle-Eastern Americans.” Sociological Forum 26, no. 3 (2011): 711–14.

Mahmoud, Dina. “An Analysis of a Middle Eastern Enclave: Little Egypt.” The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Arts and Architecture, 2015.

Noonan, Douglas S., Daniel C. Matisoff, and Nathanael Z.

Hoelzel. “Characteristics of Voluntary Behavior in the Neighborhood Commons: The Case of Dog Parks.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 45, no. 4_suppl (August 1, 2016): 78S-96S. https://doi. org/10.1177/0899764016651728.

Oremus, Will, and Natalie Holt. “Five in Little Egypt.” The New Yorker, February 13, 2011. https://www.newyorker.com/news/ news-desk/five-in-little-egypt.

Pan, Joann. “Arab Americans Tired of Alleged Racial Profiling by NYPD.” Pavement Pieces, December 20, 2011. https://pavementpieces.com/arab-americans-tired-of-alleged-racial-profiling-by-nypd/. Rosenberg. “Little Egypt,” 2018. https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny. edu/genyc/2018/05/10/background-history/.

Sakr, Naomi. “Satellite Television and Development in the Middle East.” Middle East Report, no. 210 (1999): 6–8. https://doi. org/10.2307/3012492.

Seib, Phillip. “The Al Jazeera Effect.” Journal of Middle East Media 6, no. 1 (September 2010): 1–9.

Slackman, Michael. “Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian Leader Ousted in Arab Spring, Dies at 91.” The New York Times, February 25, 2020, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/world/africa/hosnimubarak-dead.html.

UNDERGROUND BATTLES: COMMUNITY, LEGITIMACY, AND PROTEST IN SUBWAY BUSKING

BY SOFIA ROJAS Barnard College ‘27

ENTERING THE STATION

As I descended the escalator on another Friday evening, expecting the usual chatter and sound of rushing feet of the Times Square subway station, I was instead greeted by the powerful sound of 80’s music. I was overwhelmed by the sight in front of me. Positioned against the wall were three men, one ferociously hitting his drumsticks against a drum set—drumsticks that would break a total of four times throughout the performance—another flinging his fingers across the strings of his guitar, and the third with his own guitar and a voice he would project powerfully into the microphone. The singer would approach his audience, one hand gripping the microphone stand and the other being pumped into the air. The participants in this interaction, including myself, were transformed audience members, jumping in unison, throwing fisted hands into the air in response, and some throwing money into the open guitar case. Throughout my visits, I would come to realize buskers rely on this audience interaction to build their legitimacy as performers. In exchange, buskers create a temporary sense of community through shared enjoyment.

Behind the band was a banner labeled “Music Under New York” (MUNY), and under the label was the lead singer’s name printed in big and bold letters. This was an identification of the MUNY program administered by the MTA. The program authorizes accepted participants to perform in designated subway stations and during provided time frames—thereby legitimizing their agency to perform.

However, not all buskers are program participants. There were performers who lacked institutional backing like an individual I refer to as the Spanish Singer. Singing with nothing but a speaker at his side and a bucket at his feet to collect donations, he sang impressively into the microphone, demanding an audience like the 80’s band. However, a few minutes after I arrived to observe the performance, a police officer approached the Singer and made a motion to turn down the volume and cease busking. Once the police officer was no longer in sight, the Spanish Singer continued to sing as if the interaction never occurred—this was an act of resistance. Buskers like the Spanish Singer rely solely on audience participation, while performers like the 80’s band strengthen their legitimacy through the MUNY program. Those left without this legitimization and therefore unauthorized to perform in the subway, are subject to the authority of the police and the MTA.

Throughout my visits, I became increasingly aware of the temporary relationships forged in the subway, as well as the presence—or absence—of the MUNY banners. In this paper I argue that the relationship between the busker and audience member fosters mutual gain, creating unlikely forms of legitimacy and community-bridging amidst the often-isolated nature of New York’s public transit system. However, this legitimacy building is shifted from the audience member to outside regulatory forces such as the MUNY program. This subjects the illegitimate busker to the authority of police and the MTA. Still, I argue the busker themself and the audience member

can reaffirm the busker’s legitimacy through subtle protest such as continuing to play in defiance of institutional authority.

This conversation raises broader questions about institutional control over public spaces: who has the right to occupy them, and importantly, who has the right to transform them? My research will highlight this tension and the contested nature of public space.

SITE AND METHODS

Over the course of seven weeks, I visited the New York Times Square 42nd-street subway station. The station’s busy hallway passageways ensured fruitful interaction between buskers and audience members. I typically began my research in one central area of the station, moving to another if buskers were not present—which was rare. Most of my fieldwork is conducted by the Port Authority exit. The exit is a long walkway in which individuals can access different train routes; it also leads into other sections of the station. Throughout my research, I identified four key actors: walkers, audience members, buskers, and regulatory forces. Walkers are those who move throughout the space and frequently transform into audience members. Audience members are those who abandon their normal routine to observe and contribute to the busker’s performance. Buskers are individuals who perform some form of entertainment in a public setting, often for monetary donations. Lastly, regulatory forces—groups such as police, MTA employees, and the MUNY program—act to either disrupt or legitimize the busker.

My research is based on three methods: passive and active observations, as well as interviews. As a passive observer, I served as a spectator to both the busking performances and the reactions of the audience. I would frequently lean against a nearby structure, such as a pillar, maintaining a distance from both the busker and the audience to capture the interaction. I also engaged in active observations, transforming into an audience member and interacting with buskers through applause and donations. Additionally, central to my findings, I interviewed buskers. I would wait until it was clear they were taking a break, then introduce myself as an ethnographer and explain my research before asking if they could spare a moment. My questions focused on their experiences, motivations, issues with the police, and involvement with the MUNY program. Of the seven buskers I interviewed, I was only rejected once, signaling that most buskers were open to conversation. Often, the discussions extended beyond busking into more personal topics—something I had not expected in the typically isolated nature of New York City subways. Prior to this study, I would have characterized the subway station as a site of isolation and bustling activity, unfit for human interaction and connection—like many other resident New Yorkers. Now I perceive it as a location of community-bridging and a site of extensive contestation concerning the right of performance.

THE MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP: COMMUNITY-BRIDGING

The concept of “transitory communities,” coined by Susie J. Tanenbaum (1995, 105), perfectly reflects the observations I have made of the relationship between the busker and audience member. It describes communities that are characterized by their impermanence

yet have the ability to produce meaningful connections. Through their performances—and the mechanisms they employ to engage with audience members—buskers temporarily bridge the paths of individuals, drawing them from their daily routines to collectively share an experience. For instance, on October 18, 2024, I met the Hip Hop Duo, who I would encounter multiple times throughout my visits. They positioned themselves in the same area for every performance: in the hallway by the Port Authority exit, in between two pillars. They shared one speaker and each held a microphone, in which they would rhyme and wordplay over a beat. Importantly, the duo would strategically incorporate walkers into their rhyme scheme by pointing out specific characteristics they observed: “thank you for the smile have a lovely day,” “shoutout to the mom with the double stroller,” and “I like the way your ponytail swings in the hall.”

For a moment, walkers are transformed from “passing by to a passive audience member to a music-making participant” (Litos et al. 2023, 140). They become central to the busker’s performance, creating an “interpersonal engagement with urban life, a brief identity change” (Litos et al. 2023, 140). I too was transformed. I initially approached my interviews with the duo with an ethnographic agenda; they later turned into casual conversations in which we would exchange personal updates. We would acknowledge one another when our paths would cross, and in those moments, I was no longer an ethnographer, but a member of this subway community.

On October 12, 2024, I met the Salsa Skeleton Dancer, who fostered this community-bridging through his own tactics. The busker dances with a skeleton doll-like figure named Lupita to Latin music. Lupita’s feet are attached to his own and her arms draped over his neck. While dancing, the busker takes his hands, places them on Lupita’s hips and moves them in a circular motion. He moves around the open subway space, which becomes his stage, and throughout the crowd surrounding him. In one interaction, the Dancer approached a little boy. He gets close enough to the boy where Lupita is almost touching his face, enacts his signature hip move, and gives Lupita a kiss on the mouth. Those watching either scrunched their faces or laughed in amusement. In this moment, “[t] he shared experience of music fostered temporary but memorable connections between strangers” (Durso 2011, 80). By interacting with each audience member, the Salsa Skeleton Dancer bridges isolated individuals together, uniting them in the shared experience of the performance. Whether through playful choreography with a skeleton doll-like figure or personalized shout outs from a Duo with microphones, both forms of busking foster moments of transitory connection in the subway space.

THE MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP: LEGITIMACY-BUILDING

The audience member not only observes and participates in the busker’s performance, but legitimizes the busker through recognition and engagement. During our interview, the Skeleton Salsa Dancer recounted his first busking experience. Holding Lupita in his arms, he took off his sombrero, placed a dollar in it, and closed his eyes. In half an hour, he had earned fifteen dollars, deciding at that moment this would be his career.

During the two hours I observed the Dancer, walkers transformed into audience members, taking out their phones, recording videos, donating money, or simply standing and offering a smile or a laugh. In one observation, a Hispanic father grabbed his daughter and started dancing along with the Dancer and Lupita. This interaction legitimizes the presence of the busker. By interrupting the fast-paced structure

of the subway station, they become actors significant to its informal structure. They are legitimized as performers through the presence, praise, and donations of their audience.

This was a pattern. During the Hip Hop Duo’s performance, walkers would stand across the walkway, listen for a brief period, offering a smile and at times a donation. Any form of acknowledgement, such as a simple smile or snaps along to the beat, signals social acceptance. One man approached the Duo, extended his fist to bump theirs, and said, “now that’s real hip hop.” In another instance involving the Spanish Singer, a man was standing against a pillar adjacent to my own, observing the performance. He later approached the Singer and said he appreciated the Latin music he was singing.

A busker is legitimized in their role as a performer by audience reception and recognition. Thus, the audience member holds this informal authority to legitimize the performer’s presence in the subway through verbal and physical gestures.

REGULATORY FORCES - THE MUNY PROGRAM, POLICE, AND THE MTA

This legitimizing power, however, is shifted from the performer to outside regulatory forces like the MUNY program and incentivizes subway regulators like police and the MTA to act against unsanctioned performers. Holly Durso’s “Subway Spaces as Public Places: Politics and Perceptions of Boston’s T” clarifies the motivations behind this shift. Through her exploration of the transit system in Massachusetts she suggests, “the institution is continually exerting its dominance over the space and striving to sustain a public image of an organization that gets things done in an orderly fashion” (Durso 2011, 88). Thus, regulatory policies or programs like MUNY are initiated to control and filter public perception of the subway space

This is evident through an examination of the program’s website and an understanding of the program structure. The MUNY program is administered by the MTA to “transform the transit environment for customers” (MTA Music, n.d.). MTA Music, the larger organization, holds auditions every year. Interested buskers must submit an online application and perform in front of a group of judges. Accepted applicants are then given scheduled times and days in which they are assigned to specific subway stations on a biweekly basis. They are also given banners to display during their scheduled performances. I argue these banners are a form of legitimization that creates a distinction between “sanctioned” and “unsanctioned” performers. Jane McMahan in “Subway Performance: An Excavation” defines “sanctioned performers” as buskers accepted by the MUNY program, and unsanctioned performers as “a precious endangered species” that are hard to control and spontaneous in origin (McMahan 1996, 160). In other words, unsanctioned buskers, due to the informal and spontaneous nature of their craft, do not perform within the structure of strict schedules and designated locations the MTA seeks to enforce through the MUNY program. Thus, this difference in organization poses a threat to the control the MTA hopes to foster. I first encountered the MUNY program through a group of opera singers. With the large MUNY banner behind them, the group of four took turns performing. When approaching them for a conversation, I asked if they believed the program was accessible for all groups of individuals, seeing as not all buskers I observed in the subway performed with a banner. They asserted that the program is designed to be accessible to all forms of art and music and the yearly auditions attempt to accept as many buskers as possible. After our

conversation I remained to enjoy a bit more of the performance. I noted that police and MTA employees took notice of the performance but did not interfere in any capacity.

The sentiment of MUNY accessibility was not shared, however, by non-participants in the program. In fact, following my conversation with the opera singers, I approached the Hip Hop Duo and questioned if they were familiar with the program. Their response redefined the perception of MUNY I was initially provided. The Duo explained they auditioned for the program on multiple occasions and were rejected each instance. In fact, they emphasized the program does not have a hip-hop category and hinted at a level of discrimination within its structure due to misconceptions related to this category of music. Perhaps hip hop does not align with the orderly “transit environment” the MUNY program is intended to foster. While these claims require further investigation, questions arise concerning the extent of the program’s inclusivity.

The Hip Hop Duo become unsanctioned performers and are excluded from the privilege of MUNY legitimization. The effects of such exclusion were strikingly visible. On a different occasion, the Hip Hop Duo recounted issues with MTA employees. The Duo is restricted to areas of the station with accessible outlets as they need the ability to charge their speaker, a necessary tool of their performance. However, MTA employees began to fill the outlet holes with an unidentified material, making it so they are no longer able to busk in those areas. As unsanctioned performers, or non-participants of the MUNY program, the Duo were left vulnerable to subway regulators such as the MTA. The Skeleton Salsa Dancer recounted a similar experience during our interview. I would later come to know the Dancer was a current member of the program, however prior to gaining this authorization, he was consistently removed by police and described an instance in which he received a fifty-dollar ticket. The Spanish Singer, also unauthorized, was told to lower the volume of his speaker by police. Kenton Cummings provides useful language to interpret this distinction between the authorized and unauthorized performer. Rather than the public affirming the approval of buskers through donations and small gestures, this power of affirmation is transferred to outside regulatory forces, affecting public perception of the busker (Cummings 2016). I further advance his notions by arguing that not only may public perception shift, but the perception of police and MTA employees. McMahan corroborates this idea by emphasizing that “the Transit Police have increased their harassment and arrests of those who are not in the city program” (McMahan 1996, 179). She further asserts,“[t][t]her system is loaded in favor of the polished professional” (McMahan 1996, 180). This is clearly observed through the differences in police and MTA treatment of authorized and unauthorized buskers.

Thus, I position the MUNY program as an arbiter of legitimacy, creating the perceived differences—visible through distinctions in police treatment and the MUNY banner—between the legitimate and illegitimate busker. Importantly, the shift from public affirmation to institutional affirmation robs unsanctioned buskers of their agency to perform.

PROTEST

However, I noticed that the legitimacy-building authority of the individual busker and their audience member was not permanently lost. Joseph Williams in his examination of busking in Australia arrived at a similar realization. He argues that buskers engage in a phenomena named “asking for forgiveness, not permission” (Williams

2023, 203). Specifically, buskers engage in “a form of protest and an assertion of their right to a livelihood, when they all too often find themselves beneath consideration by the powers that manage public space” (Williams 2023, 190). The Spanish Singer, for instance, engaged in this practice by continuing to perform despite police instructions to turn down the volume and cease busking. In fact, buskers engage in this protest simply through their continual presence in the face of MUNY’s implementation. In other words, despite the clear distinction between the legitimate and illegitimate performer forwarded by MUNY’s existence, buskers like the Spanish Singer continue to perform despite their illegitimate status.

The audience member may engage in this practice as well by continuing to legitimize buskers left unsupported by institutions. The distinction between participants and non-participants of the MUNY program is made clear by the presence or absence of the program’s banner. Therefore, the audience member can distinguish between the legitimate and illegitimate busker. When the audience member continues to contribute monetary donations or offers a smile in response to an illegitimate busker’s performance, they reaffirm the busker’s legitimacy. For instance, when the officer told the Spanish Singer to lower his music and leave, the crowd dispersed, except for myself and another audience member. That man approached the Spanish Singer, asked him what had occurred, shook his head, and dropped money into the bucket by his feet. In protesting the police’s obstructive action, by giving a donation, the audience member simultaneously reclaims their authority and reaffirms the busker’s legitimacy.

DISCUSSION

While there is notable research regarding public space, the restriction of it, and busking, none explore these broad concepts in the specific local context that I do—that context being the 42nd streetTimes Square Station and regulatory forces like MUNY. Through my empirical research, in conversation with relevant scholarship, I have presented three major findings that advance current literature concerning subways and public space. The first is that buskers and their audience members form a beneficial relationship that bridges communities and builds legitimacy. The subway, often a site of isolation, is transformed into a space where buskers engage with audience members through strategic means and bridge unlikely individuals together through shared laughter and enjoyment. The audience member in return engages in legitimizing behavior, such as providing monetary donations or applause, and affirms the busker’s right to occupy space in the subway.

The second finding illustrates the power of outside regulatory forces like MUNY and their ability to shift legitimacy-making from the audience member to themselves. The banner represents the authorization of MUNY and becomes a legitimizing force, creating a divisive distinction between the illegitimate and legitimate busker. This distinction is observed through the actions of police and MTA employees, specifically through their use of authoritative power to obstruct the busking of unauthorized performers.

The third and final finding warns to not underestimate the self-authority of the busker and their audience members. Despite the authoritative control employed by regulatory forces, buskers continue to assert their right to perform, engaging in acts of subtle protest. In fact, their presence alone is an act of protest. Additionally, audience members can aid buskers in their protest by continuing to engage in legitimacy-building actions. In other words, by offering applause or

interrupting their daily routine to observe the performance of a busker deemed illegitimate, audience members reaffirm the busker's right to occupy subway space.

WAIT, THE SUBWAY IS A PUBLIC SPACE?

Traditional discussions of public space often include parks and sidewalks but can be repurposed to appreciate the contributions of subway stations and busking in shaping understandings of contested public space. Present scholarship characterizes public space as locations where “urban populace gather and are subject to state authority and oversight” (Durso 2011, 26). Subways, evident through my research, gather the urban populace, and transform them into audience members. State authority and oversight is further illustrated through regulatory forces such as the MUNY program which subjects members of the urban populace—specifically buskers—to restrictions. Subway stations thus become sites of political contestation raising “questions about individual rights and freedoms in public space versus institutional capacity and authority to control or limit those rights” (Durso 2011, 26). Who has the right to transform a public space? Is it the busker? Or is it the outside institutional forces that govern these spaces? And why? Interestingly, Holly Durso questions: “is there something inherently unique about subway spaces that calls for heightened levels of institutional regulations over acceptable behaviours in and users of the space? Or are subway authorities merely exploiting this narrative to justify cautious overregulation of power hungry institutional motives?” (Durso 2011, 28). The answer to such a question cannot be found in my research alone.

The themes I have explored—community-bridging, legitimacy-building, legitimacy-shifting, and protest—are not unique to subway spaces. But the context in which I have observed them in subway space is enlightening and calls for a greater movement to centralize subway space in discussions of contested public space. There is much to learn.

smr2268@barnard.edu

REFERENCES

Cummings, Kenton. “The Busk Below.” Rochester Institute of Technology, no. 10118065 (January 1, 2016). http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/ busk-below/docview/1803627439/se-2.

Durso, Holly Bellocchio. “Subway Spaces as Public Places: Politics and Perceptions of Boston’s T,” 2011. https://dspace.mit. edu/handle/1721.1/66801.

Litos, Ioannis, and Eirini Papadaki. “‘If You Play Some Good Music, People Immediately Understand It’: Audience Response to Busking.” International Journal of Community Music 16, no. 2 (July 1, 2023): 135-53. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijcm_00079_1.

McMahan, Jane. “Subway Performance: An Excavation.” The Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 4 (March 1, 1996): 159-80. https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1996.00159.x.

MTA. “MTA MUSIC,” n.d. https://new.mta.info/agency/arts-design/ music.

Norman, Benjamin. MUNY Banner. June 7, 2024. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/nyregion/subway-musicians-auditions-mta.html.

Tanenbaum, Susie J. Underground Harmonies: Music and Politics

in the Subways of New York. Cornell University Press, 1995. Williams, Joseph. “Ask Forgiveness, Not Permission: Busking, Community and Contempt.” International Journal of Community Music 16, no. 2 (July 1, 2023): 195-213. https://doi.org/10.1386/ ijcm_00080_1.

IN DEFENSE OF CONGESTION PRICING

BY JACQUELINE ARTIAGA Barnard College '25

On June 4th, 2024, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the indefinite pause of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) congestion pricing project, just 26 days before its scheduled launch. This unexpected decision sent shockwaves through the transportation sector and raised concerns about the future of transit initiatives in New York City. Congestion pricing is designed to reduce traffic congestion while generating funds for transit improvements and lowering emissions. However, while the MTA’s plan targets these objectives, it has faced opposition over concerns about its impact on low-income communities. Governor Hochul’s decision, framed as protecting “the little guy,” underscores deeper debates surrounding equity and the challenges of implementing such a policy.

The congestion pricing plan’s revival on November 22, 2024, signaled a shift in strategy, with Governor Hochul lowering the peak toll from $15 to $9 to ease concerns about its impact on low-income drivers. This move was part of a broader effort to secure the program’s progress while balancing political and equity considerations. The plan, which draws parallels to congestion pricing case studies found in London and Singapore, aims to reduce congestion, improve air quality, and provide critical funding for transit improvements. Early data from New York’s program demonstrate the benefits of congestion pricing, from increasing public transit usage to generating revenue.

THE HISTORY AND THEORY BEHIND CONGESTION PRICING

Congestion pricing, as it is understood today, was coined by economist William S. Vickrey in 1963. To contextualize his proposal, Vickrey referenced charges assumed for goods and services that had a “peak” time such as movie theaters charging more during the weekend; this outlines a pricing structure that fluctuates as a result of demand (Vickrey 1963, 452). For transportation, Vickrey highlights that the costs associated with city streets have been hidden as the space has been dedicated for the public for decades, and understanding its scarcity is not conceptualized without cost (Vickery 1963, 454). Essentially, road users should pay the full external cost associated with using a public good. Strategies like congestion pricing allow drivers to internalize the costs associated with transportation infrastructure, connecting users to the real costs of using supposedly free infrastructure.

Congestion pricing in practice conforms to an array of strategies, including corridor pricing, cordon pricing, area pricing, fleet/vehicle pricing, road usage charge, and highway pricing, among others (The New Transportation Demand Management). In New York City, the MTA plan included a cordon pricing strategy to address congestion issues within its Central Business District (CBD). This model sets a boundary around a congested area, the CBD, and charges drivers a fee to enter or cross that

boundary. Typically, the required fee fluctuates to reflect demand, as justified by Vickrey. By promoting a market-based solution to traffic by incentivizing off-peak travel or alternative transportation modes, congesting pricing lowers road usage while improving air quality and generating funds for future projects.

POLICY CONCERN:

THE NEED FOR CONGESTION PRICING IN NYC

In New York City, MTA’s congestion pricing plan set out to reduce traffic, with the added benefits of lowering emissions and funding infrastructure improvements. Within Manhattan, the CBD is most affected by the high usage of single occupancy vehicles; the MTA’s page dedicated to congestion pricing notes that the average travel speed is 7.1 mph, a 23% decrease since 2010. To decongest the CBD, the MTA’s plan features a distinct boundary in which the toll is in effect, a tolling schedule based on peak usage times, and discounts and exemptions for individuals who would be otherwise burdened by the fee.

By establishing a cordon pricing system, the MTA intends to reduce the number of vehicles entering the CBD by charging a fee during peak hours, encouraging drivers to seek alternative modes of transportation or travel during less busy times. The zone encapsulates the entire southern end of Manhattan, stretching from 60th Street to the Battery. All local streets and avenues are included in the zone while expressways like the West Side Highway and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel are excluded from paying the fee. The plan anticipates a 5% reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT), which would directly reduce congestion (MTA n.d.). All vehicles would be billed through a cashless system, ensuring that congestion-related infrastructure and resulting costs are minimized. However, not all users are required to pay the full amount.

While some argue that congestion pricing may unfairly burden low-income individuals, the MTA has incorporated discounts and exemptions in the spirit of transportation equity. Individuals can enroll in the Low-Income Discount or Tax Credit Plan or qualify for the Individual Disability Exemption Plan (MTA n.d.). The 50% discount helps mitigate potential inequities, allowing the program to achieve its goals without unfairly penalizing low-income drivers (MTA n.d.). Other exemptions are provided for school buses, emergency vehicles, and government-owned vehicles. Therefore, the congestion pricing plan is adjusted to support individuals of various income levels along with exempting specific vehicles that serve a public purpose.

The MTA’s congestion plan entails a specific boundary, peak toll rates, and programs to lower or exempt individuals from payment. This exhibits an equitable and progressive program. Far from showing malice toward “the little guy” as suggested by Governor Hochul, the program tailors its fees based on individual circumstances, accommodating those seeking access to the CBD. While more detailed analysis will follow in subsequent sections, the plan’s parameters align with the fundamental goals of congestion pricing, suggesting it could yield significant benefits for New York City’s transportation system and environment.

CASE STUDIES: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES IN OTHER CITIES

Examining the key elements of the MTA’s congestion pricing plan—its boundary, toll schedule, and provisions for discounts and exemptions—suggests that the program could effectively limit congestion while generating revenue for future transportation projects. To better understand its potential, it is useful to explore international examples that show congestion pricing in practice, contrasting these with scenarios where such initiatives were halted. Comparable to New York, London’s congestion pricing plan stands out as a notable example, while the experience of Manchester underscores how public skepticism can undermine similar efforts. Additionally, Singapore, which has the longest-standing congestion pricing program in the world, demonstrates a successful implementation in a non-Western city while highlighting the benefits of policy refinement. These three case studies reveal the benefits of congestion pricing, as well as the challenges and pitfalls the MTA must navigate to successfully advocate for this policy.

London’s congestion pricing program outlines goals that are similar to the MTA’s: a reduction in congestion and the accumulation of funds to support future transportation endeavors. It has achieved those goals. Implemented in 2003, London created a zone in which individuals would be charged a toll upon entering, a cordon pricing model. The zone was centered around the city’s CBD and its effects are notable. The average traffic delay has reduced by 30% and the average speed is around 17 km/hr or 10.5 mph (Peirson and Vickerman 2008, 84). That is a substantial improvement in terms of accessibility as individuals are able to access their destinations efficiently and quickly. Those who choose not to pay the fee and instead capitalize off of other mobility options such as biking or public transit receive the benefit of improved transit services. For example, Transport for London outlines various future planning projects, such as rail extension and bike lane infrastructure, that are partially financed through congestion pricing. Once the city explained that congestion pricing fees would help finance future transportation projects, public support increased from 30% to 58% (Peirson and Vickerman 2008, 80-81). Transparency and showcasing good faith provided London with the support needed to implement the congestion pricing plan, which has produced beneficial improvements in terms of congestion alleviation and transportation funding. Other European cities, like Manchester, have not been as lucky in that regard.

Manchester attempted a congestion pricing plan after observing London’s success, but failed to materialize the needed public support. Peak hour pricing, discounts and exemptions, and public transportation funding were all part of the original congestion pricing plan, mirroring the MTA’s plan. When it was brought to public vote, 78% of residents opposed the program which effectively brought an end to congestion pricing in Manchester (Li 2010, 16). Scholars have posited various explanations for why the program failed to be implemented including lackluster publicity, public skepticism around government interventions, and poor expectation management (Li 2010). While the project was terminated, it was as a result of public intervention rather than top-down authority. In cities where congestion pricing is an established practice rather than a new disruption, its impact is

profound.

Singapore’s long-standing congestion pricing system serves as a model for how sustained and well-managed policies can effectively control urban traffic. In 1975, the city-state introduced the Area Licensing Scheme (ALS), which charged drivers a flat fee for unlimited entries into the central business district. This initiative led to a significant 43% reduction in traffic congestion (Environmental Defense 2006). With the development of new technology, Singapore replaced the ALS with the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system in 1998, which automatically charges vehicles each time they enter designated zones. This sustained effort to reduce congestion has ensured that drivers can travel at the speed limit while simultaneously increasing public transit usage by 20% (Environmental Defence 2006). Singapore’s refinement of its congestion pricing system ensures its effectiveness in reducing traffic while generating revenue for transit projects. Moreover, its long-standing success underscores the potential benefits of sustained investment in such initiatives.

International examples are cautionary tales but more importantly, they provide real evidence about its impacts and lessons learned. Learning from London’s successes and Manchester’s failures, the MTA has the unique opportunity to implement a plan that can produce discernible improvements to Manhattan’s CBD. Looking at the longevity and positive effects of Singapore points to the long term sustainability of congestion pricing. Balancing the challenges and controversies is an essential step to reimplementing congestion pricing within the city.

IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES AND CONTROVERSIES IN NYC

Returning to New York City, support and opposition towards congestion pricing have been relevant since the project’s inception. Support stems from various community groups like the Riders Alliance, the Sierra Club, and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. Opposition is less consolidated and instead it expressed the general yet pertinent concern about equity impacts. Evaluating both sides exposes the validity of congestion pricing, as learning from previous projects provides concrete evidence about the beneficial environmental and equity impacts.

Supporters of congestion pricing see the program as beneficial on two fronts as it reduces (1) environmental impacts and (2) promises funding for future transportation projects. Environmental benefits from congestion pricing are outlined by the MTA itself, as its Environmental Impact Assessment highlights the benefits of reduced emissions leading to improved air quality (MTA n.d.). Specifically, the assessment states that “The Manhattan CBD [...] estimate decreases in all MSATs [Mobile Source Air Toxics] with the Project in 2045” (MTA n.d., 655). Congestion pricing–by reducing the number of cars, the majority of which rely on gasoline fuels–would improve the air quality of the CBD. Benefits extend into the financial sector as congestion pricing would generate funds for future transportation projects.

The MTA continually struggles to produce funds for the upkeep and development of transportation projects within the city. In 2023, the agency projected a balanced budget for the first time in 20 years, but without congestion pricing, that victory is no longer clear (MTA 2023). With congestion pricing, the MTA

can capitalize on a constant stream of revenue, funding $15 billion for projects outlined in the MTA Capital Program ((MTA n.d., 83), which highlights transportation initiatives such as railcars, accessible stations, zero-emission buses, and station upkeep. Without congestion pricing, the MTA’s projects were left in limbo.

Despite these promises, concerns remain about the financial impact on low-income communities, as these individuals often have limited access to a variety of transportation services and resources. However, halting the entire project in their defense points to a misunderstanding of congestion pricing and its impact across income levels. In London, where the congestion pricing program has been in place for 16 years, research indicates that the financial burden is distributed equitably, with the top 40% of income earners accounting for 60% of the fees (Craik and Balakrishnan 2023). This data suggests that higher earners are typically the ones using cars. This statistic is underscored when factoring MTA survey data. According to a Customer Travel Survey conducted in 2014, the average income of a subway rider was $58,300, with the largest group (24%) making between $25,000-$50,000 (Seltzer 2014). Therefore, lower -income individuals are not disproportionately affected; it is assumed that many commute using alternative modes of transport or would pay the reduced off-peak price. While Governor Hochul’s concern for “the little guy” is well-intentioned, suspending the project entirely over this issue is both misguided and rash. Now, speculation about the future of the congesting pricing program develops as public intervention contests Governor Hochul’s choice.

CURRENT CONGESTING PRICING STATUS

(ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN OCTOBER 2024 AND UPDATED IN APRIL 2025)

Lawsuits claimed that Governor Hochul violated New York state laws and its constitution by pausing the congestion pricing program due to economic concerns. Community groups argue that this decision condemns New Yorkers to increased air pollution and delays critical upgrades to ADA-compliant subway stations, both of which congestion pricing would address (Marcelo 2024). While the future of the program remained uncertain, the lawsuits increased public awareness of its potential benefits.

Before these lawsuits could develop, Governor Hochul announced on November 22, 2024, that congestion pricing would be put in effect on January 22, 2025. One key point in her statement is that the original peak cost of $15 would be reduced to $9; a 40% change that addresses her concern for low-income drivers (Governor Kathy Hochul 2024). Although the toll structure is less than suggested in the original proposal, it will still allow the MTA to raise $15 billion in bonds to support its ongoing Capital Program that funds transit development. Additionally, it is important to note the political significance of both the announcement and the date of program implementation.

Governor Hochul’s announcement on November 22 came after Election Day. By waiting until after the votes were cast, her decision appears to be a strategic move to avoid backlash for fellow Democrats in closely contested congressional races across New York—specifically in places with a heavy commuter population. Furthermore, with the congestion pricing program beginning on January 5, 2025, it ensures that the initiative is underway before the Trump presidency, making it more difficult to halt. While

this analysis of Governor Hochul’s strategy is speculative, the politics around congestion pricing do not dissuade the belief that her timing and approach were carefully calculated to minimize political fallout and secure the program’s progress.

Now, with the program in place, the MTA is already publicizing noticeable improvements. According to a press release on January 29, 2025, one million fewer vehicles entered the most congested part of Manhattan; travel times are up 10% to 15% faster at inbound river crossings; and weekend bus service ridership grew more than 20% (MTA 2025). This points to the success of the program. Additionally, February was the first full month of the program and generated $51.9 million in revenue, keeping the program on track to provide the $500 million that was initially projected (MTA 2025).

In conclusion, the MTA’s congestion pricing plan offers a promising solution to New York City’s traffic, funding, and environmental challenges. Backed by economic theory and success in cities like London and Singapore, the program could reduce congestion, improve air quality, and provide much-needed revenue for transit improvements. Governor Hochul’s November 2024 announcement, which lowered the peak toll from $15 to $9, addresses concerns for low-income drivers while still enabling the MTA to raise $15 billion in bonds. Most importantly, early results show that the program is successfully reducing congestion, increasing public transit usage, and generating revenue.

jpa2154@barnard.edu

REFERENCES

“CBD Tolling Program Environmental Assessment.” MTA, 12 May 2023, https://new.mta.info/project/CBDTP/ environmental-assessment-2022

“Congestion Relief Zone.” Congestion Pricing Program in New York, MTA, https://congestionreliefzone.mta.info/.

Craik, Lauren, and Hamsa Balakrishnan. “Equity Impacts of the London Congestion Charging Scheme: An Empirical Evaluation Using Synthetic Control Methods.”

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, vol. 2677, no. 5, 2022, pp. 1017-1029. SageJournals, https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981221138801.

Li, Salina. “Investigation into the use of expectation management to improve public reactions towards road pricing schemes.” ETC Conference Papers 2010, Association for European Transport, 2010, https://aetransport.org/past-etc-papers/conference-papers-pre-2012/ conference-papers-2010?abstractId=3573&state=b.

“Low Income Discount Plan.” Congestion Pricing Program in New York,, MTA, https://new.mta.info/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/ discounts-exemptions/low-income-discount-plan.

Marcelo, Phillip. “Transit and environmental advocates sue NY governor over decision to halt Manhattan congestion toll.” AP News, 25 July 2024, https://apnews.com/article/new-york-congestion-pricing-hochul-subway-a309b405ff29bb7f9475bc50faf2db58.

“MTA Announces Balanced Budget Through 2027 in July Financial Plan.” MTA, 17 July 2023, https://new.mta.info/press-release/ mta-announces-balanced-budget-through-2027-july-financial-plan.

Peirson, J., Vickerman, R. The London Congestion Charging Scheme: The Evidence. In: Jensen-Butler, C., Sloth, B., Larsen, M.M., Madsen, B., Nielsen, O.A. (eds) Road Pricing, the Economy and the Environment. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. 2008. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77150-0_5

The New Transportation Demand Management. An Implementation Guide for City Officials. May 2022. Nelson Nygaard, Nelson\Nygaard, https://www.nelsonnygaard.com/ideas/ transportation-demand-management-guide-city-officials.

Seltzer, Julia. NYMTC Brown Bag. 12 March 2014. MTA, https:// www.nymtc.org/portals/0/pdf/presentations/MTA%20Survey%20 NYMTCBrownBag_03122014.pdf.

“Toll Information.” Congestion Pricing Program in New York,, MTA, https://congestionreliefzone.mta.info/tollinghttps://congestionreliefzone.mta.info/tolling.

Vickrey, William S. “Pricing in Urban and Suburban Transport.” The American Economic Review 53, no. 2 (1963): 452–65. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/1823886.

FALSE FREEDOM: THE IMPACT OF THE 1793 FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT IN NEW YORK CITY

BY FRANCESA EISENBERG Barnard College '26

INTRODUCTION

While there are not many physical reminders of the legacy of slavery in New York City today, the history remains important in understanding how the city has changed and grown over time. Although New York City has an incredibly deep and complex history of its participation in and rejection of slavery, one important but often overlooked aspect within that history is the impact of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 on Black people—both free and fugitive—living in the city. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 represented the first official legislation stemming from the Fugitive Slave Clause of 1787. While the Fugitive Slave Clause did not allow states to free fugitive slaves and required that they be returned to their owners, the Fugitive Slave Act enforced the clause through legalized kidnapping that allowed the owner of an enslaved person to lawfully recapture a runaway slave even in states in which slavery was prohibited (Library of Congress 2024). Even though the New York State legislature abolished slavery in 1799 with “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery”, total emancipation in New York State was not reached until 1827. Further, though, the Fugitive Slave Act created an environment in which even legally free Black people were not truly liberated, generating a sense of false freedom (New York State Archives Partnership Trust 1799). This false freedom meant that no matter their legal status, all Black New Yorkers lived under the perpetual threat of being kidnapped, trafficked, and enslaved in the South. This threat of enslavement constantly loomed over Black residents of New York City, begging the question: Did Black freedom truly exist in nineteenth-century New York City? In this paper, I explore how the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 shaped New York City throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through an exploration of its effect on the lives and freedom of both fugitive and free Black people who resided in the city. Through this exploration, it becomes clear that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 ensured the preservation of the Union, and the prioritization of white citizens was placed above the protection of Black New Yorkers, forcing them to live as second-class citizens.

BACKGROUND

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 originated from the Fugitive Slave Clause of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and was written into law in Article IV, Section 2 of the United States Constitution (Finkelman 1990, 398). The clause stated that:

“No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due” (Library of Congress 2024).

This meant that any person who was legally considered

property in one state would remain legal property even if they escaped to a state in which slavery was illegal. Additionally, owners of enslaved people could legally demand their return even from free states. Although this clause set the stage for fugitive slaves to be returned to their owners, the expectation of cooperation between state and local governments did not become a reality (Finkelman 1990, 398). This problem became evident with the kidnapping of John Davis, a formerly enslaved Black man who was freed by a gradual abolition law in Pennsylvania. Davis’ case did not take place in New York City, but it had national repercussions as it directly led to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and therefore had an incredible impact on Black residents in the city.

In 1788, Davis was kidnapped and sold into eastern Virginia; however, while the governor of Virginia saw this as a legitimate action under the Fugitive Slave Clause, the governor of Pennsylvania saw it as an illegal kidnapping—as Davis was free under Pennsylvania law—and asked for the extradition of the three men who participated in the kidnapping. When the extradition request was not fulfilled, it became clear that the interstate cooperation that the Fugitive Slave Clause relied upon was unrealistic (Finkelman 1990, 398).

To enforce this clause and limit tensions between states in an already fragile union, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 which required first the seizure of a runaway slave, then the presentation of proof of ownership by the claimant, and finally the allowance of the claimant to return to their state with the enslaved person. The claimant also had the opportunity to sue anyone who interfered with the process for $500 (Fugitive Slave Act 1793, 302). While the law does stipulate the necessity of proof by the claimant of ownership, what constituted proof in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was incredibly weak compared to today’s evidentiary standards for civil and criminal cases. Consequently, the law centered the interests of slave owners and pro-slavery advocates over Black people and abolitionists. The passage of the 1793 law also weakened state and local governments by effectively nullifying regional abolition of slavery through forced involvement with the enforcement of enslavement. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 created a situation in which northern governments did not have the power to protect Black people from enslavement within their states and, even further, did not have the power to protect whites who assisted targeted Black people. This tension led to false freedom for Black people in places like New York City and set the stage for both the undermining of the 1793 law through active resistance from anti-slavery activists and more staunch calls for abolition to protect people from the Fugitive Slave Act (Foner 2016, 54).

Even before the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, New York City had a deep relationship with slavery. Although “New Yorkers later prided themselves on the notion that in contrast to southern slavery, theirs had been a mild and relatively

benevolent institution,” enslaved people were incredibly important to the economy of New York City, both directly when slavery was legal and indirectly after it became prohibited (Foner 2016, 29). Shortly before the Revolutionary War and the passage of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, the greater New York City area had “the largest concentration of unfree laborers north of the MasonDixon Line” (Foner 2016, 30). However, after the Revolutionary War and as ideals of republicanism, brought forth from the fight against British “enslavement,” became more popular, more and more antislavery advocates began to emerge, especially in the North, including in New York City (Harris 2003, 49).

Despite this, even before the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, New York City’s free Black population was threatened by the precarity of Black freedom; this was made clear in 1784 when slave traders tried to kidnap and sell a group of free Black people from the city into the South (Harris 2003, 56). This led to the creation of the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been or May Be Liberated, whose advocacy and awareness campaigns both in the court and on the streets successfully contributed to the passage of An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1799 (Harris 2003, 57). This bill made it so all enslaved people were reclassified as indentured servants, and those born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1799, would be free at 25 for women and 28 for men (New York State Archives Partnership Trust 1799). However, as evident in the implementation of gradual emancipation rather than immediate, New York City was not entirely an abolitionist city.

In the early to mid-nineteenth century, while slavery was not officially legal in New York City, many northerners relied on the institution of slavery to generate and maintain their wealth. Merchant marine companies were founded to ship cotton around the world, banks invested in the industry, insurance companies offered policies on enslaved property, and hundreds of other industries, directly and indirectly, profited off the use of enslaved labor in the South (Foner 2016, 45). For this reason, there were many in New York City, including City Recorder Richard Riker, who believed that slavery was essential to the economy of the United States; some, like Riker, even went so far as to illegally support and profit from slavery while residing in the city. Riker, among others, used the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 to kidnap both free and enslaved Black people and send them back to the South, likely profiting from their sale (Foner 2016, 52). Not only did people like Riker see an opportunity to use the Fugitive Slave Act to increase their capital gains from slavery after its abolition in New York City, but they also used it as a reason to advocate against emancipation in other parts of the United States. In a speech given by Riker on October 20th, 1836, and reproduced in the Journal of Commerce newspaper, he argued that the disproportionate number of Black convicts compared to whites in New York City showed the danger of abolition in other states, asserting that slavery provided needed structure for Black people (Vanrensalaer 1836). The juxtaposition between the actions of the Manumission Society and people like Richard Riker highlighted a common occurrence in northern cities: tension between abolitionists and proponents of slavery. While this was occurring all over, New York City represented a unique case due to its reliance on southern slavery for its economy as well as its

situation as the site of the largest free Black community in the North (Foner 2016, 46). Due to this tension, Black New Yorkers’ lives often became ammunition in the battle between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates.

THE IMPACT OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT ON BLACK PEOPLE IN NEW YORK CITY

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, while meant to protect the relatively young Union from already brewing tensions over slavery, had a devastating impact on both free and fugitive Black people all over the country. In New York City, it created an environment that put thousands of Black people in legal purgatory. Due to the overlap of the large concentration of fugitive slaves living in and escaping through the city, the large population of free Black people who lived in New York City, and actors like Richard Riker who were unsympathetic proponents of the capture and sale of all Black people to the South, the Act uniquely influenced and damaged New York City.

Although by 1827, all Black people in New York City were legally free, the Act of 1793 ensured that none were truly safe from re-enslavement, manufacturing a sense of false freedom. This idea of false freedom guaranteed that Black people, whilst free from legal slavery in New York City, were not fully liberated. For both free and fugitive Black people, the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 induced constant fear of being kidnapped, torn from their homes, and forced into a life of brutal servitude, no matter their official legal status.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 challenged New York City’s position as a potential respite from the horrors enslaved people faced in the South. Elizur Wright Jr, an avid abolitionist and author of the “Chronicles of Kidnapping in New York” series in the Emancipator and the American Anti-Slavery Reporter, pointed out the dangers fugitive slaves faced even in New York City in his article from June 1834 (Goodheart 1984, 2). In this issue, Wright highlights the case of a captured fugitive slave named Robinson or Sweeney who was taken from New York City without a trial and brought to Richmond, Virginia where he was forced to disclose “the names and residence of a large number of fugitives in this city” (Wright 1834, 93). The names were then given to professional slave catchers who traveled to New York City hoping to profit from the Act by capturing fugitive slaves and returning them to their masters in the South (Goodheart 1984, 3). For fugitive slaves living or passing through New York City, the commercial opportunity for slave catchers threatened their safety. Although there was no guarantee they would be recaptured, the threat of legalized kidnappings meant that Black New Yorkers could never truly be safe from money-hungry opportunists using federal law to force them back into chattel slavery.

Furthermore, even if fugitive slaves were not immediately taken to the South without a trial, like Robinson/Sweeney, “the willing collusion of northern officials in supporting the slave system” meant that despite the fact enslaved (and free) Black people should have been protected in the hands of city officials, fugitive slaves’ freedom was at the mercy of these colluding bureaucrats (Goodheart 1984, 4). In the same June 1834 issue, Wright highlights this through the story of Stephen Downing, a fugitive slave who was imprisoned for eighteen months because his owner would or could not pay the fees to reclaim him. Despite a judge

ruling that, due to the delay, Downing should be released, the judge left the actual release to the state Supreme Court. However, with the help of Richard Riker, the claimant was able to secure a “certificate of removal,” and Downing was taken to the South without warning to even his lawyer (Wright 1834, 94). While Wright’s “Chronicles of Kidnapping in New York” illustrate many of the instances of kidnapping of fugitive slaves and collusion to send them southward, there are a multitude of other instances that went unreported in Wright’s work. The collusion did not start and end with Richard Riker and his injustices; rather, there was an extensive network of northern officials who worked with Riker to ensure that no Black person would be safe from slavery in New York City. Riker frequently worked with Tobias Boudinot, a New York City police officer, to resell fugitive slaves to the South, often without access to a lawyer or any legal defense, violating constitutional rights such as habeas corpus (Foner 2016, 69). Riker and Boudinot's actions, among the many other unnamed colluders, guaranteed that even if fugitive Black people felt free in the city, there was no true certainty of that freedom. Instead, if fugitive slaves chose to remain in New York City, they did so under the constant threat of recapture and could not trust many northern officials to save their lives.

Free Black people were not much safer than their fugitive counterparts in New York City. While legally free Black people had status that protected them from being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South, even with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, their freedom was not completely secure. In the February 1834 issue of the American Anti-Slavery Reporter, the story of a free Black man named Lockley and his family highlights the incredible dangers that even free Black people in New York City faced. Lockley’s home was raided by the police, and the claimant, Haywood, kidnapped Lockley, his wife, and his twelve-year-old son after destroying everything that resembled free papers within their home. Despite the existence of many witnesses who stated that Lockley and his family had lived in New York City since before Haywood claimed they had made their escape from the South, Richard Riker allowed Haywood more time to prove that he was the rightful owner of Lockley and his family (American Anti-Slavery Reporter 1834, 32). Eventually, Haywood got permission to take Lockley and his family to the South as his property, even though Lockley had witnesses and proof stating that he was a free man living in New York City (Goodheart 1984, 3). This was not a unique incident. In the American Anti-Slavery Almanac, an image entitled “A Northern Freeman Enslaved by Northern Hands” highlights the case of Peter John Lee, another free Black New Yorker who was kidnapped and forced into slavery. Written under the depiction is “this is not a rare case” (American Anti-Slavery Almanac 1838). The common occurrence of the kidnapping and enslavement of free Black people in New York was not isolated to the city, it happened all over the North. However, because of New York City’s large free Black population and its location as a key port city in the North, the dangers associated with living there as a Black person were especially high (Goodheart 1984, 5).

Additionally, as Wright argues, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 essentially left the “liberty of a man who has never been a slave” to “the decision of an individual magistrate” (Wright 1834, 93). This meant that the freedom of Black individuals was left up to

fate and completely dependent on which magistrate they ended up in front of—if they even had the luck of going before a judge. Furthermore, the fact that one’s freedom rested upon the judgment of a single person put everyone in the city at risk; this was articulated by Wright when he stated in his Chronicles of Kidnapping in New York “we are all carried back, for the convenience of slave owners, to the usages of feudal despotism” (Wright 1834, 93). It was clear that it was “vain to look for justice in the courts of law, especially where every advantage is given to slaveholders and kidnappers by the law and practice of these courts” (Washington 1836, 21). This constant threat and legalization of the kidnapping of free Black people meant that Black New Yorkers occupied a space in which their freedom was challenged. Although there were people in New York City like Elizur Wright Jr. and organizations such as the Manumission Society, Black New Yorkers were forced to constantly grapple with their false freedom. Legislation, such as the 1808 anti-kidnapping law, which was meant to protect against the epidemic of kidnapping that New York City faced, did little to defend Black residents. Instead, kidnappings increased due to the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade and the rising price of slaves in the South, highlighting the precarity of freedom when who is given liberty differs by region within the same country (Foner 2016, 51-52). Furthermore, even with the passage of the 1828 law that prohibited the private capture of a fugitive and laid ground rules for the removal process in courts, Black New Yorkers were at the mercy of corrupt city officials, such as City Recorder Richard Riker and police officer Tobias Boudinot (Foner 2016, 52-53). These laws, while created to protect free Black people in New York City, were virtually ineffective because of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act and the existence of slavery in any part of the United States. It is exceedingly clear that the existence of slavery as an institution anywhere in the United States challenged the freedom of Black Americans everywhere. At any moment, the liberty of Black people all over the country, especially in places like New York City, was entirely dependent on the whims of the white-run legal and political systems. For both free and fugitive Black people, this created a false freedom; perhaps they felt free and could move with more ease compared to legally enslaved people, but their freedom was not absolute. This false freedom again brings up the question of whether Black liberty (both personal in having agency and institutional in having protected rights) even existed in nineteenth-century New York City.

While politicians of the nineteenth century may have pointed to the emancipation law of 1799, the 1808 anti-kidnapping law, and the 1828 law policing the capture of fugitive slaves, the reality for many Black New Yorkers was counterfactual; the idea that they had freedom similar to their white counterparts was false. The constant threat of enslavement under the law and the city officials who worked within the system to profit off of chattel slavery made it painstakingly clear that the United States government was not concerned with the freedom of Black people. Instead, in order to appease Southerners and ensure the unity of the nation, the liberty of Black people was subverted and became, in places like New York City, simply a suggestion, rather than an objective legal right. Even more, the precarious situation that Black New Yorkers were forced to occupy—one where they never knew if their freedom would be considered legitimate—was made

worse with the abolishment of personal liberty laws that allowed states to put more restrictions on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (Finkelman 2011, 14). In New York City, the threat of attacks on abolitionists and even non-participating Black New Yorkers, as illustrated by the riot in July of 1834, made the insecurity of Black freedom clear (Foner 2016, 59). The riot itself was reminciscient of larger tensions that took place in the city. The existence of abolitionist movements forced New Yorkers to reckon with the fact that they had “a racial problem” and the recession of 1834 meant that residents (white ones included) had heavy financial burdens (Kerber 1967, 29-34). Anti-abolitionists saw the end of slavery in the South as a threat to New York City itself, meaning freedom across the nation could not be achieved. The liberty of Black people was tolerated as long as it did not disrupt the economy of the city or the unity of the nation. As second-class citizens, the subjugation of Black freedom was considered a natural choice when protecting the peace of the United States. In New York City, the false freedom that Black New Yorkers were forced to reckon with every day was not the exception to the rule, rather, it was the norm for Black Americans.

CONCLUSION

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 greatly impacted the lives of Black Americans in New York City. The Act ensured that no Black person in the city was safe from the threat of kidnapping, human trafficking, and slavery. While slavery was not legal in any form after 1827 in New York City, the existence of the Fugitive Slave Act essentially nullified this measure by creating an environment in which liberty did not truly exist for Black people, no matter if their legal status was fugitive or free. The large population of free Black New Yorkers, coupled with the fact that New York City was a major port city whose economy relied heavily on the institution of slavery, made the concept of false freedom even more evident than in other regions of the country. This false freedom created an environment in New York City in which the liberty of Black New Yorkers was not their own, instead, they occupied the precarious position of relying on the benevolence of white city officials to protect them. As long as slavery existed in any part of the United States, the freedom of Black New Yorkers was an illusion. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 cemented the position of Black New Yorkers as second-class citizens, unworthy of protections afforded to their white counterparts in favor of preserving the unity of the nation and prioritizing its white citizens.

fre2104@barnard.edu

REFERENCES

American Anti-Slavery Society, American Anti-Slavery Almanac, for 1839. “A Northern Freeman Enslaved by Northern Hands” [graphic], New York: NY. New York. 1838. 1 print: woodcut; image 4 x 8 cm, Library Company of Philadelphia https://digital.librarycompany.org/ islandora/object/Islandora%3A2764

Finkelman, Paul. “Slavery, the Constitution, and the Origins of the Civil War.” OAH Magazine of History 25, no. 2 (2011): 14–18. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/23210240.

Finkelman, Paul. “The Kidnapping of John Davis and the Adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793.” The Journal of Southern History

56, no. 3 (1990): 397–422. https://doi.org/10.2307/2210284.

Foner, Eric. Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016). Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, 1st Congress, 2nd sess., Ch. 7, 1 Stat. 302 (1793). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-1/pdf/ STATUTE-1-Pg302.pdf#page=1

Goodheart, Lawrence B.“‘The Chronicles of Kidnapping in New York’: Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law, 1834-1835.” Afro - Americans in New York Life and History (1977-1989) 8, no. 1 (Jan 31, 1984) http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest. com/scholarly-journals/chronicles-kidnapping-new-york-resistance/ docview/219950920/se-2.

Harris, Leslie M. 2003. In the Shadow of Slavery : African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637: University of Chicago Press.

Kerber, Linda K. “ABOLITIONISTS AND AMALGAMATORS: THE NEW YORK CITY RACE RIOTS OF 1834.” New York History, vol. 48, no. 1, 1967, pp. 28–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23162902.

“Kidnapping according to Law.” 1834. American Anti-Slavery Reporter 1 (2): 32.https://archive.org/details/americanantislav02amer/ page/32/mode/2up

Library of Congress. 2024. “Fugitive Slave Clause | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress.” Congress.gov. 2024. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIV-S2-C3-1/ ALDE_00013571/.

The New York State Archives Partnership Trust. 1799. “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, 1799: New York State Archives Partnership Trust.” Www.nysarchivestrust. org. 1799. https://www.nysarchivestrust.org/education/consider-source/browse-primary-source-documents/slavery/ act-gradual-abolition-slavery-1799.

Vanrensalaer, Thomas. “To the Hon. Richard Riker: Recorder of the City of New-York” Liberator (1831-1865), Nov 12, 1836. http:// ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/ historical-newspapers/hon-richard-riker/docview/91283802/se-2.

Washington, John J. and Samuel Johnson. "City Recorder-Kidnapping--and Free People of Colour in New York." The Friend; a Religious and Literary Journal (1827-1906), Oct 22, 1836, 21, http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest. com/magazines/city-recorder-kidnapping-free-people-colour-new/ docview/91276396/se-2.

Wright Jr., Elizur. 1834. “Chronicles of Kidnapping in New York.” American Anti-Slavery Reporter 1 (6): 92–94 https://archive.org/ details/americanantislav6/page/n5/mode/2up

THE POWER OF THE PANTRY: HOW COMMUNITY AND CULTURE SHAPE FOOD ASSISTANCE

BY ESTHER LAU Barnard College '27

INTRODUCTION

Every Thursday at 2 PM, walk-in hours officially begin—a frenzy hits the intersection of Grand Street and Norfolk Street, home to the Community First Food Pantry. On this particular October afternoon, Wendy, a pantry volunteer, was in charge of the distribution line and ran it like the Navy. With practiced efficiency, she greeted each client with the same question: “Hello, what bread do you want?” Their responses ranged from heartfelt gratitude to silent nods, and from eager requests for more to apathetic indifference. As clients moved along the distribution line, they received a rationed supply of bread, eggs, frozen meat, and fresh produce— like napa cabbage, Chinese cucumber, and Chinese radish. As the pantry’s food supply decreased, the atmosphere grew increasingly tense. Less than half an hour into walk-ins, Tim, the pantry coordinator, was forced to cut the line short.

By 2:33 PM, only three packs of bread were left, and five clients still hadn’t received food. Once they noticed, a rowdy crowd quickly formed around Tim, who was forced to hold the box of bread high in the air to avoid it being taken. One client, dressed in bright pink sneakers and a light purple jacket, was persistent in her attempts to get an extra loaf, even physically wrestling Tim and other volunteers.

Tim: “你你你, 你你你你你” (“Line up, and I’ll give it to you!”)

Volunteer, to Tim about the woman in a purple jacket: “你你

你你你你你你你你”

(“She already got a loaf! Give it to the others.”)

The woman turned around in defeat and stepped back. She turned to another client at the site, and with a distasteful expression, muttered something beneath her breath.

Within a minute, the last loaves of bread were distributed; Tim and the volunteers shared a collective sigh of relief, and the pantry officially closed for the day.

While the pantry’s mission is to provide food assistance to those in need, the chaotic scene that unfolded that October afternoon highlights the challenges faced by food pantries in meeting the growing demand for services, especially in diverse communities like Chinatown. To better understand the relationship between Chinese immigrant populations and food assistance, I conducted fieldwork at Community First Food Pantry (CFFP), a food pantry between Chinatown and the Lower East Side. CFFP provides fresh, healthy, and culturally appropriate food to over 4,000 families across the city, and is open to all—only a state ID is required for registration. Additionally, clients and volunteers are mostly elderly Chinese immigrants in the area, many of whom live in public housing. Over two months, I conducted fieldwork by observing, volunteering, and interviewing both clients and volunteers. I took note of interactions, experiences, and the pantry’s broader sense of community. Grounded in my fieldwork, I argue that while balancing rule enforcement and service delivery inevitably leaves some needs unmet, CFFP remains a community

hub for clients and volunteers alike. Moreover, its culturally-appropriate services are crucial in de-stigmatizing and increasing access to food assistance in New York City, particularly for marginalized communities who often face systemic barriers to food security. Names and identifying traits have been changed to protect confidentiality.

SETTING AND METHODS

CFFP, founded in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic by the local nonprofit UA3is the first and only pantry in Manhattan’s Chinatown. It has served over $20 million worth of food to over 5,000 families across the city. While the pantry’s services attract a diverse clientele, its language accessibility and focus on providing culturally-appropriate food draws a large population of elderly Chinese immigrants. Most interpersonal interactions and relationships at the pantry can be categorized into the following: client-volunteer, inter-volunteer, and inter-client. Client-volunteer interactions mostly occur on the food distribution line. Volunteer relationships, by contrast, form over time—especially during shared meals in the sorting area after pantry hours. Inter-client relationships primarily occur on line; over months and years of braving heat, wind, and snow together, many clients have formed relationships with each other. Given CFFP’s client and volunteer demographics, almost all interpersonal interactions happen in Mandarin, Cantonese, or Toisan (another Chinese dialect).

Throughout my time at CFFP, four individuals were key to my experience: Rachel, Tim, Joyce, and Elizabeth. Rachel, UA3’s Operations Manager, is a Masters student in her mid-20s and my main point of contact for the pantry. Tim, UA3’s Pantry Coordinator, manages incoming donations and the pool of ~25 consistent volunteers. At 21 years old, he is the organization’s youngest employee by age, but oldest employee by work history (four years). Joyce is a Co-Founder of UA3 and played an integral role in establishing CFFP in 2020, personally registering all initial clients. Finally, Elizabeth is a long-time volunteer with the pantry in her late 60s, and is one of the very few volunteers who do not speak Chinese. She’s responsible for managing the front of the line and sending clients up to the distribution tables; like Joyce, Elizabeth has established relationships with many clients over the years.

Between mid-September and mid-November, I visited CFFP six times on Thursday afternoons to establish a consistent routine and build familiarity with volunteers and clients. Taking care to form a holistic perspective on the food pantry, I employed a hybrid ethnographic approach, defined by Seim (2021) as “[an] intentional oscillation between participant observation and observant participation” (Seim 2021, 4). For the first three visits, I took on a participant observer role, positioning myself near the start of the distribution line and taking particular note of client-volunteer, inter-volunteer, and inter-client interactions. While I occasionally engaged in short conversations to build rapport, I primarily maintained an observational stance. In the last three visits, I

volunteered as a food distributor, passing out foods to clients. Like other volunteers, I wore a UA3-branded black apron and nylon gloves; by the third week, clients had begun to recognize me. To triangulate my observations, I engaged in semi-structured interviews with pantry volunteers and clients. My interviews focused on folks’ history with the pantry, whether they have found community and belonging through the pantry, and how culture and language has impacted their experience at the pantry and, more broadly, with food assistance.

As a Chinese-presenting individual that speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese, my racial and cultural identity heavily influenced my time at CFFP. From the clients’ perspective, I felt that my identities allowed for an immediate development of trust and rapport. For example, although I was simply sitting on the sidelines and observing in the first few weeks, many clients displayed a certain type of fondness towards me, calling me “你你,” a Cantonese colloquial term that means “miss/young lady” but directly translates to “beautiful girl,” and I felt more comfortable initiating conversations and interactions with others. However, I had to actively challenge my preconceived notions about client behaviors and lifestyles from my lived experiences; instead, I took care to learn directly from those I observed and interacted with.

CONNECTIONS TO EXISTING RESEARCH

Despite being one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States, Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are underrepresented in research and policy-shaping conversations surrounding poverty and food security (Ro et al. 2023, 4). This lack of research is attributed to factors such as the model minority myth, which distorts narratives surrounding AAPI food assistance needs, and systematic exclusion from national surveys due to language barriers and overgeneralized grouping (FRAC 2020, 2; Lu 2024; Ro et al. 2023, 4). But, the very few existing studies strongly point to a collective underutilization of food assistance among AAPIs—especially elderly Chinese immigrant communities—due to language barriers, a lack of culturally appropriate food, and stigma. As a result, only 20% of eligible AAPI individuals in California were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (Nhan and Wang 2023, 4).

Crucially, existing literature highlights the importance of community-based approaches in addressing food insecurity and reducing stigma. In an ethnographic study on a community food hub, Brennan-Tovey, Board, and Fulton (2023) explore the concept of ‘stigma-power’ in food assistance settings and how community food hubs can counteract this through inclusive practices and community-building functions. While stigma is universal, this United Kingdom-based study may not fully capture the nuances of CFFP’s cultural complexities. Similarly, Ginsburg et al. (2019) discuss the challenges in reliability and accessibility faced by urban food pantries, necessitating the establishment rules and systems of enforcement. Although the authors focus on the Bronx, socioeconomic similarities between the Bronx and Manhattan’s Chinatown allow the study to contextualize CFFP’s operations and rule enforcement practices.

Between these works, however, there still remains a gap to be filled: an ethnographic examination of the relationship between AAPI communities and food assistance. My research aims to close that gap by focusing on CFFP, a food pantry primarily

serving elderly Chinese immigrants that largely abides by research-informed recommendations such as providing culturally appropriate food, being spaces for community building, and having volunteers of similar demographics as clients (Nhan and Wang 2023, 8; Brennan-Tovey, Board, and Fulton 2023, 791). In having CFFP as my fieldsite, my research affirms the importance of community and cultural responsiveness in destigmatizing food access through an ethnographic, racial lens.

THEMES AND MAJOR FINDINGS

CFFP treads the difficult line between community and rule enforcement.

Over its years of operation, CFFP has created aspects of community, found in the strong sense of camaraderie between volunteers and clients. At the same time, however, volunteer reactions to escalating client interactions reveal a struggle between prioritizing rule enforcement and community-building. Between balancing being a long-standing community institution and meeting community needs through service delivery, CFFP remains a community hub.

Interpersonal Camaraderie

Through repeated visits, familiar faces, and conversations, pantry clients and volunteers have built a strong sense of camaraderie. Volunteers are often instinctually generous in distributing food but are later forced to limit quantities due to low supply; for example, one interaction during the distribution of napa cabbages went like this:

Volunteer 1: “你你你你” (“How many do you want?)

Client: “你你你你你你” (“Just one is enough!”)

Volunteer 1, shoving cabbage in the client’s bag: “你你你你” (“Get two!”)

Volunteer 2: “你你你你” (“Give her three!”)

Client: “你你你你你你你你你你你” (“Thank you, thank you, you guys are too good to me!”)

Elizabeth, a long-time volunteer in her late 60s who manages the front of the line, is one of the only non-Chinese volunteers yet is central to the warm welcome clients receive. Greeting every person with a smile and a “How are you?,” she is particularly impassioned to help familiar faces:

A pair of women, seemingly a senior and her caregiver, slowly moved towards the front of the line. The elder was in a wheelchair, her face fixed in a neutral expression as she was wheeled towards the distribution table. As soon as Elizabeth saw her, though, she immediately greeted her and went to help.

Elizabeth: “Hello, my friend, good to see you! How are you today?”

To the next clients in line: “Would you stay here? I want to help this lady.”

A soft smile tugged on the corners of the woman’s mouth as Elizabeth accompanied her through the distribution line. While her caregiver held her tote bag open for bread, produce, and eggs, Elizabeth carefully pushed the wheelchair along.

Client-Volunteer Aggression/Rule Enforcement

Due to fluctuations in quantity and types of food donated, clients often receive a limited selection of food. Unfortunately, this can yield dissatisfaction and negative reactions. For example, one client was adamant about wanting a specific type of bread, but even after digging through the entire box, the volunteer

couldn’t find it:

Volunteer: “你你你你你你你你你你你你” (“I don’t have [the bread]! You can’t pick anymore, I dug to the bottom and still don’t see it.”)

The client seemed unsatisfied, and proceeded to the following table.

Others were less concerned about the particular food they received, but were more preoccupied with the quantity. But, due to pantry rules, clients are typically limited to one item each, especially toward the end of distribution. Many times, I heard volunteers sternly repeat, “你你你你你你你你你你” (“I already gave one to you! Only one per person.”) When it comes to the enforcement of rules, volunteers aren’t afraid to stand their ground to ensure smooth operations, even when interactions turn aggressive. For example, while Rachel gave me a pantry tour, our conversation was interrupted by a volunteer berating a client for discarding cabbage leaves on the sidewalk. Rachel explained that there are rules that the pantry sets for clients, including no littering and only taking a certain number of each food item:

Sometimes, the clients don’t really understand. I’ve had them yell at me, curse at me, and spit in my face before. It’s all happened, and it’s a part of the job.

Volunteer Philosophies on Rule Enforcement

Throughout my time at CFFP, I encountered a range of volunteer behaviors surrounding rule enforcement. While some were quick to make negative remarks when a client would sneak food into their bag, others were more gracious and lenient. However, in conversations and interviews with volunteers, all showed a fundamental level of care for clients’ well-being, and chose to volunteer because of a motivation to care for their community. When asked about handling challenging client situations, Elizabeth spoke with overwhelming compassion:

There are odd interactions once in a while, but overall, I think very well of my relationship with the clients, and it’s something I’ll miss when I’m out for surgery. I just try to de-escalate… there’s always a reason.

Joyce shared similar sentiments, speaking from the perspective of volunteer training:

It can be frustrating. Most of the clients are extremely nice and appreciative. There are some that can be aggressive and will not respect the rules… In general, it’s okay, and we [train volunteers to] not engage with them and try to put our ego aside. Sometimes, no matter how much you try to calm them, they will go off on you, you just have to let them vent it out. We deal with each client individually.

Despite differing immediate responses to client misbehavior, trends in volunteer philosophies show a deep level of care and intentionality in approaching client relationships, and a fundamental commitment to foster community at CFFP.

At CFFP, language and cultural identity are defining facilitators of community and crucial in de-stigmatizing and increasing access to food assistance.

Between its partnerships with local Asian grocers, language-inclusive registration, and client-volunteer communications mainly being in Mandarin and Cantonese, CFFP is markedly catered to local Chinese community members. Between my time as an observer sitting near the front of the line and a volunteer on the food distribution line, I felt the tangible value of language fluency in belonging.

Role of Language and Culture Within Volunteers

Throughout my time at CFFP, it seemed evident to me that there was an implicit need for language skills to participate in the community. In my personal experience, being fluent has helped me quickly assimilate; even on my first visit, language and cultural connections were immediately formed between myself, Tim, and other volunteers:

When I told Tim I was from Hong Kong, his eyes lit up, and he asked if I spoke Cantonese, to which I responded yes. For the next few minutes, we spoke in Cantonese as I talked about how I immigrated to the US when I was 5.

Tim: “你你你你你你你你” 你“Where’d you live in Hong Kong?”你

Me: “你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你”你“I lived in so many places… my family moved around a lot. But I remember living in Tai Po.”你

Tim: “你你你你你” 你“Oh, so New Territories.”你

Me: “你你你你你你你你你你你你你你” 你“Is it? I’m not sure… I’m not very familiar with Hong Kong geography.”你

Tim, calling out to another volunteer: “你你 (Most closely translated to big brother, a term of endearment and familiarity)你

你你你你你你?” (“Is Tai Po in New Territories?”)

The volunteers jumped into a lively discussion about different neighborhoods in Hong Kong and where they lived in the past— their camaraderie was strongly felt.

However, even for non-Chinese-speaking volunteers, community seems to be easily found. On my second visit to CFFP, Elizabeth introduced herself and spoke about her history of volunteering. Even before I could ask about language and fitting into the pantry, she said:

Everybody’s very nice here, we all get along. You don’t need to speak a lick of Chinese to volunteer, you just need to know how it works. Ben, over there, doesn’t speak Chinese either, but he runs check-ins like a machine.

Later, in a semi-structured interview, Elizabeth elaborated on finding community among volunteers and clients despite language barriers:

Yes, I’ve definitely found a community here, and you get to know people over time. [In regards to language barriers,] as long as there’s someone else [who speaks Chinese] volunteering, it’s fine. There’s also Google Translate, which is helpful!

Role of Language and Culture in Client-Volunteer Interactions

By virtue of looking Chinese, I was frequently approached with questions by clients. During my second visit, for example, an elderly Chinese man walked up to me with his state ID, asking me where to get registered for the pantry. I directed him to the blue registration tent in Cantonese, and took particular note of the fact that he asked me instead of Elizabeth, despite me being a seated young student and Elizabeth visibly being a pantry volunteer (volunteers are required to wear UA3-branded aprons). Shortly after this interaction, a group of elderly women were intrigued by iced tea gallons at the top of the line:

The first few women in line spotted a large box of iced tea gallons at the distribution tables and asked Elizabeth what they were. They didn’t understand “iced tea” in English, though, so I took the liberty to translate it for them in Chinese. The clients

quickly caught on that I knew Mandarin and Cantonese, and began asking me questions about the products.

Client 1: “你你你你你你” (“What does it taste like?”)

Client 2: “你你你” (“Is it sweet?”)

Me: “你你你你你你你你你你” (“I’m not sure, I haven’t had it before.”)

The following week, a client noticed me writing in my notebook and asked me in Chinese where she could get registered for a separate service offered by UA3. I wasn’t sure, so I directed her to UA3’s staff. After she left, Elizabeth commented on clients repeatedly approaching me:

It seems like they see that you’re Chinese and ask you questions! Like last time, when they kept asking you about the iced tea.

Although Chinese language skills are not explicitly necessary for volunteering, the reality appears more nuanced. Client preferences to approach me with questions and inter-volunteer camaraderie-building in Cantonese show the significance of shared language and culture, reinforcing the pantry’s role in the local Chinese-immigrant community.

Role of Language and Culture for Clients

Similar to the volunteer experience, clients’ racial and cultural identity strongly impacts their experience in finding community and belonging at CFFP. In one of my semi-structured interviews, I spoke with Erica, a 38-year-old English-speaking Black woman. When I asked about whether her race or language ability hindered her integration into the pantry community, she responded indifferently:

Not necessarily, everyone speaks English that I’ve spoken to. But, I see why they definitely should speak another language. Most of the younger people with Asian ancestry speak English, but it’s the older people who’ve never learned, so it’s good that they have people who speak their language.

However, her responses also indicated a lack of relationships with other clients or volunteers:

I haven’t talked to many people. Usually we’re waiting in a line, and if you have an appointment, you just walk up and leave… but I’m sure the people who come when they don’t have appointments… know each other.

On the other hand, a cluster of three Cantonese and Toisanspeaking elderly women I interviewed gave entirely opposite answers to both questions. All three women have been clients of the pantry since 2020, have been friends since before the pantry’s opening, and spoke about the large role that culture has played in their coming to CFFP:

Client 1: “你你你你你你你你你你你, 你你你你你你你” (“Since this pantry operates in Chinese, I feel much more comfortable coming here.”)

Client 2: “你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你” (“Of course I feel comfortable [coming here]! It is run very well.”)

Client 3: “你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你你” (“The pantry on 11th Street also operates in Chinese and has Chinese vegetables, but not as much as here.”)

Additionally, CFFP’s focus on providing culturally-appropriate food is largely appreciated by its clients. One week, for example, the pantry had a large supply of Chinese radishes, and clients showed palpable excitement to use the produce for turnip cake, a traditional Cantonese dish:

Client, excitedly speaking to their friend: “你你你你你你你你你你你” (“Wow, we can make turnip cake!”)

These positive, culturally-affirming experiences have fostered community. When asked about the connections they’ve formed at the pantry, for instance, a client proudly exclaimed: “你你你你你你你你你” (“I’ve made so many new friends here!”)

Ultimately, the contrasting experiences of Erica and the Cantonese-speaking clients emphasize the role of racial and cultural identity in shaping clients’ sense of belonging, connection, and satisfaction within the CFFP community.

PROPOSAL FOR FUTURE STUDY

While my study allowed for a broad exploration of the relationship between Chinese immigrant communities and food assistance, our short time frame of two months posed limitations in scope. Gaps in long-term client engagement remain, and my findings also raise questions regarding the extent of language and culture’s impact on clients’ experiences. Additionally, in the semi-structured interviews, a few clients mentioned visiting other food pantries with differing levels of language accommodations and culturally appropriate food. Thus, I propose extended research on experiences of Chinese immigrants at food pantries with varying levels of cultural responsiveness. Using a similar approach of observation, participation, and semi-structured interviews, further research can compare experiences and perspectives on food assistance between clients of different pantries. One possible finding, for example, could be that clients who visit Chinese-speaking, culturally appropriate food pantries have a more positive outlook on food assistance, characterized by more comfortability and less stigmatization. This finding would not only support the existence and funding of more culturally appropriate food pantries, but also continue addressing gaps in existing literature and advancing food justice for the broader AAPI community.

CONCLUSION

Through a combination of passive observation, active volunteering, and immersion within the CFFP environment over the past two months, I conclude that despite occasional struggles with rule enforcement, the pantry remains a crucial source of community and food access for Chinese immigrants in New York City. CFFP’s strong community is best demonstrated through the camaraderie between clients and volunteers, as well as volunteers’ commitment to fostering an environment of care. Additionally, its provision of culturally appropriate foods and language-inclusive atmosphere furthers the sense of community and comfortability in receiving food access for many of its Chinese immigrant clients.

Food pantries like CFFP are crucial in expanding food accessibility for Chinese immigrant communities and must be better supported by increased public and private funding. In particular, enhanced capacity could increase the quantity and quality of the pantry’s food items, mitigating a central point of tension between clients and volunteers. Additionally, a conversation with Joyce about policies that New York City could change revealed that the Department of Social Services had previously sent social workers to CFFP with the goal of increasing awareness about existing public benefit programs. However, they were solely Englishspeaking and faced a language barrier in communicating with pantry clients. Thus, another area of government support can include providing multilingual social workers as a resource to culturally appropriate, community based organizations like CFFP. Ultimately, to effectively address food insecurity among Chinese

immigrant populations, communities, and governments must prioritize uplifting the work of pantries like CFFP through provision of funding, resources, and culturally competent outreach.

ml5042@barnard.edu

REFERENCES

Brennan-Tovey, Kerry, Elisabeth M Board, and John Fulton. 2023. “Counteracting Stigma-Power: An Ethnographic Case Study of an Independent Community Food Hub.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 52 (6). https://doi. org/10.1177/08912416231199095.

“Food Insecurity Among Asian Americans.” Food Research & Action Center, 2020. https://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/issuebrief-apa-2020.pdf.

Ginsburg, Zoë A., Alexander Bryan, Ellen B. Rubinstein, Hilary J. Frankel, Andrew R. Maroko, Clyde B. Schechter, Kristen Cooksey Stowers, and Sean C. Lucan. 2019. “Unreliable and Difficult-To-Access Food for Those in Need: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study of Urban Food Pantries.” Journal of Community Health 44 (1): 16–31. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10900-018-0549-2.

Lu, Fiona. “Hidden Hunger: Food Insecurity and Challenges to Access in the Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Communities.” Center for Law and Social Policy, 2024. https://www.clasp.org/blog/food-insecurity-aapi-2024/.

Nhan, Lily, and May Wang. “Food Insecurity Among Asian Americans in California.” UCLA Asian American and Pacific Islander Policy Initiative, 2023. https://www.aasc.ucla.edu/ aapipolicy/reports_feb10/Nhan-Wang_report.pdf.

Ro, Suji, Nhat-Ha Pham, Victoria N Huynh, Q. Eileen Wafford, and Milkie Vu. 2023. “Food Insecurity among Asian Americans: A Scoping Review Protocol.” PLOS ONE 18 (7):e0287895–95. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287895.

Seim, Josh. “Participant Observation, Observant Participation, and Hybrid Ethnography.” Sociological Methods & Research, 53(1), 121-152. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124120986209.

THE LEGACY OF REDLINING IN CHICAGO’S “TOXIC DOUGHNUT”: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Altgeld Gardens

Figure 1. Graphic of the “Toxic Doughnut” provided by People for Community Recovery (PCR). The nickname was given to Altgeld Gardens due to its central position in relation to industrial polluters. The green dots represent the locations of environmental contamination, including landfills, dumping sites, and sewage plants (People for Community Recovery 2024).

BY ELEANOR HUTCHINSON Barnard College '27

Altgeld Gardens, located in the Calumet industrial area on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, is a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing development with predominantly Black residents (White and Hall 2015). Subtly guided by the ‘garden city’ model, popular in twentieth century urban planning, the complex is encompassed by rolling hills, lakes, and forests (Shah 2024). Named in part for its neighboring greenery and manicured courtyard gardens, Altgeld Gardens has also assumed the conflicting name “toxic doughnut” (Matter of Fact 2019). Built on an abandoned waste site and surrounded by one of the largest combinations of brownfields, landfills, and pollutants per square mile in the United States, the development is one of the most polluted neighborhoods in the country (White and Hall 2015). Altgeld Gardens illustrates

how systemic racial, social, and economic injustices, exacerbated by historical policies like redlining, have concentrated industrial pollution in marginalized communities, revealing spatial patterns of environmental degradation and the disproportionate impact of urban toxicity on communities of color.

Historically, the city of Chicago played a substantial role in the development of redlining, an urban spatial order that established and maintained homeowner segregation. In 1933, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) used racial composition to assess mortgage-worthiness, marking neighborhoods as high-risk and contributing to discriminatory redlining (Bailey et al. 2020). “Best” areas were marked green (Type A), “Still Desirable” areas were blue (Type B), “Definitely Declining” areas were yellow (Type C), and “Hazardous” areas were red (Type D) (Bertocchi and Dimico 2024). Through these racially-based practices, Chicago left Type D neighborhoods underserved, under-resourced, and

systemically subjected to environmental injustice, enabling industries to concentrate environmental hazards in these areas Figure 2. Social Explorer map of the 2022 population data in Southeast Chicago. Altgeld Gardens resides within the area of Riverdale and Calumet, an area composed of a 95% Black population. This is a striking comparison to the neighborhoods directly north of Route 83 which are predominantly white. The racial breakdown exemplifies the dramatic division between homeownership and residency across neighborhoods, visualizing the modern legacy of redlining (Hutchinson 2024).

Figure 3. Map of redlining in New Deal America from the University of Richmond. Colored polygons represent the risk designations created by the Home Owners’ Loan Association. The areas south of Lake Calumet are all third and fourth grade regions, making them “declining” and “hazardous” neighborhoods (Nelson et al. 2024).

and exploit them, as their neighborhood designation lowered land value and permitted more frequent lapses in regulatory enforcement. The result disproportionately exposed communities of color to pollution and its associated effects on health (Maantay 2007).

Just twelve years after the HOLC began classifying neighborhood value, the Altgeld Gardens complex was built in 1945—one of four new Chicago housing projects—for veterans returning from World War II (Myers 2019). The area is notably isolated from business districts, public transportation, and essential services such as healthcare, creating a significant disadvantage for the health and well-being of its residents (Myers 2019). Due to its location and alienation from the city, the neighborhood was predominantly composed of low-income, marginalized families. The long-term social and environmental disinvestment—especially in infrastructure and services—in heavily redlined areas resulted in higher health disparities, particularly in conditions like asthma and cancer. Besides experiencing high rates of environmentally related diseases, the community also has the highest poverty rate and the lowest per capita income in Chicago (White and Hall 2015). Today, around 61% of residents live below the poverty line compared to 18% in Chicago and 11% in Illinois (People for Community Recovery 2024). Given the area's municipal neglect, through a combination of environmental harm, lack of services, and inadequate governance, it was apparent Southeastern Chicago had premeditatively been deemed a sacrifice zone. Altgeld Gardens was intentionally left at a disadvantage in terms of health and economic opportunities. This neglect was further compounded by a much deeper environmental crisis, rooted in decades of industrial pollution.

Long before the housing complex was designed in the early

1940s, the Pullman Palace Car Company had been dumping toxic sludge on its land for decades. Over time, the region became a hotspot for pollution, with various industrial facilities and waste sites contributing to the area's toxic legacy. The Calumet Water Reclamation Plant, a water treatment facility that has been in operation since 1922, is one of many facilities surrounding Altgeld Gardens. Its industrial discharge leaks into the Little Calumet River which runs by the housing complex. The Acme Steel Mill that operated from 1918 to 2001 looms nearby, rusted and abandoned. Industrial plants, recycling centers, and fifty documented old landfills color the area (Matter of Fact 2019). 382 additional polluting sources, including SherwinWilliams Paint Co., PubMed Central Specialty, Ford Motor Co., the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Chicago, Waste Management Inc., and many others, were recorded leaking toxins into the ground, water, and air (Holmstrom 2019). These polluters existed in the area for years prior to the intentional placement of Altgeld Gardens, public housing intentionally designed for Black Chicagoans, in the same vicinity. This initial disregard for the well-being of Black residents laid the foundation for ongoing environmental harm, further exacerbating the challenges faced by the community. In more recent history, General Iron, a car and metal shredding operation, announced its plans to relocate from Lincoln Park to Southeast Chicago in 2018, adding to the overwhelming burden of pollution. Fortunately, after community protests, the Chicago Department of Public Health denied the company’s move in 2021 (Brut 2024). The persistent pollution in Southeast Chicago emphasizes the lasting consequences of enforcing racialized systems through the designation of sacrifice zones, where the health and well-being of residents are sacrificed

indicating various environmental contaminants

highlight the dense concentration of pollution in the neighborhood (White and Hall 2015).

Figure 4. This map marks the location of Altgeld Gardens and shows the surrounding area, with symbolized points

to

Figure 5. This graphic represents both the areas of industrial corridors and the impact score by burden in block groups across Chicago. The score is assigned with consideration to the population vulnerability and environmental exposures. Altgeld Gardens resides around the large orange and red area on the Southeastern side of the city (Rasof 2024).

for industrial progress.

Such systems and designations have left lasting imprints on the physical health and emotional well-being of the community. Toxic contamination from decades of industrial activity continues to affect the residents of Altgeld Gardens, as evidenced by the alarming data on the area's environmental burden. According to data from the US Environmental Protection Agency, “In 2011 alone, facilities in the area released over 3.5 million pounds of toxic waste, accounting for almost 30% of all toxic releases in Cook County, Illinois” (White and Hall 2015). The residual waste and emissions from former industries have been linked to widespread public health issues in the area. Its zip code, 60627, has the highest cancer mortality rate in the city (Matter of Fact 2019). Residents filed 337 air quality complaints within 30 years, describing the Altgeld air as having “three distinct smells: a sulfur smell, a chemical smell, and an odor like corpses” (WGN News 2022). This uncomfortable reality of ongoing pollution and its devastating health effects underscores the deep disparities in environmental justice within and around the community, revealing how extreme environmental injustices are a direct product of systemic racial, social, and economic neglect. Regulatory failures—such as the lack of enforcement of pollution controls, delayed contamination cleanup efforts, and inadequate environmental protections—have perpetuated these conditions, reinforcing the spatial patterns of environmental degradation and ensuring that communities of color continue to bear a disproportionate burden or environmental

harm and associated health risks.

Despite the persistence of structural inequality and environmental disregard, members of the Altgeld Gardens community have taken up forms of resistance and environmental activism through the efforts of People for Community Recovery (PCR), a resident-led social justice organization in the community (Myers 2019). Not only has the group prevented further polluters from moving into the area, but they have also worked on projects to improve homes and infrastructure. PCR helped pass the first federal legislation addressing environmental justice— Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations. Altgeld Gardens has nurtured a vibrant social network, fostering attentive care and support for one another and referring to the community as a “village” (Myers 2019). The cultivation of resilience and solidarity within the neighborhood demonstrates the community’s capacity for collective action and resistance against systemic injustice and industrial exploitation.

The environmental and social challenges faced by residents are the direct result of decades of systemic racism, urban disinvestment, and industrial pollution. Redlining policies and a history of environmental neglect not only left the community in an isolated, underfunded environment but also exposed it to toxic contamination, leading to devastating health disparities. Despite these ongoing hardships, the community has shown tenacity, advocating for environmental justice and public health protections. The fight for justice in Altgeld Gardens highlights the broader issues of environmental racism in America and the ongoing struggle for equitable policies that address both the physical and social needs of marginalized communities.

egh2137@barnard.edu

REFERENCES

Chan, Rosalie, Roshan Abraham, Becky Burgum, Mack Lamoureux, Evy Kwong, Molly Helfend, Meena Duerson, et al. 2017. “The 40-Year Fight to Clean Up One of America's Most Polluted Projects.” VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/59pmvn/ this-is-life-in-one-of-americas-most-polluted-housing-projects.

“COVID-19, Race, and Redlining.” n.d. JSTOR. https://www. jstor.org/stable/resrep60656?seq=10.

“Environmental Racism in Chicago.” n.d. Lake Forest College. Accessed November 8, 2024. https://www.lakeforest.edu/academics/student-honors-and-research/student-publications/ eukaryon/environmental-racism-in-chicago.

“Finding Solutions to Environmental Inequity in Altgeld Gardens.” 2012. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=dNXJcQFovbE.

“Garden city | Sustainable Urban Development.” n.d. Britannica. Accessed January 3, 2025. https://www.britannica. com/topic/garden-city-urban-planning.

“How Structural Racism Works — Racist Policies as a Root Cause of U.S. Racial Health Inequities.” 2020. The New England Journal of Medicine 384 (8). https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/ NEJMms2025396.

Hutchinson, Eleanor. n.d. Social Explorer. Accessed November 8, 2024. https://www.socialexplorer.com.

Maantay, Juliana. 2007. “Asthma and air pollution in the Bronx: Methodological and data considerations in using GIS for environmental justice and health research.” Health & Place.

“The Mother of Environmental Justice.” 2018. Q Magazine 7, no. 1 (May). https://q.sustainability.illinois.edu/ hazel-johnson-and-the-toxic-doughnut/.

Myers, Quinn. 2019. “Life in the Doughnut – South Side Weekly.” – South Side Weekly. https://southsideweekly.com/ life-in-the-doughnut-future-environmental-justice/.

“People for Community Recovery.” n.d. People for Community Recovery. Accessed November 4, 2024. https://www.peopleforcommunityrecovery.org/our-community/riverdale.

“Perceptions of environmental health risks among residents in the “Toxic Doughnut”: opportunities for risk screening and community mobilization.” 2015. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ articles/PMC4676177/.

“Poisoned Politics: The ongoing fight to clean up Chicago's 'toxic doughnut.'” 2019. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=f0pF7k80EkA.

Shah, Nishant. 2024. “Community Spotlight: Altgeld Gardens.” The National Wildlife Federation Blog. https://blog. nwf.org/2024/11/community-spotlight-altgeld-gardens/.

“Something stinks on Chicago's Southeast Side: Despite complaints, fines, odors persist.” 2022. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZyLoROCssc.

“A Toxic Tour of Pollution on Chicago's Southeast Side.” 2021. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L58Z8nY65Q.

“University of Richmond's Mapping Inequality.” n.d. Mapping Inequality. Accessed November 8, 2024. https://dsl.richmond. edu/panorama/redlining.

Wei, Helen. n.d. On the Fence: Environmental Racism and Sacrifice Zones in Chicago.

A Scoping Review Protocol.” PLOS ONE 18 (7):e0287895–95. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287895.

Seim, Josh. “Participant Observation, Observant Participation, and Hybrid Ethnography.” Sociological Methods & Research, 53(1), 121-152. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124120986209.

STATE-INFLUENCED URBANIZATION: DIVERGENT MARKET STRUCTURES OF MANHATTAN AND FLUSHING CHINATOWNS

BY THEA PAN Barnard College ‘26

1. INTRODUCTION

Chinatown, as a well-known urban phenomenon, serves as more than just a form of habitation. It demonstrates economic structure and market trends that are distinct from the rest of society, even within one another. New York City, in particular, is home to multiple Chinatowns. The first one, developed and centralized in Manhattan in the late 19th century, later saw Chinese immigrants not confined to this single ethnic enclave but instead constantly relocating and establishing satellite Chinatowns in the outer boroughs. For instance, Flushing Chinatown in Queens has grown into the largest and fastest-growing Chinatown in New York City, and even worldwide. However, both holding the titles “Chinatown,” Manhattan Chinatown and Flushing Chinatown exhibit great differences—not just in architectural style, but also in their economic structures and market characteristics, reflecting contrasting urban economies. This raises the question of how we should understand and conceptualize the divergent status quo of these two Chinatowns, tracing their origins. Retrospecting from China, markets do not emerge entirely following free-market principles but are enabled by or in response to State-initiated policies and planning. As illustrated by the Urban Village model and the Shenzhen Model, markets are respectively driven by adaptive necessity and rationalized efficiency. In this paper, I will conceptualize the presence of public authorities— mostly presented as the state or city agency—in impacting market trends and structures, and apply it as a framework to the cases of Manhattan Chinatown and Flushing Chinatown. The motivation for this paper stems from an academic interest in applying “China” as a method. Drawing from China as a Method by Sinologist Mizoguchi, urban studies and urban planning discussions often dismiss China’s urbanization as an exceptionalism or attempt to fit it into a Western framework (Mizoguchi 2016, 513). A world that takes China as a method would be a world in which China is a constitutive element (Mizoguchi 2016). By affirming China’s subjectivity and utilizing its urbanization pattern as a conceptual framework, we can uncover novel insights, particularly in analyzing the cases of Manhattan Chinatown and Flushing Chinatown, which maintain strong ties to China.

2. MANHATTAN CHINATOWN: AN “URBAN VILLAGE” IN NEW YORK?

The Urban Village Model: Adaptive Necessity Urban villages are a phenomenon that emerged during the early reform era in China. As State-owned, formally planned urban areas expanded, urban villages surrounded pre-existing rural villages (Smith 2024). Mass rural-to-urban migration fueled urbanization and construction by providing labor. These workers, who lacked urban hukou (an internal passport system that restricted population mobility), encountered inaccessibility to public housing. Meanwhile,

they could not afford private apartments in the city, forcing them to turn to informal housing. This led to the rapid development of selfbuilt housing to accommodate migrant workers, initially serving as a transitional space but gradually evolving into permanent habitation. These “village-within-the-city” areas became densely populated, finely grained pockets of development, situated within the city while displaying distinct urban and economic landscapes with the larger fabric of major cities, and are theorized as urban villages.

In rebuilding their houses, local villagers made the ground floor suitable for shops and restaurants (Wang et al. 2009), renting them out to migrant workers or operating them by themselves. Initially, businesses provided simple services, such as long-distance phone calls, clothing repair, and selling electronic parts (Xiang 2004, 5). Over time, these activities expanded into a wide-ranging, well-rounded informal economy that included selling clothes, electronic devices, and food, as well as offering services like haircuts and massages. Urban Village's adaptive market transformed from localized smallscale businesses serving a limited population into informal hubs of diverse economic activities catering to the entire city. Yet, they retained the market feature with a focus on necessities and essential services rooted in people's everyday lives.

In this sense, urban villages evolved from “remainders” that were left out of urbanization processes initiated by the State and grew into grassroots “responses” to formal planning.

Manhattan Chinatown Comparative Studies

Manhattan Chinatown, like an urban village, emerged as a response to State-initiated policies. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 institutionalized anti-Chinese racism, spreading hostility and exclusion throughout the United States during the late 19th century. This State-promoted racism, coupled with legal restrictions, forced many Chinese immigrants to give up their residences and jobs (Chen 2000, 60), and be rejected for lodging and housing outside Chinatown (Coolidge 1909, 412). This led them to move massively to and concentrate in downtown Manhattan, creating a self-segregated community as a means of self-defense for survival (Yuan 1963, 258). This condensed inhabitation laid the groundwork for the formation of Manhattan Chinatown.

However, Manhattan Chinatown is more than a safe zone; it also attracts immigrants for its economic opportunities. After the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, Chinese immigrants faced widespread unemployment, driving many to seek alternative opportunities in cities like New York, especially in its Chinatown. In this case, the Manhattan Chinatown neighborhood became a critical site of economic resilience, where immigrants could rebuild their lives and create economic networks, offering hope and livelihood to these displaced workers. Specifically, Manhattan Chinatown sustains the coexistence of two types of economic activities of urban villages—early-stage localized commerce and later-stage diversified services— operating simultaneously rather than sequentially. For example, the informal street market economy thrives concentratedly at the intersection of Canal Street and Hester Street. Street vendors'

stalls are tightly clustered together, using cardboard signs to display the names and prices of goods in traditional Chinese characters. Most goods are vegetables and fruits, including a significant selection of “exotic” Chinese produce—such as sugarcane, rambutan, jackfruit, and mangosteen—rarely found outside Manhattan Chinatown. Along Bowery Street, street vendors frequently sell live fish and crabs in bamboo baskets. In this case, this Chinese-specific selection of uncommon products, coupled with the language barrier (signs written exclusively in Chinese), and the live seafood requiring immediate processing and consumption, appears to cater primarily to the local Chinese resident population. As evidenced by my observations, the majority of customers are of Chinese or Chinese American origin, engaging fluently in coastal Chinese dialects, primarily Cantonese, to converse with vendors or bargain prices. This street-market economy demonstrates how Manhattan Chinatown served as a localized support system, providing daily consumables that are geographically accessible and economically affordable to its local population, functionally similar to an early-staged urban village.

The informal economic practices extend beyond street markets into stores and restaurants. Established Chinese supermarket chains, bakeries, restaurants, and department stores often display goods on sidewalks and curbs, stacking products along pedestrian pathways. Although these businesses resemble commercial establishments outside Manhattan Chinatown, they maintain a significant price advantage. For example, hair salons along Bowery Street and Broome Street offer modern interiors and higher-end services, such as balayage or restorative treatments, yet charge $5 to $15 for haircuts—less than a third of the cost in other Manhattan neighborhoods. Similarly, restaurants specializing in dumplings, baozi, and noodles provide abundant portions for $10 or less. These businesses target a broader customer base, including nearby residents and visitors from varied ethnic backgrounds, by offering affordable and diversified essential services without exclusively catering to one group.

The coexistence of ethnic-specific street markets and generalized commerce in Manhattan Chinatown reflects its dual demographic structure: a stable population of middle-aged and older Chinese residents, alongside waves of new immigrants (Asian American Federation, 2022). This continual influx sustains demand for ethnic-specific goods and simple services, preventing Manhattan Chinatown from undergoing the commercial transformation typical of urban villages, where localized economies are replaced by diversified commerce.

Collectively, Manhattan Chinatown’s development demonstrates how it is a response to public authority’s policies, such as the exclusionary laws, which initially shaped its emergence as a self-segregated community. In this context, it gradually develops its economic structures, characterized by the coexistence of ethnic-specific economies as supporting networks and generalized commerce, reflecting an adaptive market focusing on necessities and essential services.

3. FLUSHING CHINATOWN: A “SHENZHEN-LIKE” TRANSFORMATION?

The Shenzhen Model: Rationalized Efficiency

In the late 1970s, China performed economic reform efforts with the aim of modernization. The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone was established as a testing ground for free market and legislative adjustments—bringing in capitalist schemes, allowing bidding and renting of State-owned land, and privatizing the real estate market.

The experiments aligned with an opening-up agenda made possible the commodification of real estate markets and reform in StateOwned Enterprises (SOEs) (Zhu 1999, 115), bringing a strong influx of State and private capital investment into the rapid urbanization of Shenzhen. Shenzhen's commercial development is predominantly focused on industrial building development—warehouses, factories, commercial housing, and office buildings. This market-preferred real estate industry not only serves the political authority's imperatives of archiving urbanization and industrialization, but also brought general profitability four times higher than investment in Southeast Asia (Zhu 1996, 192). By the 1990s, this experiment quickly bore fruit in an efficient 20-year manner, bringing massive economic growth and transforming Shenzhen into an industrial city from scratch.

In the existing literature, the key to Shenzhen’s success is believed to be the “capitalist market mechanisms” that began to participate in the operation of a socialist planning economy (Zhu 1996, 187). However, this is more of an adjustment in the political agenda rather than a driver behind Shenzhen’s transformation. Instead, the opportunity provided by this adjustment—a collaboration of inward foreign capital from overseas Chinese and SOEs, or a partnership between “local” and “foreign” that is enabled and promoted by the State, is the main driving force of Shenzhen’s formation.

In this context, the Shenzhen model exemplifies how State planning can establish the conditions for markets to operate with the purpose of maximizing rationalized efficiency.

Flushing Chinatown Comparative Studies

Comparably, Flushing Chinatown, much like Shenzhen’s development, is enabled by the agenda of the public authorities. The revised Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the restrictive immigration quota system, indicating a more opening-up policy and attitude towards immigrants. This federal legislative reform directly facilitated a significant influx of Chinese immigrants during the 1970s and 1980s. This wave of new immigrants predominantly comprised well-educated, urban middle-class professionals (Zhou et al. 2003, 115), originating from various provinces in China, as well as migrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other Southeast Asian regions (Chen 2017, 213). With the inflow of human capital, alongside transnational capital and cash flow carried along by them, Flushing Chinatown began to flourish, particularly through the growth of its real estate industry.

Located in the suburban area of Queens, Flushing Chinatown’s urban layout is distinct from Manhattan Chinatown, characterized by wider streets and larger malls and commercial buildings. Although street vendors remain present along Roosevelt Avenue, they represent one of many parallel commercial activities rather than the dominant form. On the contrary, the abundance of large-sized malls in Flushing Chinatown—New World Mall, Skyview, Landmark Quest, and Tangram, and smaller-scale ones, exemplify its formalized mainstream commercial activities. Along Main Street, banks and financial institutions gathered concentratedly, including the headquarters of Bank of Asia, Flushing Bank, Amerasia Bank, and more. The facades of commercial buildings are frequently adorned with large advertisements in both English and Chinese (predominantly simplified characters). These advertisements typically promote services such as healthcare insurance, legal assistance, travel agencies, automobile dealerships, and real estate. Many of these businesses are cross-regional or transnational corporations, reflecting a strong entrepreneurial drive fueled by foreign investments.

The influence of public and corporate authorities is particularly visible in Flushing Chinatown’s urban development process, which is strategically oriented toward efficiency. In 2004, the city government launched the Downtown Flushing Pedestrian Project, investing $11 million to facilitate three major commercial developments. One of the developments was introduced by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), who led a partnership with Flushing Commons LLC to develop a mixed-use project (New York State Office of the State Comptroller 2007, 6), including a 5-acre municipal parking lot and recreational center on Union Street. Another example indicating the strong presence of corporate authorities in driving the urbanization of Flushing is Tangram Mall and its accompanying high-rise luxury apartments. They were developed by F&T Group, a cross-national real estate firm with connections to China, channeling overseas investments into Flushing Chinatown’s real estate market. These strategically oriented real estate developments reflect an emphasis on rationalized efficiency, enabling Flushing Chinatown to transform from an emerging Asian immigrant enclave in the late 1980s to surpassing Manhattan’s Chinatown in scale by the 2000s.

Overall, Flushing Chinatown’s development illustrates how favorable State policies, such as the opening-up agenda initiated by public authorities, created an environment conducive to growth. Flushing Chinatown’s market structures, characterized by “multinational operations” and “overseas investment” (Chen 2017, 221), along with strong public-private partnerships, have enabled efficient and rapid urbanization.

4. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this paper demonstrates how the divergent development of Manhattan Chinatown and Flushing Chinatown can be understood through the lens of the public authority’s role in shaping market structures and urbanization. Using the frameworks of the Urban Village model and the Shenzhen model from China, I have argued that public policies and State interventions—not free-market principles alone—play a decisive role in shaping the market dynamics and urban forms of these two Chinatowns.

Specifically, Manhattan Chinatown emerged as a response to exclusionary State policies, evolving into an adaptive, grassroots economy resembling the Urban Village model. Its market is deeply rooted in serving the localized needs of its residents through supporting networks while maintaining an affordable and diversified commerce catering to the whole city, resembling the urban villages' early and later market structures simultaneously. In contrast, Flushing Chinatown, enabled by favorable policy reforms, mirrors the Shenzhen model's emphasis on rationalized efficiency. It exhibits a formalized, large-scale commercial structure driven by public-private partnerships and global investment, reflecting the strategic orientation of State-influenced urban planning.

By applying “China” as a method, the role of public authorities becomes a main socio-economic player with autonomy, constantly mediating and intervening in urban transformation rather than a passive static machine. Theoretically, this paper invites a rethinking of urbanization as a process that is neither entirely State-driven nor entirely market-oriented but rather heterogeneous, shaped by the interplay of public authority, private capitals, and grassroots adaptation, each playing an alternating role during the urban development process.

REFERENCES

qp2141@barnard.edu

Asian American Federation. 2022. Chinese in NYC: A Profile. August 31, 2022. https://www.aafederation.org/research/ chinese-in-nyc-a-profile.

Chen, Christine Chin-yu. 2017. “Transformation of a New Chinese Immigrant Community in the United States: A Case Study in Flushing, New York.” Translocal Chinese: East Asian Perspectives 11 (2). Chen, Yong. 2000. Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943: A TransPacific Community. Stanford University Press.

Coolidge, Mary Roberts. 1909. Chinese Immigration. 1st ed. Henry Holt and Company.

Mizoguchi, Yūzō. 2016. “China as Method.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 17 (4): 513–18.

New York State Office of the State Comptroller. 2007. Economic Development and the Economy of Flushing, Queens.

Wang, Yaping, Yanglin Wang, and Jiansheng Wu. 2009. “Urbanization and Informal Development in China: Urban Villages in Shenzhen.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33 (4): 957–73.

Xiang, Biao. 2004. Transcending Boundaries. Brill.

Yuan, D. Y. 1963. “Voluntary Segregation: A Study of New Chinatown.” Phylon 24 (3): 255–65.

Zhou, Min, and Minggang Li. 2003. “The Transformation of Chinatown in the United States.” Cultural Geography 17: 115–20.

Zhu, Jieming. 1996. “Denationalization of Urban Physical Development: The Experiment in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, China.” Cities 13 (3): 187–94.

Zhu, Jieming. 1999. The Transition of China’s Urban Development: From Plan-Controlled to Market-Led. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

BUILDING THE NATION-STATE(S): THE POLITICS OF HERITAGE IN SHURI CASTLE AND ZAMAMI VILLAGE PUBLIC HOUSING IN OKINAWA

BY MAYA FELSTEHAUSEN Barnard College ‘25

INTRODUCTION

Okinawa/Ryukyu is fraught with colonial histories of the material, spatial, cultural, and political from its premodern history. The Ryukyu Kingdom colonized by the Japanese Satsuma Domain in 1609; modern colonial history under American occupation; and contemporary history as an American colony “reverted” to Japan as its 47th prefecture in 1972 is intertwined with layers of colonial struggle under the Japanese and American nation-states (McCormack and Norimatsu 2012, 8).

To this day, 8.2% of Okinawa’s land area, including sites identified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as having critically endangered species, are governed by the United States Military, as shown in figure 1 (McCormack and Norimatsu 2012, 159). This land is still strongly contested: among residents and community members, the Okinawan Prefectural Government, and the Japanese Central Government in Tokyo, there are ongoing disputes over ecological and systemic concerns regarding the concentrated siting of bases in Okinawa in stark contrast to the honshu “mainland” of Japan. The map above (figure 1) highlights this very tension between Okinawa and Tokyo, due to continuous detrimental decisions made by elected officials of the federal government that allow for the siting and expansion of American military presence in Okinawa despite local opposition.

In an effort towards the liberation of the Okinawan/Ryukyuan peoples, I seek to explore the colonial histories and heritage-building practices of Okinawa and its relationship to the Japanese and American nation-states through a mixed methods analysis of architecture and planning practices. My analysis will center on Shuri Castle (Shuri-jō), the palace of the former Ryukyu Kingdom (figure 2) and the village-managed Danchi (Public Housing) No. 2 Complex in the Ama neighborhood of Zamami Island (figure 3). Zamami is both the name of the island this public housing complex is sited, but also the name of the buildings’ village comprising approximately 20 islands to the west of Naha, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture. While the two sites are strikingly differing in scale and function, I seek to critique the broader abandonment and lingering colonization of the Okinawan people and land by the Japanese and American governments. The two sites offer a glimpse into how the abandonment is visually and materially reified, and how the interlocutors of the heritage- and nation-building objectives reconcile, or ignore, this (dis)investment to follow a hegemonic, neoliberal agenda.

In my research, I am engaging with English and Japanese materials as scholarship on Okinawa is somewhat limited in the English language—with McCormack and Norimatsu providing critical insight into cultural and colloquial nuances that are lost in translation. Further, while my positionality as a mixed Japanese and American person who grew up in Tokyo, or mainland Japan, will not be of

Figure 1. Map of U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa as of June 2011. Naha, Okinawa, Japan. Map by Okinawa Prefectural Government.

focus in my research, I acknowledge that my identity is entangled with the twofold colonization and occupation of Ryukyu.

MIXED METHODS: VISUAL, HISTORIOGRAPHIC, AND MATERIAL APPROACHES

To further understand the spatial practices of the Okinawa/ Ryukyu Islands, I will conduct my research through an integrated methodology that is largely guided by three intersecting approaches: visual, historiographic, and material analysis. The two sites of analysis, Shuri Castle and Zamami Village public housing, bolster

and interrogate Japanese (and American) heritage building—and consequently nation-building. The visual and historiographic analysis will work hand in hand, with historiographic themes informing the visual analysis, and vice versa. Through this visual and historiographic approach, I hope to conduct not only a critique of the hegemonic histories of heritage, but further, mobilize the historiography to evaluate specific material effects in Shuri Castle and the public housing complex in Zamami. My material analysis will clarify the connection between Shuri Castle and Zamami public housing—two sites that are seemingly disparate but are instead interconnected in a material network of heritage- and nation-building practices of the central governments of Japan and the United States, as well as international agencies like UNESCO.

UNDERSTANDING THE NATION-STATE(S) THROUGH AUTHORIZED HERITAGE DISCOURSE

The visual, historiographic, and material analysis will be undergirded by heritage and museum studies scholar Laurajane Smith’s concept of Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) to disseminate the structural forces undergirding the heritage building practices in Okinawa. In particular, I seek to investigate how AHD privileges the nation-building project of Japanese and American authorities through employing a certain ‘authenticity’ that forwards the narrative of the nation-state.

AHD allows for a critical lens to examine heritage and its disengagement with the present to construct a nationalist identity project, through aesthetics of physicality and monumentality. Its Eurocentric origins are grounded in an early conservation and preservation tradition, which has been inherited and embodied by governments and international heritage agencies like UNESCO. AHD privileges and legitimates spokespersons and authorities of expertise as stewards of the abstract “past”; prescribes a cultural, historic, and aesthetic value that is worthy of preservation by educated experts like architects, historians, and archaeologists; forwards a sense of national identity, subsequently ignoring and de-legitimizing sub-national identities and experiences; is site-specific, with an identifiable “bounded-ness”; assumes that ‘the public’, or visitors of heritage sites, are a noncritical audience that experiences heritage passively

(Smith 2006, 29-34). Further, as a self-referential discourse, Smith asserts that AHD (“authorized discourse”) can be considered as heritage in and of itself, as a means to critically disseminate its objectives:

The authorized discourse is itself a form of ‘heritage’ in that it legitimizes and defines the identities of a range of social actors and mediates the social relations between them, while also defining and legitimizing values that underpin those relations. Understanding the discursive element of heritage — the way ideas about ‘heritage’ are constructed and legitimized — also facilitates the identification of the philosophical and conceptual barriers that may exist in either recognizing or in engaging with competing or excluded forms of ‘heritage’. (Smith 2006, 42-43).

I connect Shuri Castle and its defined boundaries as a UNESCOdesignated World Heritage Site with the seemingly disparate Zamami Village-managed Danchi No. 2 building through the identification and critique of its authorized discourses. These two sites, while seemingly incongruous due to its AHD disavowing this connection and failing to recognize sites like Danchi No. 2 altogether, are socially, culturally, politically, and materially interconnected. AHD offers the analytical foundation to interrogate these relationships, and the power structures that govern them. Through this critical engagement, I seek to identify and disseminate the interlocutors within the ‘discourse’ who have the authority (or lack thereof) to shape the perceptions, narratives, and material realities of Shurijō and Zamami Village Danchi No. 2. These interlocutors will be examined in detail in the later sections of this paper.

ZAMAMI PUBLIC HOUSING: A VISUAL-HISTORIOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

Zamami Public Housing and Shuri Castle are interconnected within the authorized discourse of Japanese and American nationhood. The two sites function as spatial apparatuses within the discourse of Okinawan and Japanese heritage, presenting itself to a certain outside visitor-tourist as a legitimized representation of Okinawan heritage and identity. Despite its differences in materiality, form, siting, and style, the two areas of my study represent similar material manifestations of hegemonic nation-building and

Figure 2. Buildings 5 and 6 in Zamami Village Danchi No. 2. Zamami, Kerama National Park, Okinawa. May 2014. Screenshot captured from Google Street View.

Figure 3. Street-facing view of building 5 of Zamami Village Danchi No. 2. Zamami, Kerama National Park, Okinawa. May 2014. Screenshot captured from Google Street View.

heritage-building projects that buttress the Japanese and American nation-states through the oppression of the marginalized Okinawa and Ryukyu identities. The following visual analyses of Shuri Castle and Zamami Public Housing, alongside historiographic themes and references, will set the stage for subsequent material analyses of the interlocutors of its AHD.

Zamami’s Village-Managed Danchi No. 2, the Zamami Public Housing structure of my study, is situated at a multitude of scales and histories. In its siting, the buildings capture a unique positionality within the neighborhoods of Zamami Village; in the archipelago of Okinawa and its relative proximity to Naha, the capital city of Okinawa; and as a southern rural village-island of Okinawa prefecture in the country of Japan. In its histories, the buildings are situated within an island, among many, with a violent history of land dispossession, forced labor and conscription, and forced mass suicide by the Japanese Imperial Army to avoid capture by the Allied forces during World War II (Dietz 2009); and its legacies of economic and cultural neglect as peripheral islands of the prefecture’s capital.

While information on village-managed public housing in rural island villages in Okinawa is limited in academic literature, research through the Zamami Village municipal website provided some insight and context on this housing type. Under one of their online noticeboards on the official Zamami Village website was a posting seeking for tenants in their village-managed housing— specifically, village-managed housing under their Teijū Sokushin Jūtaku program, or Resettlement Promotion Housing. Resettlement Promotion Housing programs have emerged across small towns and rural areas across Japan, oftentimes supported and funded by local government, to encourage the influx of younger and non-local residents in response to aging rural populations. The criteria for tenancy is fairly specific under Zamami Village’s Teijū Sokushin Jūtaku program: a tenant under 40 years of age who intends to settle in Zamami Village in the future, intends to actively participate in village events, local activities, and local organizations, and contribute to the development of the village and the revitalization of the region, among more bureaucratic expectations (Okinawa Zamami Village 2024). Some vacant village-managed apartment postings

required that the tenant already be an existing resident for at least one year, while others required that they have a family member be available to move in with them, or for the tenant to be engaged or married, potentially to encourage tenants to ‘set root’ in Zamami Village following their move (Okinawa Zamami Village 2024).

While the specific Zamami Public Housing building of my research differs from the exact tenancy requirements above, information on the municipality’s website revealed that a significant portion of the village-managed housing on the island is a part of the Resettlement Promotion Housing program. Contrary to ubiquitous public housing that is designed and implemented for affordability, and oftentimes local residents, village-managed public housing in Zamami specifically caters to residents moving from outside of the municipality.

Village-Managed Danchi No. 2 is composed of 12 buildings. These two-story buildings, numbered from 1 through 6, are connected in pairs via an outdoor stairwell that is partially covered. Street views of Danchi No. 2 in 2014 show the weathering of the concrete building material with portions of the wall under vent covers, windows, and drainage pipes streaked with a rusty red-brown. Ten years later, in 2024, while the roof structure has visibly darkened, some of the external fixtures appears to have been replaced, with rusted portions of the wall restored. Atop each building are gravity-fed water tanks that are partially enclosed by an ornamental concrete lattice structure. The concrete lattice, synonymous with tropical modernism, is colloquially known as hana (flower) blocks in Okinawa, often used in modern residential architecture to ornamentally provide ventilation and light while obstructing HVAC and other utilities. Today, hana blocks have come to define the concrete vernacular architecture of Okinawa.

Shuri Castle, by contrast, is a touristic force of Okinawa, which boasted 2.5 million visitors a year prior to its devastating fire in 2019. Spanning the castle grounds, as indicated in figure 6 by the central green areas of the map, as well as the historic spatialities of the greater Shuri neighborhood, as denoted by the red dotted line, the castle has stood for over half a century, currently in its fifth cycle of reconstruction. Its repeated construction, destruction, and reconstruction begs the question: is the castle still authentic? What does authenticity mean in a history of rebirth?

Through an analysis of Shuri Castle’s interlocutors, I begin the process of understanding how Shuri-jo stands as a symbol, appropriation, and site of heritage for Okinawa, Ryukyu, Japan, and the United States.

SHURI-JO:

INTERLOCUTORS OF THE HERITAGEBUILDING/NATION-BUILDING PROJECT

My visual-historiographic analysis of Zamami Public Housing provides the stage for critical study of interlocutors of Shuri Castle’s Authorized Heritage Discourse of the Japanese, American, and Okinawan identity project through four different categories: the contentious relationships between the United States government, central Japanese government (academically and colloquially referred to as Tokyo), and Okinawa Prefectural government; the political role of architectural historians in furthering the nation-building project(s); the role of international heritage agencies, particularly UNESCO, in legitimizing the idea of a nation-state through the materiality of heritage; and most importantly, grassroots activism and practice that resist and reject hegemonic discourse on heritage

Figure 4. Street-facing view of building 5 of Zamami Village Danchi No. 2. Zamami, Kerama National Park, Okinawa. May 2024. Photograph by Author.

and the nation-building.

NATION-STATES: JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES

Shuri Castle and Zamami Public Housing are intertwined with the different sovereign and cultural identities of Okinawan, Ryukyuan, Japanese, and American identities. In the lens of AHD, however, Shuri Castle and Zamami Public Housing exist as material structures, actors, and manifestations of the nation-building and heritage-building processes of Japan and the United States. These built forms did not emerge from a vacuum; they materialized through an intricate, contentious political relationship between the Japanese and American nation-states, which aggressively undermined the indigenous Okinawan communities, leading to the material realities of these two structures today.

Historian Tze May Loo deconstructs the relationship of Okinawa, the United States, and Japan following the end of World War II,

during the period of US occupation prior to the “reversion” of Okinawa to Japan in 1972. He critiques the roles of American and Japanese authorities in the heritage-building following the end of the Second World War and the subsequent American and Japanese control of Okinawa that was activated by privileging specific narratives of heritage. In the five-year period of American rule from 1945-1950, the American authorities were “interested in preserving Okinawa’s cultural heritage, regarding an independent “Ryukyuan identity” as a useful tool to convince the islands’ inhabitants of the validity of their separation from Japan” (Loo 2014, 151). By legitimizing a distinct “Ryukyuan” identity, and “Ryukyuan” nationalism, American authorities sought to authenticate a narrative of Japan as colonizer and America as a cultural steward. This gave power to the United States as a quasi-liberator from Japan’s wartime nationalist narrative of building a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a pan-Asian empire of economic self-sufficiency and cooperation that departed from the reliance of Western and Soviet powers (Yellen 2019).

The Role of Architectural Historians

Building upon and reinforcing the legitimacy of the nation-states in AHD is the role of the experts, including archaeologists, planners, and architects. I specifically interrogate the role of the architectural historian in national narrative- and heritage-building. Loo identifies and critiques the role of Itō Chūta, one of Japan’s first prominent architectural historians who defined a distinct “Ryukyu” architecture upon his travels to the Ryukyu islands in the mid-twentieth century. Itō published a book, Ryukyu: Architectural Culture, following these travels in 1942, during World War II. Itō argued for a Ryukyu style of architecture, one that had not been recognized before in the hegemonic architectural discourse of Japan at the time, oftentimes grouped into Chinese or Japanese premodern architecture due to cultural influences.

Loo argues that this distinction, Itō’s valorization of Okinawan culture and architecture, and his advocacy to preserve and rebuild Shuri Castle significantly contributed to the marginalization

Figure 6. Suimui Area and Shuri Historic District. 2021. Map by the Shuri Town Development Working Group.

Figure 5. Naha, Okinawa, Japan: Seiden, the central palace building of Shuri Castle. 2016. Photograph by CE Photo, Uwe Aranas.

of vernacular Ryukyu architecture, and further, to the marginalization of Ryukyu and Okinawan peoples. He asserts that Itō had a complex political “engagement that was not only embedded in, but which also reproduced Okinawa’s subordinate position within the Japanese national imaginary” (Loo 2014, 60). Further, he argues that “the categories of knowledge that Itō produced about Okinawa’s culture became the basis of Okinawan people’s understanding of their own culture…[and] drew Okinawa’s art, culture, people, and land into a relationship with the Japanese nation-state (Loo 2014, 57). As an architectural historian, Itō effectively assumed the position of historic and cultural steward, prescribing and legitimizing a certain value by asserting his expertise of his trade.

This material influence still exists today, captured in the entrance signage of Shuri Castle, as indicated in appendix A. The signage notes “the long history of exchanges with China and Japan [that] influence many aspects of Shurijo structure…exemplified by the Seiden, Nanden [South Building] and the Hokuden [North Building]” (Shurijo Castle n.d.). In the description, however, there is never an explicit reference, nor classification of Shuri Castle as a distinctly Ryukyu architecture. As now a cultural and spatial symbol of the Japanese nation-state, and as the 47th prefecture of Japan, Shuri Castle exists as a variant of Japanese architecture, with Chinese influence, rather than a distinct architecture of Ryukyu. Shuri Castle simply has Ryukyu history, but, under the Japanese nation-state, is considered a historic Japanese structure.

International Agencies: UNESCO

International agencies like UNESCO authorize the legitimization of monuments and museums in the heritage-building and nation-building projects. I seek to problematize the role of UNESCO in authorizing a hegemonic form of heritage that privileges political and national interests, and marginalizes sub-national identities and experiences, through its bureaucratic practice. I turn to architectural historian Lucia Allais’ work on UNESCO’s interest in monumentality and materiality that proliferated beginning in the early 1970s, to critique international agencies that legitimize heritage and authenticity. Allais studies the materiality of heritage as an interconnected network, and its “new emphasis…[that] gave a scientific sheen to the continuing assumption that tradition stands apart from (and prior to) modernity, and that a physical line should be drawn between them” (Allais 2018, 177). UNESCO’s role as an international agency that legitimized Shuri Castle as a World Heritage Site in the year 2000 becomes clear when we see that, consistent with Allais’ assertion,

UNESCO only legitimated the premodern material remains of the Shuri Castle grounds, such as the stone walls of the grounds, as World Heritage (Loo 2014). Therefore, despite Shuri Castle’s long-standing history as a castle of rebirth and reconstruction, the central palace buildings are not designated, nor protected, by the international agency.

Decolonization and Grassroots Practices of Heritage

The analysis of the Authorized Heritage Discourse and its interlocutors thus far have had very little on the positionality and role of Zamami Public Housing. This is intentional; the objective and devastating power of AHD legitimizes a hegemonic, singular narrative for the sake of the nation-state(s) and its contributing interlocutors, leaving village-managed public housing out of the discourse entirely. What re-centers these structures are the grassroots practices of Okinawa and Ryukyu people that resist the nation-building and heritage-building projects of Japan and the United States, creating spaces of community, resistance, and liberation. McCormack and Norimatsu’s books, Resistant islands: Okinawa confronts Japan and the United States and Okinawa no "ikari": Nichi-Bei e no teikō, the English and Japanese editions, respectively, conclude their research on anti-base activism—or rather, finally get to their main point of their research after a robust contextualization, as per their sentiment—with a series of interviews with local activists, journalists, artists, mothers, and elected officials, to name a few.

In particular, interviewee and activist Chinin Usii brings a valuable perspective on conflicting ideas of identity, legally, culturally, and personally, and how these internal and external struggles translate into her grassroots work in demilitarizing Okinawa. She shares the entanglements of her conflicting Ryukyu, Okinawan, and Japanese identities through the fluctuating statehoods of Okinawa, and asserts her vision of an Okinawa free of U.S. military presence, through the Japanese central government finally taking responsibility of military base siting in the mainland.

The politics of sovereignty and the nation-state extend to the individual; grassroots activism and demilitarization movements reify the politics of the Okinawan identity and its uncertainty within the national apparatuses of Japan and the United States. The material polarities of Shuri Castle and Zamami Public Housing are strikingly similar to the differing lived experiences of Okinawan people, some identifying as Japanese, and others not Ryukyu nor Okinawan, but as a colloquial uchinānchu, meaning Okinawan-born, in the Okinawan dialect, uchinaaguchi. Uchinānchu are interconnected

Figure 7. 2000 Yen bill minted in the year 2000 illustrating Shuri Castle’s entrance gate, Shurei-mon. Photograph on Rakuten, accessed December 19, 2024.

in these very built environments that portray resistance, rejection, and acceptance of these differing identities, sovereigns, and legal jurisdictions.

Admittedly, my research falls vastly short on incorporating voices from Zamami Village and the Shuri neighborhood of Okinawa. In my future research, I hope to have the opportunity to interview uchinānchu from Zamami and Shuri, to incorporate their voices and give power to their community-building and liberatory practices.

CONCLUSION

Shuri Castle and Zamami Public Housing are historically and spatially interconnected, producing distinct material consequences that reflect legacies of two-fold colonialism, investment and disinvestment, globalization, and neoliberalism. Shuri Castle is perpetually legitimized and appropriated as a national symbol of Japan—to such an extent that the Japanese central government commemorated the year 2000 with a 2000-Yen bill illustrating the entrance gate of the Shuri Castle complex, Shureimon on the limited-edition note (see figure 7).

Shuri Castle receives undivided national attention as the emblem of Okinawa—of a monarchy of a premodern, distant past, to a contemporary symbol of resilience, funded, stewarded, and motivated by the narrative-building capacity prescribed by Japanese and American authorities. To the contrary, Zamami Public Housing is scarcely managed by hyper-local levels of bureaucracy, continuously marginalized by the aggressive hegemonic narrative of AHD, echoing violent marginalization of the wartime era. To analyze these two structures, put them into conversation—authorized dialogue—with one another, and draw throughlines with its material consequences, is to uncover the unceasing colonial legacies and layers of nationhood, statehood, as well as the tireless practices of community resistance towards collective liberation. mef2230@barnard.edu

REFERENCES

Allais, Lucia. 2018. Designs of Destruction: The Making of Monuments in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

CEphoto, Uwe Aranas. 2016. Naha, Okinawa, Japan: Palace Building of Shuri Castle. Photograph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Shuri_Castle#/media/File:Naha_Okinawa_Japan_Shuri-Castle-01. jpg.

Dietz, Kelly. 2009. “Demilitarizing Sovereignty: Self-Determination and Anti-Military Base Activism in Okinawa, Japan.” In Contesting Development, edited by Philip McMichael. Routledge. Google Maps. 2014. “Zamami Village Housing on Street View, Zamami Village, Okinawa Prefecture.” Accessed November 24, 2024. https://shorturl.at/tkrqg.

Itō, Chūta. 1942. Ryukyu: Kenchiku Bunka. Tōkyō: Tōhō Shobō. Loo, Tze May. 2014. Heritage Politics: Shuri Castle and Okinawa’s Incorporation into Modern Japan, 1879-2000. Lanham: Lexington Books.

McCormack, Gavan, and Satoko Oka Norimatsu. 2012. Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States. Asia/Pacific/Perspectives. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2013. Okinawa no “ikari”: Nichi-Bei e no teikō. Shohan. Kyōto-shi: Hōritsu Bunkasha.

Okinawa Prefectural Government. 2018. “U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa Today.” What Okinawa Wants You to Understand about the U.S. Military Bases. Naha, Okinawa, Japan: Okinawa Prefecture DC Office, Inc. https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6332-Informational-Materials-20200727-9.pdf.

Okinawa Zamami Village. 2024.

.” Zamami Village Official Website. January 2024. https://www.vill.zamami.okinawa.jp/ news/m/2024/01/-1-1572-102-1.php.

Shuri Town Development Working Group. 2021. “你你你你你你你你

https://www.e-sui.com/2021/10/shurimap/.

Smith, Laurajane. 2006. “The Discourse of Heritage.” In Uses of Heritage. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Yellen, Jeremy A. 2019. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War. Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

APPENDIX

Appendix A. Shurijo Castle entrance signage. Photograph by Author, May 22, 2024.

Shurijo Castle consists of two areas: the expanse within the walls and the space between the inner and outer walls. The inner area was complete in the early 15th century and the outer area, in the mid-16th century. The entire castle faces west, with the Seiden [Central Building] and other structures aligned along an east-west axis. This is a feature unique to Shurijo Castle. The long history of exchanges with China and Japan influence many aspects of Shurijo structure. Such influences are exemplified by the Seiden, Nanden [South Building] and the Hokuden [North Building].

In the spring of 1879, the king was exiled from Shurijo Castle, and Okinawa Prefecture was established. Shurijo Castle then became the military headquarters of the Japanese troops and served as school buildings. Although extensively renovated during the 1930’s, the castle was razed in 1945 during World War II. Following the war, the grounds served as the campus for the University of the Ryukyus. When the University was relocated, the Castle was restored to its present condition.

The present Shurijo Castle is modeled after the 18th Century facility.

The castle was registered as a World Heritage Site in December 2000.

(Shurijo Castle n.d.)

PHOTOS BY EVE MOSS

SUNSET FROM THE WHITNEY

MANHATTAN SKYLINE AT NIGHT

PHOTOS BY EVE MOSS

ART WORK BY LIXIN YAN

ART WORK BY LIXIN YAN