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140,000 Guyanese immigrants in New York City
New York (NY Times) – On a Friday afternoon in early spring, his work done for the day, Kawal P. Totaram leaned back in his desk chair in his Richmond Hill law office on Liberty Avenue and dreamed of summer.
Over 140,000 Guyanese immigrations live in the New York City area, a New York Times report said yesterday.(Flickr photo)
“You will be inundated by the different whiffs of curry and roti,” he began. “Your ears will be jarred by chutney music and Indian music. You’ll see women wearing short skirts and saris, men without a shirt, people with their cups, vendors yelling, the guys cursing. You’ll have the bars packed with young men drinking rum.” He smiled. This, he said, was Guyanese Richmond Hill at its fullest.
There are about 140,000 Guyanese immigrants living in New York City, according to the latest American Community Survey figures, making them the fifth-largest foreign-born population in the city. While many Afro-Guyanese immigrants have settled among other Afro-Caribbean immigrants in places like Canarsie and Flatbush in Brooklyn, Guyanese of East Asian descent are concentrated in large numbers in Richmond Hill and neighboring Ozone Park.
The lively Liberty Avenue and its tributaries are lined with roti shops, restaurants and bakeries like Sybil’s Bakery & Restaurant (132-17 Liberty Avenue; 718-835-9235), two branches of Little Guyana Bake Shop (116-04 Liberty Avenue, 718-843-6530, and 124-11 Liberty Avenue, 718-843-4200), and The Hibiscus Restaurant & Bar (124-18 101st Avenue; 718- 849-4225); shops selling all manner of goods, from spices to saris, like Dave West Indian Imports (98-07 97th Avenue; 718-323-1200); dancing schools and political clubs; “rum shops”; and community associations. The neighborhood is peppered with mosques, temples and churches to accommodate the population’s Hindus, Muslims and Christians.
Describing life in the diaspora, Mr. Totaram said, “As I put it, you go to bed in America, you sleep in Guyana and you wake up back in America.” Still, for Guyanese immigrants, Richmond Hill, when viewed from the right angle, can be a pretty good approximation of home.
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