The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

Jane Yager

Harvard Divinity School
Religious Pluralism in the Ethnic Press of Flushing, Queens

The Flushing section of Queens, New York, is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse places in the world. On Flushing's main streets, commerce bustles side by side with religion: Hindu and Buddhist temples, Muslim mosques, and Korean Presbyterian churches brush shoulders with Chinese greengrocers, halal butchers, and storefront English as a Second Language schools. A glance at the right Flushing newsstand also reveals a polyglot flurry of diversity among the newspapers available. In Urdu, Hindi, English, Spanish, and Chinese -- and often bilingually -- these papers speak to a recent boom in New York's ethnic and immigrant newspapers, what the New York Independent Press Association has characterized as an explosion of the ethnic press.

Some of these papers present explicitly religious identities; others are without religious affiliation. Across the board, however, the ethnic press is striking in its coverage of religious events and issues. Local religious celebrations, interfaith organizations and events, religious conflicts in the group's home country or region: all of these receive far greater attention in ethnic and immigrant papers than in their mainstream counterparts. Persistently, the writers and editors of these papers address not just their own religious identities but those of both their Queens neighbors and American public figures farther afield.

This project will combine textual analysis and ethnographic interviewing to explore the ways in which ethnic and immigrant newspapers shape and give language to Flushing residents' experiences of religious plurality. What picture of religious life in Flushing emerges on the pages of these papers, in their articles, letters to the editor, and advertisements? How do the writers, readers, owners, and editors of these papers approach the coverage of religion in Flushing? What networks of communication exist among various papers, and to what extent do the papers of the ethnic press create a shared language of the daily experience of life in one of the most religiously diverse places in the world? In short, how do the many religious groups of Flushing reckon with themselves and each other on the pages of these papers?

Coming soon!