On the day this past spring when Latinos in the Parkchester neighborhood

On the day this past spring when Latinos in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Bronx gathered in local taquerias to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, the smell of biryani was unmistakable in the air.

Around the corner, a sea of Bangladeshi residents crowded onto the grounds of P.S. 106, where they celebrated the Bengali New Year and their native country’s independence from Pakistan. Past rows of white tents filled with vendors selling colorful saris and bejeweled trinkets, some powerful New York politicians sat as honored guests on a stage inside the auditorium – City Comptroller John Liu and then-Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera.

Rivera talked up his chief of staff, Daniel Figueroa, who is running against Luis Sepulveda for the 87th Assembly District seat in this week’s Bronx Democratic primary, after Rivera left the seat this summer to become commissioner of the state’s Department of Labor. Liu spoke of his shared experience with the Bangladeshi audience, as an immigrant from Taiwan, and emphasized the importance of voting for a candidate that understands new immigrant communities.

But it was a Bangladeshi immigrant and longtime Parkchester resident who stole the show. Mohammed Mujumder, 49, stepped to the podium.

“We have been voting for you guys for many, many years,” he said to the politicians on the stage with him, eliciting whistles and applause from the crowd. “To empower the minorities, we have to have a Bengali candidate in the future election. Please welcome that candidate – whoever he or she may be.”

Mujumder hopes that he will be that person. A longtime Parkchester resident who runs a free legal information clinic for the area’s growing Bangladeshi community, Mujumder plans to run for the City Council’s 18th District next year. If he wins, he will be the first Bangladeshi City Council member in New York’s history.

Mujumder, who is one of two Bangladeshis who have thrown their hat in the ring for the 2013 council election, is putting his faith in the theory that demography is destiny. (For a glimpse of the rivalry between Mujumder and opponent John Uddin watch the video above.)

The Bangladeshi population in this small expanse of multifamily residences more than tripled from 2000 to 2010, part of a dramatic increase in Asians in the Bronx and citywide. The City Council’s 18th District, which includes Parkchester, Soundview and Castle Hill, covers most of Community District 9. The 2010 U.S. Census found 3,147 Bangladeshis living in Community District 9, with almost half of them in Parkchester.

But the actual number may be as high as 10,000, said Abdus Shahid, president of the Bangladeshi American National Democratic Society and senior vice president of Parkchester’s largest mosque. He says the neighborhood has a Bangladeshi voting population of around 1,500, with most of them voting Democratic. In recognition of this growing group, the New York State Senate recently established March 26, the day of Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, as “Bangladesh Day.”

But some worry that the Bangladeshis – still a relatively new immigrant community – are reaching for too much too early, and they question the wisdom of fielding a Bangladeshi candidate against the well-established Puerto Rican incumbent, Annabel Palma, who has held the position since 2004 and plans to run for a third term in 2013.

To complicate matters, for many in the community, the question of which City Council candidate to support next year hinges on who wins this week’s 87th Assembly District primary, in which two Latino candidates face off. The endorsement of the winner of that race will make a big difference in next year’s City Council race.

Meanwhile, both Assembly candidates have eagerly courted the Bangladeshi vote. Mujumder is Figueroa’s co-campaign manager, and houses Figueroa’s campaign headquarters in his Parkchester legal services office, while Sepulveda has made a great show of his ties to the Bangladeshi community, devouring plates of curry and buttered rice and promising to hire Bangladeshis if he is elected.

The Bangladeshi City Council hopefuls will go up against a political machine with deep ties to Latinos, who have held a steady majority in the Bronx. Latinos made up almost 40 percent of Parkchester’s population from 2000 to 2010, and they have also increased their numbers over the years in Community District 9 as a whole. In 2000, Latinos comprised around 55 percent of Community District 9’s total population, and increased to almost 58 percent in 2010. In comparison, the district’s Asian population increased from almost 4 percent to almost 6 percent, during the same period.

Though still a small minority, Bangladeshi political clubs have amplified the political voice of the community. And Mujumder has argued that Palma and other local politicians are increasingly out of touch with Parkchester’s growing Bangladeshi population.

“If you ask 20 people, none of them will know who is the council member, unless they go on the computer and do research,” he said. “She’s doing minimum of what she’s supposed to do, but I can do a better job.”

Palma did not respond to this criticism, although she acknowledged Bangladeshis’ increasing political prominence.

“I’ve witnessed the Bangladeshi community grow and thrive in Council District 18, and have encouraged and supported this burgeoning community to lend their voice to [the] political process,” she said in an email.

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