In his article, Color-full before Color Blind: The Emergence of Multiracial Neighborhood Politics in Queens, New York City, Roger Sanjek talks about the “majority minority” transition in Elmhurst-Corona during the 1970s. A part of his study, which began in 1982, documents the political involvement of Latino and Asian immigrants in Elmhurst-corona. Previously, we read about the various immigrants vs. whites conflicts. Sanjek not only focuses on these conflicts but he also disproves some of the negative misconceptions about immigrants and Blacks. For example, many white residents of Corona thought that Lefrak City was full of “welfare cases” and therefore, it automatically became an undesirable place to live in. However, Sanjek uses data that proves that this is not true mainly because the blacks that lived in Lefrak city actually earned more than their white neighbors in Corona. Also, many white residents considered immigrants to be “people pollution” and “illegal aliens”. However, by conducting a survey, Sanjek found that many of these immigrants were visa holders, permanent residents or naturalized citizens.

In his talk at the Asian American Center at Queens College, Professor Vattamala talked about how districts sometimes get divided in an uneven way. Some of the ethnically saturated areas get split up and therefore; these ethnic groups are not accurately represented and their needs are not met. However, this situation did not occur in Elmhurst-Corona during the mid 1980s. As we have read and discussed in class before, new immigrants are not usually active in politics due to several reasons (such as discrimination based on race or ethnicity). Looking at the examples presented by Sanjek, it is important to notice that in order to bring attention to issues that matter to immigrants, a representative (usually from the same race that he or she is representing) is needed to encourage immigrants to get involved in politics. For example, Haydee Zambrana, a Puerto Rican, worked to provide services for non-English speakers from Latin America. It was remarkable to see that when Zambrana joined community board 4 in 1984, Latin American membership also doubled. The Korean American Association of Mid-Queens also increased Korean involvement in politics by successfully registering 6000 Korean voters in 1996. By looking at this increase in political involvement, it was interesting to see how such activism can help uplift immigrants by prompting them to voice their opinion in places and be a part of the decision making processes regarding their communities.