DIVERSITY | Offering a place for everyone
01 August 2008
One New York City Neighborhood Is a World of Religious Diversity
Flushing, New York, is home to more than 200 places of worship
New York -- The street blocks in Flushing, New York, may seem long to walk on a hot summer day, but they make the distance between the world’s many religions seem short.
On one block alone, the Kissena Jewish Center faces a Hindu temple, Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, which neighbors the Boon Church of Overseas Chinese Mission, which faces the Singh Sabha Sikh gurdwara. This block exemplifies the rest of Flushing, a neighborhood 16 kilometers east of Manhattan that compacts more than 200 places of religious worship into 6.5 square kilometers. Flushing is a community in Queens, one of the five boroughs that together make up New York City.
A short walk around the neighborhood takes a visitor past 151 Christian churches (many are Korean), 30 Buddhist temples, seven Hindu temples, six Jewish temples, four Muslim mosques, two Sikh gurdwaras, two Taoist temples and a group practicing Falun Gong, according to statistics compiled by R. Scott Hanson, visiting assistant professor of history at the State University of New York at Binghamton.
Local residents also proudly claim Flushing is the “birthplace of religious freedom in America” because of the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition by Flushing residents in 1657 asking the Dutch colonial government to uphold the religious freedom provisions of the town charter. It is recognized as the earliest political assertion of freedom of conscience and religion in New York. (See “U.S. Religious Freedom Owes Debt to Colonists’ Radical Document.”)
Several factors came together over time to make Flushing one of the most religiously diverse communities in the United States. It is centrally located with two major New York airports nearby, subway, bus and railroad stops, and major roads. International visitors came to the area for two major world fairs (1939-40 and 1964-65). Many immigrants wanted to get away from overcrowded Manhattan to find a little bit more space, grass and trees in the outer boroughs like Queens. Also, a loophole in the zoning law made it possible for many different immigrant groups to build so-called “community facilities,” including houses of worship, in residential neighborhoods, Hanson noted. Converted houses and storefronts serve as churches and temples, scattered up and down blocks between larger places of prayer.
These conditions attract scores of immigrants to the area because they make it easier to establish faith-based community centers that bring some familiarity to a new, foreign home. Waves of Irish, Russians, Greeks, Italians and African Americans, over time, have shared space with and made way for Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Pakistani, Afghan, Mexican and Central American residents, according to the New York Times.
According to the 2000 census, over half the residents of Flushing are Asian American. The town’s main street “has the kind of business diversity, foot traffic, liveliness, and buzz Middle American main streets only dream of,” says New York magazine.
Despite Flushing’s capacity to provide a home for so many different groups of people, learning to live together has taken time because “people become more accustomed to diversity over time,” Hanson said.
“The 1970s was a period of growing pains, and into the 1980s and 1990s when diversity really escalated,” he said. Now, Hanson added, “people are at least aware. There is a sensitivity that’s there.”
Ganapathy Padmanabhan, the public relations officer for the Hindu Temple Society of North America, agrees. “We find Flushing to be respectful and tolerant,” he said.
The Hindu temple was consecrated in Flushing in 1977 and members work to be good neighbors, Padmanabhan said; the temple welcomes about 500 people through its doors during the week and up to 3,000 on weekends.
“We make very good neighborly relations. We take care that [neighborhood residents are] not disturbed,” Padmanabhan said.
Beyond maintaining peace with the neighbors, the temple does have some interaction with people of other religions in the area. After all, it sits one block away from the Boon Church and Singh Sabha Sikh gurdwara and about four blocks away from the oldest mosque in Queens, the Muslim Center of New York.
Hanson cited the absence of a history of territorial conflict about religion in Flushing. Although occasional incidents of vandalism and hate crimes have taken place over the years, and tempers flare over parking problems on weekends, diversity exists “without warfare and bloodshed,” he said. People cannot connect any conflict to the past, which allows for a spirit of “live and let live.”
“Many Muslims, Christians and Jews come here,” said Padmanabhan. “People from other faiths visit the temple, particularly students. We take them around the temple and tell them about our religious practices.”
Other places in the United States where diversity has become commonplace include Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington; Fremont, California, near San Francisco; and Rogers Park, Illinois, near Chicago. Like Flushing, these areas all border urban centers.
Hanson acknowledged that even in Flushing, with all its diversity, interaction among groups is often “superficial.” In a lecture at the Queens Museum of Art, Hanson said that “city people value their privacy, so while residents of Flushing may live, work, and worship near each other, overall there is not much meaningful, lasting interaction among different ethnic/racial/religious groups.”
But Flushing should continue to flourish as a model of religious pluralism, Hanson predicted. He credits Flushing’s City Councilman John Liu, the first Asian-Pacific American on the New York City Council, with making great efforts to bridge remaining gaps between the groups in the area.
“I’m hopeful about the future,” Hanson said.
See Hanson’s map showing places of worship in Flushing and a video produced by Voice of America. Also see “Different Faiths Team Up to Bridge Differences in New York” and Diversity-At Worship.
Video on Flushing (Voice of America)
