From The Peopling of New York City

My research proposal is to study the effects of intercultural mingling in Jackson Heights. This study would focus on the varying cultures in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights and how they interact with one another and also how they affect each other’s presence in the area. It interests me to find out how the other ethnic populations started to migrate to the area that is still mostly South Asian. It would also be interesting to find out how the South Asian population feel about the different ethnic groups that are in the area such as the Hispanic and Tibetan populations.

In order to investigate this topic I would find South Asian from the neighborhood, preferable people such as shop owners and find out if they are threatened by the increasing population of non South Asians or if they welcome the newcomers to the neighborhood with open arms. This would be accomplished by thorough interviews with each of the residents and storeowners that I would choose. Other questions that could be posed to them would be questions regarding hiring workers that are not South Asian and why or why not they would take such a course of action. Another factor that could be part of the research would be to investigate the religious aspects of the neighborhood, such as seeing of competing shops of different religions take the competition’s religion into account and if that affects how they see them. Hopefully these interviews will allow me to find answers to these questions and many more that I have not written down.