Chhaya CDC (community development corporation) is an organization whose goal is the maintenance of stable communities among New Yorkers of South Asian descent. In pursuit of this objective they conducted a needs assessment study of this community.

The current economic downturn has significantly impacted this community. For example, despite the fact that forty seven percent of surveyed individuals possessed college educations, only eight percent worked in professional or technical jobs. The language barrier has played a major part in this particular disparity. Other economic difficulties result from housing. Most of the community lives in rented spaces and many have been exploited. Renting without lease and therefore with risk of displacement and illegal price gouging are just two problems in a much bigger issue. Homeowners haven’t fared much better due to the recent housing crisis and bureaucratic issues.

Chhaya also suggested many initiatives to help combat these problems including increasing the number of English language classes, allowing prior certification to apply here and allowing immigrants more access to public programs.

In Chhaya CDC, Chhaya surveys South Asian families in the five boroughs, focusing on Queens because that is where most reside, to pinpoint the concerns and problems that South Asians face once they move to New York.  Although Chhaya focuses on housing problems, job, social, and educational problems also came up in the findings of the survey.  What got my attention the most were the education and job related concerns.  Coming to a new country, 47% of South Asians surveyed already had a college degree and 14% had some college education.  As a U.S. born citizen, this level of education would qualify us  for a decent professional job with at least an average salary to live of off comfortably.  However, only 8% of the same group had a professional or technical job with 21% making $40,000 or more a year. As great as it is to see some succeeding and being able to live comfortably in America, it is not acceptable that most of the qualified South Asians are not being given the opportunity to contribute to their field of study.  Especially since they will have ideas and innovations that are different to those of the average American.  According to the survey, this problem is caused by the lack of availability of job opportunities in the fields that they were trained in in their home country, as well as the language barrier.  This forces the already educated group to go to school and become trained in a more available field.  However, it is like their past educational background is wiped out.  Several Bangladeshis that were surveyed explained the lower level jobs that they had after the many years of experience they had in their home country.  Once they moved to America, they had to essentially start over.  This is big problem that must be dealt with in immigrant communities.  Chhaya suggests, in the beginning of this passage, that the government provides development programs for the fields that South Asians are already trained in or invests in South Asian owned small businesses.  This would give South Asain immigrants the chance that they have worked hard for in their home countries.

Chhaya CDC’s “Deepening Roots and Creating Space” discusses about the challenges South Asians face and some proposed solutions. By utilizing census and surveys, Chhaya CDC was able to pinpoint some core issues the immigrants face. The first issue they addressed was the housing issue. The South Asian communities have grown significantly in the past decade, which is during the “country’s worst economic crisis”. Because the economic hardship, not only has it been hard for the South Asians to purchase a house, there has been many cases of overcrowded families. Also, the process of buying a house is also a hassle. Most of the housing contracts require some sort of income report. However, since most of these people are self-employed, they face disadvantages in housings issues.

In my opinion, the basic problem these people face is the language barrier. Being an immigrant myself, I also have had problems because I couldn’t communicate with others. It really is frustrating. Because you can’t communicate, you don’t want to interact with the society, which is why the first generation immigrants have hard time getting a job. Although these immigrants have received decent education, they can’t succeed in American because they can’t find the opportunities. As mentioned in the article, half of the selected group of people had college degree but only 8% of them were working in a professional field. That really shows how big this cultural barrier is.

Learning language surprisingly gives you a lot of confidence. You don’t feel as helpless as before. You feel like you can contribute and help others. Being able to communicate is really the key. A lot of these immigrants have the education that the society wants. However, that simple lack of communication is what’s blocking these immigrants from adapting into the society. That’s why, for the immigrants, there is a huge barrier to numerous opportunities.

South Asians are part of the New Wave of immigrants; Queens in particular has seen many of these new immigrants arriving and creating a new home for themselves here. Yet, unlike many of the immigrants that have been arriving in the past few decades, these South Asians-Indians in particular- are highly educated individuals, have obtained secondary school education and even college education for some. This is not such the case for other immigrants; many of the Latinos and Asians that have been immigrating to the U.S. are not highly educated.

These new immigrants have, like others before them, made their presence known. Jack Nicholson, a resident of Jackson Heights, discussed his experience living in Jackson Heights, before and after the waves of immigrants decided to make that neighborhood their home. Jackson Heights, like Flushing, like Corona, was originally a rural neighborhood that was part of a growing metropolis. Jackson Heights was built and created as a home for the whites that were fleeing Manhattan; this was made crystal clear when in Maly’s article, Nicholson recalls that it specifically did not allow any blacks, Jews nor Catholics. This highlights the fact that that area was intended to be a sort of haven for the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants that were still in the city.

Yet, fast forward to the recent decades, there is a diversity in Jackson Heights. To clarify, the Heights draws many immigrants not only because there are already established ethnic communities there, but also because of its convenience. The 7 train easily goes through this neighborhood, which is great for immigrants working blue-collar jobs and have to work longer than the traditional 9-5 PM work day. Ironically, this is what was used to appeal to the original white residents as well. Jackson Heights now has white residents, Latino residents, Chinese, Koreans, South Asians, you name it. Much like Queens, Jackson Heights has come to represent (what Nicholson stressed) would be the world in a few years.

The arrival of South Asians-Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, etc- means that there are new concerns that must be addressed. Nicholson recalls that property values in Jackson Heights dropped dramatically. His home, valued at $90,000, dropped to a value of $35,000. In Chhaya’s article, research found that many immigrants are concerned with jobs, cost of housing, and as one resident put it, “the overcrowding in schools.” (10) In addition, the research and numbers show that while many of the South Asian immigrants have gone to college, the jobs that they are getting are not much better than the ones that uneducated immigrants get. About 80% of the survey’s participants made less than $40,000 but 47% of the participants in general went to university. How is this possible, considering that in Joe Salvo’s presentation and research, we learned that Latino immigrants, most of whom have not gone to college, are earning around $30,000-$35,000?   In fact, many of the South Asian immigrants are taking low-end jobs, such as taxi drivers, laundry cleaners, etc. This disparity, however, should not be easily dismissed.

Chhaya CDC Report of 2012 has me absolutely appalled at the conditions of the South Asian community in New York City. What stood out the most was the fact that almost 47 percent of the South Asians surveyed held college degrees, but only 8 percent work in professional or technical jobs. That I felt was the main focal point of this reading. The language barrier was one of many big challenges faced by this demographic group. These language barriers are the main cause of the job and home issues this group faces. The issues faced at homes, is faced primarily by families renting houses or apartments who are faced with different issues that other renters do not ordinarily face. Most of them are paid in cash, therefore they must pay their rent in cash without any proof of ever having paid their rent to the homeowners. In addition, these South Asian immigrants primarily do not speak English, therefore they are not known of their rights as a renter and are often unaware of when they’re living in a rent control apartment. And since they pay rent in cash, there is no way of proving that they are being cheated out of their money.

Opportunity barriers are another prime issue facing this group South Asians. In one of the surveys done, it was noted that a young Bangladeshi male who has a master’s degree in accounting but currently works as a Taxi driver. Because of their different language, it is difficult for South Asians to gain work in their field of expertise. Immediate action should be taken to allow for this group of people to be accommodated for their differences in language. After all, 80 percent of the surveyed people were either US citizens or permanent residents. The South Asian community has had the largest percentage increase in population in New York City, 159 percent increase. There days are soon to come, because they’ll be around for many more years to come.

In Khandelwal’s article “Becoming American, Being Indian,” various aspects of the lives of Indians are depicted. Some themes include the spatial landscape of South Asian New York, the locations of the concentrations of these people, the range of religions practiced by Indian immigrants, and the change of Indian immigrants from a “professional middle-class population” to one of “diverse occupations.” With the recent migration, trajectories show a shift of these people from Manhattan to New York’s outer boroughs and suburbs. That being said, along with the growing numbers of new immigrants, streets are becoming more overcrowded and there is an accompanying frequent turnover in local businesses. Despite the drop in the number of Indians living in Manhattan, the sheer number of Indians who work in and around NYC has increased, with medical students, businessmen, cab drivers, and newsstand workers looking to the city and its surrounding environs as an opportunity for greater financial success. As evidence, anywhere you go in the city, you can expect to see South Asians employed as cabdrivers or as newsstand workers. These jobs are those that are readily available to them, since they are either uneducated or have little money to tide them over until they find better employment. Simply put, they need the money now. I can attest to this harsh reality, having an uncle who drives a taxi. The “taxi community” consists of many Indian people who know each other and establish the connections that allow other newcomers to join this service industry to make ready money. Even though the salary may not be sufficient, driving a cab still enables these new and/or uneducated South Asians to earn a living and make some money to support their families. Those who are ambitious certainly have the opportunity to work overtime. Khandelwal continues to go on in greater detail about the importance of the “taxi community” to Indian immigrants and to elaborate as to how this recent influx of Indian immigrants has changed the community as a whole.

Michael Maly is able to show how Jackson Heights transformed from a once upper middle class community to the hyper-diverse neighborhood it is today. He does this by making a clear timeline of events that occurred in Queens. In the very beginning of the twentieth century, Queens was nothing more than rural land made up of individual townships. Ten years later, Jackson Heights was bought by Edward MacDougall’s Queensboro Corporation. When MacDougall began to develop Queens, he imagined an exclusive community of young, educated Protestants living in an area of “calm tree-lined streets” while “sharing a common garden.” The construction of the Queensboro Bridge as well as the E, F and 7 trains provided a link between Queens and Manhattan. These new modes of transportation as well as the Hart-Cellar Immigration Act of 1965, which decreased restricted immigration, attracted a “massive influx” of immigrants from Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean. Initially a diverse community was formed but “white flight,” the move of white settlers to escape immigrants, followed soon after. The steep drop of white settlers in the area actually proved to be beneficial to immigrants in more ways than one. First, the value of real estate significantly declined. This made it possible for new immigrants to afford housing that they would have been unable to afford if the area remained exclusive to the upper middle-class. In addition, residents were able to open up new businesses and institutions in the area that catered to the likings of new immigrants such as Indian grocery stores, sari shops and temples. Queens went from rural land to an exclusive community of white Protestants into a safe haven for immigrants. Today we see Queens as a hyper-diverse community that many South Asians have found a home in.

The articles mention how the U.S. government tends to generalize immigrants into basic ethnic groups and fail to recognize the diversity within these groups. This is a result of America’s lack of understanding of the newer yet increasingly prominent immigrant groups such as the South Asians. This lack of understanding makes it difficult for the federal government to meet the needs of these immigrants and, as a result, these immigrants have a harder time thriving in the city. Here, we can ask the question of whether the government is actually making an attempt to understand them.  If they are, perhaps they lack the resources to be able to do so.

However, we see that within these communities immigrants form their own organizations (such as Chhaya CDC) in an attempt to better the conditions immigrants face when attempting to live in the United States. These organizations have a much better understanding of the diversity and culture of the ethnic groups. They are more efficient than the government consensus at obtaining data that accurately reflects the condition of the community. They are more in touch with the culture and traditions of these ethnic groups and much more inclined to help these groups for the sake of bettering their lives. They also work for representation in the government for these minority ethnic groups so that the needs of these groups can be met and actually provided for by the government.

In my opinion, the forming of institutions and organizations within ethnic communities is a result of a need for protection, support, and representation. These organizations help bring the voices of the community together and permit them to be heard by the government. Where the U.S. government will not or cannot efficiently provide for the needs of these ethnic communities, the organizations will step in and attempt to resolve the problem or attempt to pressure the government to do something about it.

In this piece the author, Khandelwal, discusses the “Indian” immigrant experience in America and the larger implications of the term “South Asian”. While the discussion of the “Indian”-American experience in Queens was fascinating, especially as a life log Queens resident who has observed these dynamics first hand, I found the issue of defining “Indian” and the issue of who should assume responsibility for that issue, to be most interesting.

Khandewlwal addresses is how exactly to define “Indian” identity and how it fits in within the larger category of “South Asian” identity. While the author does not provide a definitive definition (indeed, considering the vast diversity within and originating from the subcontinent there really can be none) what is settled is that the American manner of defining “Indian” and “South Asian” is flawed, or at least, lacking perspective. Here’s my question though: upon whom does this burden of definition fall? Should American society be obliged to properly define a set of cultures that are distinctly not American (and what is American?)? In my opinion, yes, there is inherit social and humanistic value in properly defining and understanding a foreign culture. However, for the practical purposes of the American government, isn’t it better to simply construct a definition that would best serve the needs of a people. In a sense, much of the Indian immigrant community would benefit from this broad association and conflation with other south Asians. Historically, there have been more communal and non-profit resources designated towards to struggling South Asian immigrants in general, as opposed to those struggling Indian immigrants whose economic needs are consistently marginalized the the “Indian” economic elite who maintain an image of Indian communal  wealth and comfort. In other words, the “burden of definition” should fall solely upon the “Indian” community, and the American government should simply be obligated to define “Indian” only insofar  as it helps and improves the lives of the immigrants.

Deepening Roots and Creating Space: Building a Better Future for New York’s South Asians gives a clear, thorough urban analysis of the South Asian plight in New York. Using a variety of research tools and methods such as statistics, focus groups, surveys, charts, and the current US census data, the Chhaya Community Development Corporation specifically focuses on the dire housing and economic development needs of the South Asian community.

South Asians, the fastest growing ethnic population, are composed of immigrants from a variety of countries in that region. They face a great deal of obstacles in their attempts to maintain housing, mainly language barriers, discrimination, and limited civil service access. Chhaya describes how most of them (70%) are forced to rent due to high costs. The 30% of them who do own homes bought them recently within the past decade, and they struggle to pay the mortgage; to afford these costs, they rent out their basements or attics illegally. Renters also engage in dubious behavior as well, for they rent in cash, do not own leases, or live in the informal units. In not having anything on paper, they make themselves vulnerable to displacement. Furthermore, the places that they find themselves dwelling in are overcrowded and are just generally bad living conditions. Particularly because of the recent economic downturn, they are much more unwilling to do renovations to their places. The prices for the most part continue to be on the rise and unfortunate statistic is that the number foreclosures continues to go up as well, specifically in the Queens section that is 50% South Asian.

Another issue that Chhaya raises is employment for South Asians. Their economic mobility is severely limited and therefore they are mostly confined to the service industry. An ironic statistic is that regarding education, the highest academic achievement for them is either a college degree or below a high school degree. Chyyana also includes anecdotal evidence to support the claim that for most people, the higher education still does not have an effect on their job; they are still stymied in the classic South Asian service industry. Especially as of late, they have faced severe unemployment, which causes them to have difficulty meeting a living wage. Therefore, the problem of employment and housing is highly correlated.

Chyyana gives many recommendations as to how to ameliorate the housing predicament and substandard living conditions that South Asians are facing. And while I understand that he is trying to address a severe issue that occurs today, I do not think that some of his solutions are feasible. It is indeed problematic that South Asians have trouble paying the high housing costs. However, I do not think that lowering down payment costs is the solution. Chyyana mentions that during the housing bubble they, like others, did not pay a down payment; when the bubble burst, many of them went into foreclosure. The lack of a down payment clearly tempted them to buy houses that they could not afford; had they paid the initial sum, they might have thought twice before signing on the dotted line. A down payment is a therefore a safety measure in the housing market. If we lower it, the economy will surely return to its nadir a la 2007. I certainly believe in helping educate marginalized people and immigrants into making proper, sound financial decisions, but I do not believe in policies that will negatively affect the outside economy.