Ever since my family moved out of Brooklyn they have been yearning to return back home in Sunset Park. We’re currently residing in Queens, which might be the reason why they’re so eager to get back to Brooklyn but regardless the connection that my family has with the community back in Sunset Park is astounding. Despite the long commune, they routinely go back to the area for check-ups, grocery, and other community services. One of the main reason behind this is the fact that they all speak a common language. However there are Asian communities in Queens that are closer to us. From what I’ve seen in my family it made me think about why Sunset Park is so important to our family. Then I look inside my fridge and almost everything is from Sunset Park.
Looking at where we get our food I think back to the marketplaces in Sunset Park. Compared to the other Asian American communities in NYC, Sunset Park is spread out like a big market with vendors and storefront selling fruits, herbs, vegetables, seafood, meats, etc. These markets span from 8th avenue 50th to 60th street and are often packed with people every single day. Looking back these marketplaces are so much more than a business but also an essential community center. In a household where both parents are working, their children are brought to the workplace which reframes it as a place for child-care as well as for labor. The products that are for sale and how people can bargain for its prices works to retain aspects of Asian culture for immigrants living in the states. The process of buying products from these marketplaces is also a form of socialization especially for the middle-aged and elderly people in the community. In summary, marketplaces in Sunset Park are more than capitalistic operations but also places of social life, child-care, and cultural retention.
My research is inspired by Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s and Selma James’ “The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community”. This chapter speaks to capitalism’s divisive power of capitalism in terms of family and labor. The organization of labor in Sunset Park resists this norm as family is not separate from labor but is a vital part of it. Laborers in these marketplaces resemble the make-up of a traditional Chinese family. There are middle-aged women at the cashiers, elderly men stocking, middle-aged men butchering, and younger men in their mid or late 30s acting as the “boss”. The inclusion of the women and men across different age groups frames the division of labor after an image of the “work family”. In doing so, it resists the capitalistic norm that Costa and James describes and offers a possible alternative to capitalistic labor practices and norms. My research aims to reinstate Asian Markets and Supermarkets as spaces of cultural and capitalistic resilience.