Jackson Heights is the most diverse neighborhood in Queens, the most diverse county in the United States. But what precisely does ‘diversity’ really mean and how does it actually play out in this neighborhood that I’ve called home for nearly two decades now? In this photo essay, I hope to answer those questions.

I’d like to begin with this photo, which I took just outside the entrance to Queens Pride House on 37th Ave. during the World Cup finals this summer:

According to the last US Census, Jackson Heights is about half Latino, with immigrants coming from every country in Latin America; but the largest populations are from Ecuador and Colombia in South America. When the World Cup frenzy reached fever pitch, someone mounted these flags from various Latin American countries, which made a colorful addition to 37th Ave. This is the conventional notion of diversity: local color with a hint of the exotic; but the notion of a ‘melting pot’ is problematic because it is based on a discourse of assimilationism into a white US-born majority. Even ‘multiculturalism’ is a problematic model, with its advocates often using the metaphor of a salad bowl full of ingredients from different countries, because it is a relatively superficial and static notion that does not get at the dynamics of diversity and the difficult tensions that diversity can pose.

The next photos raise an important issue that needs to be addressed in any discussion of diversity in Jackson Heights, and that is class.

These are photos of two of my favorite buildings in Jackson Heights. Both are in the historic district, the Italian Renaissance building on the north side of 37th Ave. and the French Renaissance building with the Mansard roof on the south side of 37th Ave. While I don’t know what the price of an apartment in either of these buildings would be, it couldn’t be cheap, whether a studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom or larger. And so the issue of affordable housing is a crucial one for maintaining the diversity of the neighborhood, both racial and ethnic as well as in terms of class, income and wealth. These buildings, like so many in the historic district are a wonderful part of our architectural heritage, but we can’t refrain from engaging in a searching analysis of the problematic class issues that the cost of housing raises.

One particular aspect of Jackson Heights is worth mentioning: its role as the origin of the cooperative housing movement in the United States. Co-ops have a different ownership structure than condominium apartments, and in many ways, co-ops are ideal in that they are owned by their residents; but they also have the legal right to deny entry to anyone for any reason except those explicitly prohibited by the human rights law of the City of New York — including, e.g., race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation and gender, defined to include gender identity and gender expression. Given the closed-door nature of many of the deliberations of co-op boards, there is always the possibility that  something can be used as a proxy for prohibited discrimination to deny rental or ownership of a co-op apartment. And as noted above, the rising cost of apartments and houses — especially in the historic district — can act as a barrier to many who would otherwise like to live in the nicest areas of Jackson Heights.

Not far from the leafy gardens of the historic district are the main shopping streets of Jackson Heights, which together form a rectangle: 74th St. on the west, 82nd St. on the east, 37th Ave. on the north and Roosevelt Ave. on the south. Below is the store owned and operated by a Korean greengrocer on 37th Ave. Like so many Korean-owned shops in the city, this is a family-owned and family-run market, with the husband, wife and daughters working what appear to be long hours. Class, race and immigration come together in the peculiar economy of such operations, which are not without problematic aspects.

The cheerful neon sign at New Peking on 37th Ave. between 77th and 78th Streets beckons passersby to enjoy cheap Chinese, with most of its business being take-out. One problematic aspect of such take-out restaurants is the proliferation of their menus in apartment buildings in the neighborhood, causing litter and often even the danger of accidents caused by residents slipping on the menus that are often dumped in the lobbies and vestibules of buildings in Jackson Heights.

But a potentially far more serious problem is the way in which some immigrant families, in order to provide for future generations, often rely on family labor that can enormously stress parents as well as children. And the expectations of such parents, especially East Asian and South Asian parents, can sometimes push Asian immigrant youth to the breaking point.

Another aspect of ‘diversity’ that requires interrogation is the question of food sources and the treatment of those animals that we consume (at least those who aren’t vegetarian).

I love the diversity of offerings at the Pacific Supermarket on 75th St. between Roosevelt Ave. and Broadway, which is pan-Asian but seems to cater to a primarily Chinese immigrant customer base, but I’m somewhat troubled by the way the management keep the fish and the lobsters especially, crowded into overcrowded small tanks. I took an acquaintance into the supermarket not too long ago, and while she was delighted by the many choices and their Asian origins, she was shocked by the way in which the management kept frogs in an extremely overcrowded tank, lying one on top of the other. I’m happy to say that I haven’t seen any frogs in the store when I’ve gone in recently, so perhaps someone spoke to the management about that horrendous treatment of those poor amphibians.

Jackson Heights also has its choice of street food, and food trucks are now beginning to proliferate just as they are in Manhattan and the other boroughs.

This late-night taco stand is often parked on the northeast corner of 75th St. and Roosevelt Ave., kitty corner from the subway station. One serious concern that I have is about the hygiene of such operations, the lack of which has been reported on in the media in recent years.

Jackson Heights is a wonderful neighborhood, but like every neighborhood in this city, it has its share of problems, many related to crime, many of which in turn relate to substance abuse. And that leads me to the next photo, which may be the most shocking I’ve included here to illustrate life in the neighborhood. I suppose I should put up a ‘trigger alert’ here, because some will find disturbing; but the purpose of this photographic essay is to talk about diversity in the neighborhood, and there’s a dark underbelly to that diversity that I think needs to be discussed and addressed.

The year before last, I was on a #7 train coming back from Manhattan. Around midnight, the train stopped at the 69th St. station, and when the doors to the train cars opened, a young man came running through the train car I was in, acting very erratic, either chasing or being chased by another man. This young man appeared to be Latino and was speaking in Spanish in a very strange fashion. After a few minutes an announcement over the loudspeaker informed us that the train was being stopped temporarily because of police activity, and very shortly, a couple of police officers arrived on the scene, apparently in pursuit of this young man.

The incident ended bizarrely and tragically when the young man leapt to his death, and I saw his body on the ground when I descended to the street level to walk home down Roosevelt Ave. I had only recently read about the ‘bath salts’ craze sweeping the country and I had to wonder if either substance abuse and/or mental illness had anything to do with this young man’s erratic and ultimately fatal behavior. The point to be made here is that substance abuse, mental illness, poverty and crime are issues that have to be raised in a discussion of Jackson Heights or just about any neighborhood in this city; and those phenomena intersect with oppression based on race, ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, class, income, wealth and disability as well as sexuality and gender. Even in a neighborhood as wonderful as Jackson Heights, there are many who live lives of quiet desperation.

And speaking of issues of class, income and wealth, in a slightly different context than the one raised above by the reference to the high cost of co-op apartments in the historic district, is the issue of the high cost of commercial real estate in the neighborhood. This is an issue that affects non-profit organizations such as Queens Pride House. While rents in Jackson Heights are nowhere near as high as those in Manhattan or in the most expensive parts of Brooklyn, they have nonetheless been rising here year after year, making it difficult for both commercial enterprises and non-profits located in the neighborhood.

There is also a shortage of non-residential rental space in Jackson Heights, with the Bruson Building on 37th Ave. between 74th and 75th Streets one of the few buildings offering commercial space in the neighborhood. But on April 20, a huge five-alarm fire destroyed much of the Bruson Building and it is not clear if the building will be rebuilt or not. Regardless, the incident points to the danger of fire that a densely populated neighborhood like Jackson Heights is vulnerable to.

When there’s a fire, the people to call are obviously the Fire Department (FDNY). But what if you’re the victim of a crime? One would hope that the New York Police Department would be the agency of city government that all New Yorkers could turn to, but unfortunately, the NYPD has a long and sordid history of police harassment and brutality, directed especially towards people of color and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people. And in fact, we held a forum on the NYPD’s notorious ‘stop-and-frisk’ policy on September 11 of last year, with representatives from various community-based organizations to discuss police-community relations.

Everyone on the panel agreed that people of color and LGBT/queer people had legitimate reasons to mistrust and even fear the police, especially transgendered women of color who have been subjected to a campaign of harassment and brutality for a very long time now. Transgendered Latinas in particular are assumed to be engaging in prostitution regardless of whether they’re actually sex workers. And of course, there have been a host of high-profile police brutality cases in other areas of the city over the years, involving Abner Louima, Anthony Baez, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, and most recently, Eric Garner on Staten Island only in April.

New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio defeated New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and a number of other challengers in the Democratic mayoral primary in good part because he was able to make stop-and-frisk and police reform a signature issue of his campaign. We will now see whether Mayor de Blasio can bring about meaningful reform that will enhance the quality of life for residents of Jackson Heights, including its transgendered residents, Muslims, and others who are all too often victims of overly aggressive policing and even harassment and brutality.

It is important in any discussion of diversity in this neighborhood to raise the issue of the unconstitutional NYPD surveillance of Muslims in this city, given the burgeoning Muslim population in Jackson Heights.

On the corner of 74th St. and 37th Ave. at the head of ‘Little India’ (which stretches two blocks south to Roosevelt Ave.), you will find vendors selling religious items to fellow Muslims. In this neighborhood, the Muslim population is predominantly South Asian — mostly Pakistani and Bangladeshi. The NYPD’s unconstitutional surveillance of the city’s Muslim community directed by Commissioner Raymond Kelly at the behest of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of policing in this city, and there has yet to be any accountability for it. I have been informed by police watch groups that the NYPD have used traffic stops on Roosevelt Ave. to attempt to track down law-abiding Muslims and blackmail them into collaborating in illegal surveillance on other members of the Muslim community.

It is in such circumstances that the NYPD’s superficial appeals to ‘diversity’ make a mockery of the concept, and of all our city agencies, it is the NYPD whose use or misuse of the concept of diversity that is most ripe for interrogation.

Speaking of both religion and Little India, I have to mention my love of the delights of 74th St. On a hot summer afternoon, walking down 74th St. between 37th Ave. and Roosevelt Ave., one can imagine that one is walking down a street in Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata) or Madras (Chennai), with restaurants serving tandoori chicken and lamb vindaloo and shops full of glittering jewelry and saris.

Ganesha is the happiest of the Hindu gods, representing good luck, and sits contentedly here in a window on 74th St., surrounded by gold jewelry that is worn primarily at weddings. But there is a darker reality behind the colorful façade of sari shops on 74th St., and that is the persistence of poverty, labor abuses, domestic violence, and other ills that plague immigrant communities as well as mainstream society in Jackson Heights. Last year, we held a forum on the human trafficking of Asian women in Queens, which experts on our panel informed us in this borough was actually primarily labor trafficking rather than the more sensational but somewhat less common phenomenon of sex trafficking.

One particularly problematic aspect of the thriving Indian community in Queens is the persistence of caste distinctions, which becomes readily apparent when one reads any of the classifieds in any of the ethnic press in the South Asian community here, where such personal ads focus almost obsessively on caste origins in determining the suitability of marriage matches — this, despite the fact that the newly independent India abolished caste in 1947 after the end of the British Raj.

One aspect of ‘diversity’ that doesn’t get enough attention in the focus on race, ethnicity, religion and to a lesser extent, sexual orientation, is that of access for people with disabilities. The renovation of the Roosevelt Ave. subway station that was completed back in 2005 cost $87 million and was long overdue. As part of the renovation, elevators were installed in the station, but oddly, enough, the elevator from the #7 train platform of the 74th St./Broadway station descends to a mezzanine, and anyone then wishing to go down to the platform on the lower level to catch the E, F, M or R train must cross an often busy mezzanine to a separate elevator to make that leg of the trip. And of course, even if this station is (just barely) wheelchair-accessible many other stations in Queens are not, which limits the mobility of wheelchair-bound passengers and their ability to use the subway system in the borough.

And of course, wheelchair accessibility is only one issue when discussing access for people with disabilities, given that there are innumerable disabilities of various kinds. At Queens Pride House, we are limited by extreme budget constraints from addressing many issues that we would like to address, wheelchair access being one; it is simply beyond our current budget to consider elevator installation in this building.

But for the able-bodied at least, Jackson Heights is a convenient location for access to the New York City subway system, and those who live near the Roosevelt Ave. subway station enjoy perhaps the best location in Queens for access to public transit.

One aspect of diversity that is of particular importance for our discussion is the role that our educational system plays in accommodating diversity and ideally fostering an appreciation of it. There are a number of public as well as private schools in the neighborhood, with PS 69 being an elementary school on the southeast corner of 76th St. and 37th Ave.

PS 69 is said to have the most diverse student body of any public school in the city and possibly in the country, with one estimate counting 84 different native languages spoken at home by the students at the school. But while we ought to celebrate this diversity, we also need to address issues that it may raise. To what extent is bullying and bias-based harassment in our schools a problem? The New York City Department of Education won’t tell us and may not know themselves, given that they do not keep adequate statistics on bullying and bias-based harassment; nor do they have any real accountability system for holding those guilty of bullying and bias-based harassment accountable for the actions — whether students, faculty or non-teaching staff. Fortress Tweed will not tell us the extent of the problem, nor do the powers that be at NYC DoE have any systematic program for sensitivity training, with their current sensitivity training program ineffective at best and at worst, a mechanism for channeling tax dollars to fund problematic organizations which themselves are guilty of gross bias, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in particular.

One aspect of diversity that is of course central to the mission of Queens Pride House is the inclusion of LGBT people in the life of the neighborhood and the borough. We have hosted events for LGBT parents and their children, including Claudia Narvaez-Meza, Krystal Banzon and their son, Malaya.

Claudia and Krystal were hoping to join us, but Krystal’s pregnancy and impending delivery made that impossible. But they are one of a growing number of same-sex couples who are raising children such as Malaya in Jackson Heights, and like all LGBT people, they have legitimate concerns about discrimination and harassment, something that, as I have already noted, the NYC DoE was simply not interested in addressing under the Bloomberg administration; we shall see whether there is any change under Mayor de Blasio and his new chancellor, Carmen Fariña.

Public schools are actually polling sites in our elections, as this sign indicates. The sign is in Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Bengali as well as in English, but some advocacy organizations have deplored the lack of Asian-language speakers at polling places in the neighborhood and the borough. While Queens now has two openly gay Council members, a Latino Assembly member and a Latino member of the state Senate, as well as its third woman in a row serving as borough president, the mere inclusion of members of historically underrepresented communities does not necessarily result in the automatic empowerment of those communities, despite the symbolic victory of their election, and it is important not to be taken in by a superficial discourse of identity politics; it is the impact on the real lives of real people that must be the measure of the efficacy elected officials as well as of the political empowerment of the communities that they claim to represent.

We at Queens Pride House take seriously our mission to serve the LGBT community of Queens, not only through our participation in the Queens Pride Parade every first Sunday in June, but every day of the year.

Located on 37th Ave. in Jackson Heights, Queens Pride House is the only LGBT community center in the borough and we serve an exceptionally diverse group of members and clients. I might add parenthetically that I am the only openly transgendered executive director of an LGBT community center in the city or the state and one of the only two in the country; I am also the only Asian American executive director of an LGBT community center in the city or the state and one of the only two in the country; and perhaps not surprisingly, I’m the only openly transgendered Asian American executive director of an LGBT community center in the country.

* * * * *

This was the text of the presentation that Pauline Park gave at “Beyond ‘Diversity'” at Queens Pride House on 25 October 2014.

Pauline Park, Ph.D., is president and acting executive director of Queens Pride House as well as a long-time resident of Jackson Heights.

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Parking Rights
Pauline Park is fighting for transgender rights
By Kevin Allison
New York Blade
Friday, July 18, 2003

Late one night, years ago, Pauline Park squeezed onto an E train to Queens in a burgundy gown. A man shoved past, selling batteries. When he saw Park, he was disgusted. “If you’re a man, dress like a man!” he yelled. He went on insulting her.

“People were laughing at me. Middle-aged white people, laughing right at me,” Park recalls. “But it bothered me for about 10 seconds and I just moved on.” She pauses in reflection and says, “It’s about maintaining my dignity.”

Since the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws, dignity for the gay community is here. But it’s still easier for some than for others.

This month, Park celebrates the anniversary of her two greatest achievements as an activist: the founding of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA); and the passage of the city’s transgender rights bill. But there are still too many incidents like the one on the subway for Park to remember.

Even with a PhD in political science, training as a classical pianist and being a self-taught expert on J.R.R. Tolkien, she feels happy just to walk down the street in peace. Park is transgendered.

In her case, that means no surgery and no hormones. But it means more to her than cross-dressing. Park sees no incongruity between the male body she inhabits and the female identity she embraces.

Relaxing in her Jackson Heights apartment, surrounded by books from all over the world, Park sips on spring water, reminiscing on how she got to this anniversary. She’s a petite Korean American, utterly comfortable with herself barefoot in a floral summer one-piece. Park has shoulder-length black hair and stunning eyes.

Her big, expressive face may not always “pass” as a woman’s; but the most striking thing about Park is her voice. Soft and soothing, it’s a voice made for lullabies.

“When I was a young child, I use to have constant dreams, always with the same premise,” she says laughing. “I was alone at night in a big department store in the women’s section. And I got to try on all the clothing that I wanted to.”

Park is particularly proud of her work in helping to pass New York City’s transgender rights bill. “That really took countless hours of work to pass. I started on it in January of ’99,” she says. On April 24, 2002, the City Council did approve a landmark bill to protect the rights of the transgendered. The Mayor signed it on April 30, when it became Local Law 3 of 2002.

This month also marks the fifth anniversary of her founding NYAGRA. “When I first started dressing, I remember this one taxi driver I met and he felt he had to remain a closeted cross-dresser.” The memory brings sorrow to Park’s voice. “He was older, late ‘50s, very masculine features and he was very, very sad about it. It really brought home to me that the mass of transgendered people live lives of quiet desperation. So I started having ideas about what eventually became NYAGRA, a group to be a voice for the voiceless.”

Park herself was voiceless for years. An adopted son of Christian fundamentalists in Milwaukee, she hid from the world behind stacks of books in libraries.

Things got less lonely in college with gay groups and coming out. Cross-dressing was the long-dreamt-of leap taken when Park was living in London in the early ‘80s at the age of 22. She lost friends over it and found the switch just as nerve-racking as exhilarating.

Expressing her ‘masculine’ side“I think that ironically there are more of what you might call ‘masculine’ traits that I’ve finally been able to express having come out as a transgendered woman,” she says. “There’s room now for this side of me who is the firebrand, the fiery activist who goes out to get things done.”

That’s not to say the little dreamer she once was, the contemplative kid playing Bach on the piano, is lost. “There’s still a side of me that’s philosophical. I sometimes find myself having two reactions at the same time, and I don’t feel they’re in conflict. It’s more of a conversation.”

It’s clear that conversation is Park’s forte. She speaks lovingly and often of “intellectual companionship,” and finds inspiration in “The Lord of the Rings.”

“There are two kinds of power,” she explains. “One is the power of dominion over others, symbolized by the ring. But there’s also spiritual power, which is enhanced when it’s shared. That’s the true spirit of community. People think, ‘Well my voice doesn’t count.’ But I think we showed with the transgender rights bill that a small number of people acting on a just cause can accomplish great things.”

A statewide transgender rights bill is her next conquest, as well as the Dignity for All Students bill to protect kids from harassment at school. Is it getting easier being herself in public these days? Park is optimistic as ever.

“Just a week ago I was walking down the street past a construction site and one of the men just standing around goes, ‘That’s a man! That’s a Chinese man!’ And I just smiled to myself. I thought, ‘Well mister, you’re wrong on both counts!’”

This article originally appeared in the New York Blade on 18 July 2003.

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Jackson Heights This Week
New Law Stands Up For LGBT Youth
Queens Tribune
1-7 July 2010

The New York State Senate passed sweeping anti-bullying legislation on June 22 that will be the first in the nation to include protection for transgender individuals.

The Dignity for All Students Act passed the Senate by an overwhelming 58-3 margin, winning support from Democrats and Republicans. Gov. David Paterson has vowed to sign the bill, which has already passed the Assembly.

“I’m thrilled that the Senate finally took action after 10 years,” said Pauline Park, chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy and Vice President of the Board of Directors of Queens Pride House. “Both Democrats and Republicans saw there was a need to protect students in public schools from harassment.” Park had been involved in pushing for passage of the bill for over adecade.

The bill requires school staff to report bullying and bias-based discrimination and harassment based on a comprehensive list of characteristics, including disability, ethnicity, race, religion and sexual orientation, as well as gender, and it requires training to deal with instances of bullying and bias-based discrimination and harassment. Park noted the definition of gender is a crucial component of the legislation, as surveys show that bullying and harassment based on gender identity and expression have become a major problem in schools.

The New York City Council passed a similar law in June 2004 called the Dignity in All Schools Act. Mayor Mike Bloomberg vetoed it shortly after, but the mayor’s veto was overridden. The Bloomberg administration and DOE refused to implement the law, claiming the City Council didn’t have authority to pass legislation dealing with schools since the state legislature authorized Mayoral Control of schools. Park disagreed.

“We didn’t see anything in the law [allowing Mayoral Control] that would preclude City Council from legislating in these matters,” she said. She noted that the state law now supersedes the city law and requires the DOE to enforce it. Park said she and other LGBT activists would be fully involved in seeing that the law is implemented in city schools.

The two laws are similar. The local law applies only to harassment and not discrimination, which state law includes, but the state law only applies to public schools while the city law also includes private schools.

Park, who lives in Jackson Heights, said the new law was especially important for Queens because of the borough’s diverse demographics.

“Biased-based harassment and discrimination is a huge issue in the diverse student population of Queens,” she said. “This law will certainly be relevant here.”

Reach Reporter Domenic Rafter at drafter@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 125.

— Domenick Rafter

This article originally appeared in the print edition of the 1-7 July 2010 issue of the Queens Tribune.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more info., contact:

Daniel Castellanos
Executive Director
(718) 429-5309
(646) 285-6931
dcastellanos@queenspridehouse.org

Pauline Park
Vice-President, Board of Directors
(718) 424-4003
paulinepark@earthlink.net

Queens Pride House
76-11 37th Avenue, Suite 206
Jackson Heights, NY 11372
(718) 429-5309
http://www.queenspridehouse.org/

New York, 6 July 2010 — Queens Pride House is appealing to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community for support in the face of possibly devastating state funding cuts. The only LGBT community center in Queens, Pride House has not yet received a definitive response from Gov. David Paterson as to the disposition of approximately $80,000 in grants from the State of New York that are hanging in the balance as the governor threatens to veto funding appropriated by the state legislature for scores of community-based organizations throughout the state.

“As you may already know, many non-profit organizations are struggling with funding, and Queens Pride House has been as vulnerable as any to the negative impact of the downturn of the economy in general and the State of New York’s budget crisis in particular,” executive director Daniel Castellanos wrote to members of the Queens Pride House mailing list in a message posted to the list on June 30.

“In addition to the uncertainty over our current funding from the State of New York, we have received some very disappointing news regarding funding from the New York City Council and New York State Assembly,” Castellanos continued. “Due to these funding constrains, we have been forced to make some very painful decisions in order to keep our doors open. Most painful of all was the difficult decision to lay off two valued members of our QPH staff,” said Castellanos. “We have had to reduce our drop-in hours, eliminate some program activities, and postpone some upcoming events. Our services to Spanish-speaking immigrants have been also impacted by the loss of bilingual staff.”

“The consequences of a veto by the governor will be the most dire for the most vulnerable people we serve, including those with health and social service issues, especially for clients who are homeless or unemployed,” said Pauline Park, vice-president of the board of directors.

“Of the three state contracts totalling approximately $80,000, we have expended about $50,000 on the contracts, including payroll and other expenses,” noted Castellanos. “Loss of these contracts could force us to cut back on as much as one-third of our client services and dismiss one full-time and three part-time employees,” he added.  Queens Pride House has been awarded an Assembly grant through the LGBT Health & Human Services Network consecutively for eight years, with the current amount of that grant standing at $25,000.  QPH has also received a Senate grant in the amount of $40,000 and an grant of $15,000 from outgoing Senator George Onorato of Queens, who is retiring this year. “Our proposed workplans, contract period, and budget were approved by the New York State Department of Health and those contracts were issued,” Castellanos pointed out.

Queens Pride House was founded in 1997 and is based in Jackson Heights, which is part of Council District 25. In previous years, Queens Pride House had received funding from former Council Member Helen Sears, who was defeated in September 2009 by openly gay Council Member Daniel Dromm. The election of the first openly gay elected officials in the borough of Queens in November 2009 seemed to some members of the LGBT community to herald a new era in the history of the community, but both Council Member Daniel Dromm (D-25) and Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer (D-26) declined funding requests from Queens Pride House for fiscal year 2010-2011. In previous years, Queens Pride House had received funding from former Council Member Helen Sears (who was defeated in September 2009 by Dromm) as well as from her predecessor, John Sabini.

“The loss of any of our state or city grants would seriously compromise our ability to support partnerships with some groups serving underserved individuals and their families,” added Rosa Bramble Weed, a member of the Queens Pride House board who also runs the Positive Life program, a program for Latino HIV positive individuals supported by Queens Pride House. In fact, the community center also provides subsidized space to two substance use groups, two arts organizations, and several non-profit organizations serving immigrants.

However, Queens Pride House has received a small grant from Council Member Julissa Ferreras (D-21) to continue Charla!, a support group for Latina lesbians offered in partnership with Las Buenas Amigas (a group for Latina lesbians in New York City). “Charla is a monthly discussion group that meets every 3rd Tuesday of the month at Queens Pride House and focuses on health and emotional issues of interest to Latina lesbians in New York,” noted Bramble Weed.

“We hope that our funding stabilizes,” Castellanos added. “However, these steps we have taken might not be enough to cover potential cuts to our funding.” Castellanos concluded the June 30 appeal with the recognition that “We know that this is a difficult time for many members of the community as well as for our community center, and we ask for your patience, understanding, and support during this difficult time of adjustment. We are more than ever in need of donations and the active participation of volunteers, who will play an important role in keeping our community center open so that we can continue to serve the LGBT community of Queens.”

# # # #

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Julio Rivera’s brother, Ted & niece, Jennifer (second and third from left) at the July 2 vigil on 37th St. in Jackson Heights (photo: John Won).

On 2 July 2010, members of the family of Julio Rivera were joined by nearly 70 people who gathered to remember the murder of the young gay Latino who was murdered outside P.S. 69 in Jackson Heights. Queens is the most ethnically diverse county in the United States, and Jackson Heights is the most demographically diverse neighborhood in the borough.

At the vigil, there were people representing the full diversity of the borough, all expressing solidarity with the family of Julio  Rivera as well as with the family of Edgar Garzon, whose mother was there to commemorate the brutal murder of her gay Latino son. The vigil took place on the corner of 37th Ave. & 78th St., named Julio Rivera Corner in honor of the gay Latino victim of a horrific hate crime.

As vice-president of the board of directors of Queens Pride House, I spoke on behalf of the board and staff of Pride House, the only LGBT community center in the borough, offering condolences to Julio’s family as well as congratulations on the work done since his murder that has moved Queens forward into an era of greater understanding and acceptance.

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