New Immigrants Find Strength In Language

by Emanuel Jalonschi, Queens Chronicle Correspondent, 12/21/2006

Upstairs at the Diversity Center on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights, the thick smell of rice, mangu and ceviche waft between a New Immigrant Community Empowerment banner and a sign that reads “We Are America.”
Last Wednesday, 75 adult students graduated from the New Immigrant Community Empowerment’s Civic Literacy Program. They are here to celebrate not only their promotion to the next level of the program, but also their assimilation into the Jackson Heights community...
...Bryan Pu Folkes, the director of NICE and a prominent face in the Jackson Heights immigrant community, rushes in with the last ingredient for this celebration—the music, a collection of bachata, merengue and Mexican Christmas carols...

Lucy Liu Interview

from Movies Online

...Q: So you’re from Queens?

LL: Jackson Heights. Mmhmm. I went to I.S. 145. [laughs]

Q: Do you think being from Queens helps you play this tough character?

LL: I grew up in an area where there were all kinds of people. It was very diverse and people in New York are very direct. They don’t beat around the bush. They’re like, ‘What’s going on? What do you want?’ [Laughs] It’s not that they’re impolite. They’re just very direct, and they don’t have time to like, you know, mess around, and I think that this character is very spicy and very sassy, and I think that I enjoyed playing her because she has that little quality of directness, and you know I think that people in Queens also gesticulate. They talk a lot with their heads and their hands, and so she does this little pawing thing with Jake because it’s like a physical thing, and people who are involved in relationships are physical, whether they’re holding each other or pawing at each other. You know what I mean?...

Latino butchers in Queens slice out a niche market in meat

By Laura Legere for The Columbia Journal, December 11, 2006

Three cartoon pigs dance on a sign in the west window of La Risaralda, a Colombian meat market on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights. A mother pig in a frilly hat and her two children in button-down vests smile below the words “lechona tolimense,” the name of a Colombian roast suckling pig specialty, stuffed with seasoned rice and peas. Two butchers in white aprons hefted the real thing through the shop’s doorway on a recent Saturday. Its golden snout rested on the lip of the silver platter...

...But variations in pig preparation is only one example of the diversity of fare offered at Jackson Heights’ many carnicerias, or butcher shops, that cater to the needs of the area’s predominantly Latino population...

...While many neighborhood specialty stores shrivel under competition with supermarkets, carnicerias thrive in this corner of Queens. Within 11 blocks along 37th Avenue alone, there are four Latino-owned butcher shops...

Art From Everywhere, All From Queens

By MARTHA SCHWENDENER for The New York Times, December 15, 2006

Queens is home to one of the city’s great concentrations of art spaces, but when it comes to where artists live and work, Brooklyn has reigned supreme. Now Queens, with the rising art profile of Long Island City, Astoria and Jackson Heights, may be ready to challenge the hierarchy...

“Queens International 2006: Everything All at Once” is at the Queens Museum of Art, New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, through Jan. 14; (718) 592-9700.

If You Lived Here, You’d Be Cool by Now

By Adam Sternbergh for New York Magazine, December 11, 2006 issue

...Perhaps you are happy in your neighborhood. Perhaps you are ensconced right where you are. Perhaps you never indulge the stray notion that maybe it’s time to pull up stakes and move to Brooklyn or, if you live in Brooklyn, maybe you should check out Astoria or Jackson Heights. Perhaps your interest is not roused by each new story of the underground loft parties in Bushwick, or that very reasonably priced warehouse conversion in the South Bronx (sorry—SoBro), or that awesome and as-yet-undiscovered pocket of Red Hook with that one really great new restaurant. In which case, good wishes to you, and move along. There’s nothing for you to read here...

chapbooks from jackson heights

by stevenallenmay from chap*books blog, December 11, 2006

...Carrier
Aaron Simon
©2006
Insurance Editions
Jackson Heights, NY

Insurance Editions makes quality chapbooks, period. Carrier by Aaron Simon is no exception. It’s a small book, 6 3/4 X 5 1/4. The paper stock and quality of printing are to be commended...