The South Asian-American population in Southern Queens is being disenfranchised by district
The South Asian-American population in Southern Queens is being disenfranchised by district boundaries, according to a study done by Taking Our Seat, an organization advocating for better political representation for South Asians.
The neighborhoods of Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park have some of the largest populations of residents of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean descent in the country, but the neighborhoods are divided among different Council, State Assembly, State Senate and even Congressional districts.
On the City level, the South Asian community is split between the Council districts of Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) – where populations in Howard Beach and Rockaway outnumber the South Asian communities – and the district of newly-elected Councilman Ruben Wills (D-South Jamaica). The election that put Wills in office is at the forefront of the issue raised by Taking Our Seat.
John Prakash Albert, the group’s founder, said more than 4,000 South Asian-American and Indo-Caribbean voters do not live in the district, but do live in the neighborhood, and would have made a difference in the race that Wills won with 3,347 votes.
What he calls the disenfranchised 4,225 South Asian voters “would have had a tremendous impact on this race,” Albert said. “We conducted this analysis to show how an election that is supposed to empower our community actually demonstrates how powerless we are.”
Two of the seven candidates running in the special election Nov. 2 were from the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean community; Al Baldeo, who finished third, and Harpreet Singh Toor, who finished sixth.
Taking Our Seat, Albert said, is using those election results to promote its grassroots efforts to unite the South Asian community in Southern Queens in common districts. The movement, called “Brown Districts, Now,” will advocate to keep South Asian-American neighborhoods in the same district to increase the possibility of a representative of South Asian descent getting elected.
The state legislative seats are Taking Our Seat’s first priority.
“The state redraws its lines for the Assembly and Senate first,” he explained. Just 10 years ago, the seat recently won by Francisco Moya in Corona was created to meet the needs of a growing Latino demographic.
The communities in South Queens are split between the State Senate districts of Shirley Huntley (D-Jamaica) and Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach), while on the State Assembly level, the neighborhoods are divided into slices of districts centered away from the area, including the Flushing-based district of Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest), the Far Rockaway-centered district of Michele Titus (D-Far Rockaway), the districts of Mike Miller (D-Glendale), Vivian Cook (D-South Jamaica) and Audrey Pheffer (D-Rockaway Park), where voting blocs in Glendale, Rochdale Village and the Rockaway Peninsula respectively outnumber the South Asian community. Albert said Taking Our Seat is conducting a study on the need for a state-level district, and findings should be released in December.
Albert said he was not concerned with the low turnout rate in Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park during the Census earlier this year because their advocacy will be based on number of voters, which he believes would make the group’s argument that the South Asian-American community is large enough to necessitate uniting them in one district.
Albert noted that the importance of the South Asian-American community goes beyond Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park.
“If you wanted to capture the entire neighborhood, you would have to go into Ozone Park and parts of Woodhaven,” Albert said. He listed neighborhoods like Jackson Heights, Jamaica Estates and Bellerose as other locations with high South Asian-American populations that he hopes to advocate for. The growing South Asian-American voting bloc in Bellerose was key to former Councilman Tony Avella’s defeat of 38-year incumbent State Senator Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose).