Diversity In Jackson Heights
Jackson Heights, a borough of New York City, has been called "the most diverse county in America," and the yearly Jackson Heights Gay Pride Festival and Parade is a crowning jewel in the transformation of the borough from its origins as an exclusive community that refused admittance to Jews and Catholics.
A story in today's New York Sun traced the evolution of the community from its inception in 1911 as an early version of today's gated community, complete with overtly discriminatory goals of keeping out "undesirables," to its current status as home to residents hailing from 167 nations, speaking 116 languages--and a community that celebrates Gay Pride on the first Sunday of every June.
This annual celebration reflects the most recent aspect of Jackson Heights' transformation into a truly universal community, relatively a shift in local attitudes regarding gays and lesbians--a change brought about, in part, by the brutal murder of a gay man named Julio Rivera at the hands of three neo-Nazis.
One night in 1990, three members of a skinhead gang called The Doc Martens (named after their then-trendy footwear) went looking for trouble. As Daniel Dromm, Jackson Heights' openly gay Democratic district leader, related in the Sun story, "In his own testimony, one of the three killers told how they 'went hunting' for a gay man or a Jew to bash."
Continued Dromm, "They lurked in a van on 37th Road behind where many of the gay bars were, and waited. When Julio came by, they struck him in the head with a full 40 ounce bottle of beer, and [then] continued to kick and beat him to death."
The vicious murder of Rivera was compounded two years later by efforts from what Dromm called "a homophobic district schoolboard president" to eliminate a school program called Children of the Rainbow.
Said Dromm, "The Julio Rivera murder raised consciousness, but in 1992 the fight over the Children of the Rainbow curriculum got [gays in the area] organized. Many gays felt education was the only way to end gay bashing." Said Dromm, "The curriculum did not promote gayness; it just didn't demonize it."
The Queens District 24 school board president saw the issue differently. His efforts to end the curriculum galvanized the boroughs gay population.
Said Dromm, "When [he] led the fight to have the curriculum removed from all city schools just two years after Julio's murder, we had to do something. We got organized, got active, and never looked back."
Now, politicians embrace the gay community and their celebrations, attending the annual Gay Pride Festival and Parade, which takes place in Queens. This year's celebration is scheduled to include attendance by Mayor Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and Rep. Joe Crowley, who served last year as the parade's grand marshal.
Said Crowley, Queens is amazingly diverse. Amongst all that diversity, Jackson Heights is singular in that it is the second largest gay community in New York. This adds to the character of the neighborhood."