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Let's get into it:
Zohran Mamdani isn't content to tear down statues and rip up the social fabric of New York City, now he's intent on retconning the neighborhood breakdowns and the ethnic makeup of city generations of immigrants have called home.
His office put out a map of the ethnic enclaves of the city and they left out Little Italy, Jewish neighborhoods, and the longstanding black neighborhood of Harlem. To be fair, blacks were not immigrants, they were here far longer than Mamdani or many of the ethnic groups his office mapped out, but they were erased from the map nonetheless.
My grandparents were born in Little Italy. Their parents came to America from Italy for that classic American dream of a better life. They loved the country. They worked hard. They opened businesses and raised their kids up to be American. And it was hard, there were difficulties, illnesses, financial setbacks, a great depression that nearly ran everyone into ruin. There was heartbreak and stillborn children. And these people, these ancestors of mine, and so many, built this city. Norwegians built the Verrazano Bridge and now they too have been erased to make way for Mamdani's retconning of the history of New Amsterdam.
Spencer Pratt called out Hizzonah on it, saying "Leaving out the Italian, Jewish, and Irish enclaves in NYC is like leaving out Mexican and Persian enclaves in LA. It’s not an 'oopsie!' This is deliberate subversion. The communist must erase your history so he can demolish your home and make it his own."
"What happened to Little Italy?" I asked on X. "The Greek and Jewish neighborhoods? And no one of any ethnicity at all lives on the Upper East Side?"
"The Mayor's Office made a map of NYC's immigrant enclaves: Little Africa, Little Poland, Little Palestine. But they just couldn't figure out how to represent 11% of the city. Couldn't decipher where the Jews are from. Asked everyone. Huge riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," said another writer.
And the Italian American Civil Rights League took issue with the map as well, saying they "condemn" him for the map highlighting "dozens of ethnic neighborhoods in New York City while ignoring Little Italy—one of the most iconic immigrant neighborhoods in American history. The president of the group said "This is not a clerical error. This is cultural erasure. Little Italy is sacred ground. It is where Italian immigrants came with nothing, worked like hell, opened shops, raised families, built churches, fed the city, and helped make New York what it is."
City Hall claimed the map was to "highlight neighborhoods in New York City that have substantial foreign-born populations from regions and countries around the world." So just like with most of Mamdani's plans and policies, he's doing it all for foreigners and leaving nothing for the long-standing American residents of New York.
Libby