A Neighborhood in Transition: East Harlem Plans Services for Chinese Seniors
Huang Ying Xia, an 80-year-old immigrant from Shanghai, has lived alone in an East Harlem senior housing center for four years. Her husband moved back to China to better cope with his medical problems; meanwhile, she hesitates to ask her married children to drive over from New Jersey just to keep her company.
Feeling sick and intimidated by the wintry weather, Huang missed the most recent community trip to Chinatown, where she usually buys Chinese groceries, prescription medicines and, sometimes, an ethnic dinner.
“I like going down to Chinatown, because I’m able to talk to the people there,” said Huang in Mandarin, though she notes she has never lived there. “People around here don’t really speak Chinese.”
Just this fall, Alma Collazo, the social work coordinator for Linkage Houses – where Huang and six other elderly Chinese reside – began offering free monthly shuttle bus trips to Chinatown, in conjunction with East Harlem’s Union Settlement Association. Collazo had noticed that elderly Chinese residents couldn’t easily make the long trek to Chinatown alone.
In response to such concerns, City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito is also devising a plan to invite Chinese businesses to East Harlem. Initially, she hopes to bring a stall selling fresh Chinese produce to La Marqueta, the city-owned marketplace at East 115th Street and Park Avenue.
“This is an idea that came about as a result of interactions and outreach with my Chinese constituents,” said Mark-Viverito. “Residents in senior buildings asked about some assistance in getting to Chinatown in order to shop.”
Mark-Viverito plans to work with Chinatown Councilwoman Margaret Chin, as well as the city’s Economic Development Corporation, to make this fledging business plan a reality.
She is more cautious, however, about inviting even a handful of other Chinese businesses to East Harlem too hastily. Although the area’s Chinese population has grown and become more visible in recent years, it remains relatively small.
According to the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York, Asians represented only 0.9 percent of East Harlem’s population in 2000, but had reached 3 percent by 2010. This represents an increase of almost 1250 Asians over the decade, with 1766 Asian East Harlem residents counted in 2010.
“We’d want to see how this stall is received first,” said Mark-Viverito. “We want to see how the community responds.” She added, “I think the community will respond well.”
Asked about possible tensions between new Chinese businesses and longtime local businessowners, she noted, “This is a stall in La Marqueta. It’s not a bodega, and what it can do is limited, since right now it could only sell produce.”
At least two stall owners in La Marqueta, John Colon of Breezy Hill Orchard and Mama Grace of the X-Square African Caribbean Food Store, would welcome a future Chinese neighbor.
Justin Yu, president of the city’s Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said he agreed “100 per cent” with Mark-Viverito’s plan. But Yu added that “there would have to be incentives” for larger Chinese businesses to move into East Harlem. Businesspeople would only be attracted to the area if they spotted opportunities to make money, in addition to providing a public service to locals.
“The government should give these businesses a place, like a greenmarket, to regularly sell these vegetables,” he said.
Mak Cheung, 73, has lived at Franklin Plaza, an East Harlem public housing complex, for over a decade; he was also glad to hear of the plan.
“It’d be more convenient,” he said of the proposed stall, speaking in Cantonese. “I would definitely buy from there. I also wouldn’t have to spend any money getting down to Chinatown anymore.”
Franklin Plaza is particularly popular with Chinese families, said Preston Tan, Mark-Viverito’s Chinese community liaison. Commenting on the plan, Tan said, “I think it’s great, and will definitely attract a lot of Chinese customers. Even if it’s a small stall, it’s a start, and we don’t know how it would fare if we made a big Chinese supermarket.”
The local Chinese population also needs medical and health services, Tan said, and special attention for Asian children attending schools here.
Huang’s concerns, however, are smaller in scale. She’d love to be able to buy fresh fish from a local Chinese-style wet market stall, instead of frozen fish from Costco, where she’s currently forced to shop because of her limited mobility.
“In our culture,” she concluded, “we love to eat live, fresh seafood.”
Read more about ethnic changes in East Harlem here.
By Nat Rudarakanchana on Dec 7th, 2011