Crossing the Blvd Strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America

Visible Language, 2005

Crossing the Blvd Strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America Warren Lehrer & Judith Sloan New York: W.W. Norton, 2003 ISBN 0-393-05737-2 400 pages, illustrated in full color throughout, hardbound with audio CD, $35.00

Queens, New York is the most ethnically diverse location in the United States as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. Through interviewing its residents and documenting its vibrant neighborhoods, the authors celebrate the immigration stories that we all have or have had a stake in. Of the seventy-nine individuals interviewed, most arrived in this country after 1990. The authors are sensitive to the language as spoken; English often once, twice or more times removed from the speaker's language of origin. The cadence and the hybrid nature of the audio-taped interviews is retained giving the stories flavor. The authors organize the stories into five movements: 1) religious freedom and spiritual healing; 2) asylum seekers escaping war and ethnic cleansing; 3) families reunited and traditions reborn; 4) community action and reconciliation; and 5) collisions and collaborations between people with different roles and goals. This is a sympathetic move toward the stories themselves and also the reader as it gives the collection a discernable shape.

I opened the book with the intention to browse and read a few stories, but was captured by its variety and detail. The stories are simply told, not dramatized or edited for maximum effect. It reminds the reader of the innumerable untold stories present among those living in the United States - stories of escape, separation, longing, brutality and deceit. All elements of high drama, but simply reported here. Another theme running through the stories are cultural connections; how to maintain them, how to share them and in what ways a hybrid culture emerges. Many of the stories are from educated people, those with skills, who upon coming to this country start out doing the most menial work to survive. And these people are survivors.

Design of this book fluctuates from something near advanced textbook design to something approaching artists' book. The material presented is rich and complex, so in the very early pages the authors describe the visual organization of the book - how to know who is speaking, where ancillary information about history or policy might be presented and how certain terms are used. Overall it is a bold and graphic book that makes visible people who might otherwise remain relatively invisible and "other." It has a New York in-your-face kind of boldness that confronts the reader with the variety of humanity found in Queens neighborhoods.

The audio CD that accompanies the hardbound publication is not a rendering of the visible book in auditory form. It is an extension of the material through which voices of the subjects are heard often in their own language with a quiet translation. Musical forms from various countries as well as the production of original musical culture provide added context and depth. All this is paced and mixed in the best NPR (National Public Radio) tradition. It is a sophisticated addition to the book.