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Survey of LOTEs in New York City Communities
Marcia Wigley and Alissa Hartig
Pakistani-Americans represent a significant
population within New York City,
and form the base of many smaller communities within the city. Although
official census
data for this specific ethnic group was unavailable, statistics for the
overall Asian
population in New York City show 512,719 residents in 1990. This reflects
a 104.76%
increase in New York City's Asian-American population between 1980 and
1990 and
includes many Pakistani immigrants. Pakistani Americans, however, because
of a lack of
acknowledgement on the part of the government, have been placed in a
disadvantaged
position in relation to English- and Spanish-speakers. Resources such as
Urdu-language
interpreters and printed materials are either scarce or completely
unavailable, thus
creating significant obstacles for many members of this group who wish to
participate
more fully in the community at large.
Intra-community and Perspective Background
During the on-site research phase of this
project, the subjects whom we
interviewed revealed much about the linguistic diversity of New York's
Pakistani
community. The specific population that we focused our study on was those
Pakistani-
Americans living in Jackson Heights, Queens. This group intermingles with
a large
community of Indian immigrants in an area centered around 74th Street
between
Roosevelt and 37th Avenues. Both of these groups, along with many other
Asian ethno-
linguistic communities, help make up Jackson Heights' 10,824 Asian- or
Pacific-Island-
language speakers -- 9.0% of this area's total population. Of these Asian
LOTE speakers,
7,069 census respondents (5.9% of the overall population of Jackson
Heights) reported
not to speak English "very well." The two of us who conducted these
interviews come
from ethnicities other than Pakistani. One of us is Jamaican-Irish and the
other is of
mixed Northern and Eastern European descent, thus neither of us would be
easily
mistaken as a member of the Pakistani community.
In Pakistan alone there are several
different languages, although Urdu is the
dominant language and the one spoken by the greatest number of Pakistanis.
Each
Pakistani's linguistic identity may vary due to boundaries such as class
or age. A person
that has had certain benefits like education or travel may be more likely
to know more
than one language. One might learn some Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi or even
Arabic. An older
Pakistani may know more of the languages used in India because of
histrionic
circumstances. In 1946 a religious war raged and eventually separated
India and Pakistan
along the boundaries we acknowledge today. Therefore, because of their
formerly direct
relationship to India, many older Pakistanis were raised speaking Hindi or
Punjabi in
addition to Urdu. Although younger Pakistanis may know some words of such
languages
as Punjabi or Hindi, they do not have the same relationship with these
languages and
do not use these languages as fluently as older people might.
Inter-community Background
Bordering this community is a large
Korean-speaking Population, some of whom
provide services, which cater to speakers of Indian and Pakistani LOTE.
At a newspaper
stand staffed by a woman who reported that she spoke only Korean and
English (based
on her apparent confusion and pidgin-like responses during our interview
with her, it
seemed that she was not at a high level of proficiency in English), we
found signs written
in Urdu, Hindi, and English, advertising phone cards sold within. This
same shop sells
newspapers written in Hindi. The woman behind the counter, however,
reported that she
spoke neither Hindi nor Urdu.
What was more surprising than this seemingly
paradoxical observation was the
fact that the store seemed to be fairly successful. At the time we
entered, there were many
patrons from the Hindi- and Urdu-speaking communities. What this seems to
demonstrate is that this storekeeper has either developed an excellent
means of non-
verbal cues in order to conduct common business transactions with her
patrons or that the
Hindi- and Urdu-speaking community has enough competency in English
(likely aided
by some form of non-verbal communication) to conduct common business
transactions in
English. Although it is also possible that these individuals also speak
Korean and
have managed to accommodate this shopkeeper, none of the Indo-Pakistani
respondents
that we interviewed claimed any knowledge of Korean and, in general,
contact between
these communities appears to be limited. What is interesting about this
situation is that
speakers of Hindi and Urdu, although they are likely to have some level of
competency in
English, are still choosing to purchase printed materials written in their
LOTEs.
Despite the rather distinct separation
between the Korean and Indo-Pakistani
language groups in this area, there seems to be a greater level of
accommodation among
Indian and Pakistani LOTE speakers. Many storefront signs are printed in
both Hindi
and Urdu. However, the separation is still clear. When we interviewed
the owner of an
Urdu-language bookstore and asked whether he spoke Hindi as well as Urdu
and English,
he replied: "No, those are the other ones." He seemed to take great pride
in speaking
Urdu, and when we expressed an interest in purchasing a beginning Urdu
alphabet book
and an Urdu newspaper, he quickly gave them both to us for free. For him,
it was
flattering that "outsiders" were taking a positive interest in his
culture-- especially at a
time when Pakistan is being shown in an unfavorable light by the American
media.
His reaction was not the only one of its
kind. When we interviewed an older man
who was running a street stand selling Islam-related items, he was
delighted to witness
our interest in this part of Pakistani culture. He offered us a copy of
the Qur'an and gave
us a bracelet with a Qur'anic verse inscribed upon it. This man has lived
in the United
States for thirty-one years and worked for the United Nations as a liaison
from the
Pakistani Office of Foreign Affairs for thirty. During our interview with
this man we
asked him if he was Pakistani, but he was quick to state that after
thirty-one years in this
country, he is an American. His son, he said, was even educated in the
United States.
Becoming an American, however, has not meant full assimilation. He still
retains his
religion, two languages besides English (Urdu and Punjabi), and a strong
sense of pride
in his first culture.
At the Sahil Sari Palace, a business listed
on a Pakistani community website (www.getpakistan.com), we found that no
one associated
with the business was
Pakistani or even Urdu-speaking. The shopkeepers stated that they were of
Indian
descent and directed us instead to Bombay Jewelers. Here, we were
introduced to a
younger man from India, whom we then interviewed. He did not speak Urdu
either, but
he did speak an impressive variety of other languages, among them:
Punjabi, Hindi,
Bengali, English, and some Spanish. He stated that the language he uses
in daily
transactions depends on the region that the customer is from and that
person's fluency in
English. He said that many Bengali-speaking Indians have recently
immigrated to New
York, thus creating a population that has had little time to develop high
proficiency in
English. With these individuals, transactions are usually carried out in
Bengali.
However, he also maintained that he usually ends up speaking English with
most
customers, including members of the Pakistani community.
It seems that, in general, rather than
accommodating each other linguistically by
learning each other's mother tongues, members of the Indian and Pakistani
communities
often opt for the use of English as a lingua franca for basic
interactions. Perhaps it is for
this reason that businesses with only monolingual English speakers on
staff, such as the
Payless Shoe Source on Seventy-fourth Street can survive when they are
completely
surrounded by other businesses that are willing to accommodate
linguistically for either
Hindi or Urdu speakers. Based on these observations, it seems as though
speaking Urdu
or Hindi has become less of a necessity within the community than a point
of pride and
cultural solidarity in both the Pakistani and Indian
communities respectively.
Language serves as a boundary for Pakistanis
as an ethnic group in as vital a way
as does dance, appearance, cuisine, or religion. Governmental services,
medical services,
a primary public school and stores within the community were explored to
see how this
part of Pakistani culture is being articulated daily and to what extent
these languages aid
in preserving Pakistani culture within American society. Our data from
on-site interviews
and background research provided us with evidence of institutional
ignorance towards
Urdu-speakers, but private support for the language.
The Public School System
In this particular group of Pakistanis in
Jackson Heights, we found that many
communicated with one another in the language of Urdu, even though they
knew how to
speak "Standard" English. This is a choice for many Pakistanis as an
agent for keeping
their languages alive and in doing so, their culture. PS 30's students
speak over 100
different languages and come from 120 different countries. Fifty-five
percent of children
in this school were born in the United States but have learned Urdu as
their primary
language. Also, many of these children learn English at school and
assimilate with more
ease than the average Korean- or Spanish-speaking child. Urdu speakers in
this school's
ESL program make up less than 30% of the overall LOTE population in PS
30's
program. There are about 300 children in PS 30 who speak Urdu as their
primary
language and who were born in Pakistan. However, the school does not
publish literature
or letters that accommodate Urdu-speaking parents.
Governmental Services
To gain a better perspective on the
provision of Urdu-language materials in
governmental institutions, we interviewed representatives from services
such as
courthouses, police departments, homeless shelters, hospitals and social
security offices.
The courthouses in the eastern district (Jackson Heights) say that supply
interpreters of
any language upon demand. However, an interpreter must be demanded before
a case
comes to trial, in order to reserve one. Social security offices do not
have Urdu-language
pamphlets; they only carry Spanish-language ones. If someone wants to get
information
but does not speak English, he or she must find his or her own
interpreter. Both the
114th Precinct and The Regal Heights Rehabilitation and Health Care Center
agreed that
LOTE speakers who happen to be on staff rather than specially-trained
interpreters
provide 90% of their LOTE translation services. In some hospital-related
cases, a device
called a "communication board" is used to facilitate communication with
speakers of
LOTEs who don't speak English or Spanish. Essentially, this is a form of
pictionary.
The hospital worker draws pictures of what he or she would like to
communicate on a
board and brings it to a shop owner or other member of the community who
speaks the
LOTE in question. The LOTE-speaker then writes a phonetic transcription of
the
message on the board in his or her LOTE. Overall, we have found that
resources for
Urdu-speakers, or speakers of LOTEs other than Spanish, are very limited.
Community Organizations
In the Pakistani community, Urdu plays an
important role in community groups,
and especially in religious organizations such as mosques. This shared
language
establishes a sense of family or community. It is a means to set the group
aside by
creating a boundary of language. The Urdu language is preserved within the
Pakistani
community not only through the mosque (where services are in Urdu as well
as in
Arabic), but also through specialized media such as the Pakistan
Television Network
(Brooklyn and Bronx: Sunday 11Am, Cablevision 40; Queens and West
Brooklyn:
Saturday Noon, Basic Cable 80 and 95), RBC Radio, and PZB (Pakistan Zinda
Bad),
along with other newspapers and newsletters.
Another way for tying the community together
is to create organizations where
members can gather together. Although many of these organizations are more
religious-
based than language-based, they still provide an opportunity for
Urdu-speakers to gather
together, thus fostering exchanges in this LOTE. One such group is
Ahmadiyya, an
Islamic movement in which young, American-born Muslim women join together
to
spread the message of Islam. Many times, groups of women from the same
ethnic
community join together in these groups, as is the case with many
Pakistanis.
Conclusion
Based on our research, resources for
speakers of LOTEs used by Pakistani-
Americans are very limited. Although this case study of the Jackson
Heights Pakistani
community is not necessarily representative of the situation of all
Pakistanis in New
York, the almost complete lack of governmental support for these LOTEs
even in a
community with such a large population of speakers seems to demonstrate a
microcosm
that could well represent the macrocosm as a whole. In short, future
governmental
allocations to support these LOTEs should be taken into consideration.
