hyphenated twentysomething

A Worldly Game...

The NY Times has a fascinating article on the game of basketball and the diversity of its players. Read "World Court: Basketball in Queens."

On the changing face of new players:

"As it happens, you no longer remember quite when the basketball players in your neighborhood started to change. After playing on these very courts for 29 years, you've lost track. The only detail you recall for sure is that back in 1977, and even as recently as 1990, almost all the players came stamped Made in America. Jewish, Irish, German, Italian, occasionally black. This was neither good nor bad. That was who lived here, and that was who played here.
One day, though, a teenager joined in who spoke only Russian. A few months later, a Chinese kid who knew only broken English dropped by. The lineup started to change, piecemeal, without your even realizing anything had happened. The names of fellow contestants proved harder to learn, much less pronounce. The faces looked different, sometimes with skin darker or eyes narrower. Players from Tel Aviv might take to the courts wearing yarmulkes. New tongues were heard, too. Asian teammates could talk strategy among themselves in Mandarin without risking that opponents would understand."

On a new multicultural Queens:

"So it goes, too, all along the spine of Queens Boulevard, from Long Island City and Sunnyside to Kew Gardens and Jamaica. Store signs have morphed from English into Russian and Greek and Korean. The corner delis now lay out newspapers in dozens of languages: the Chinese alone have no fewer than seven dailies. Suddenly it's harder to get good pastrami around here — Pastrami King and the Boulevard Deli are long gone, leaving behind only Ben's Best — but much easier to find baba ghanouj and palak paneer.
It's already widely known that no place in the United States, maybe no locale on the planet, is more ethnically diverse than Queens. What's a revelation is just how multicultural it has become."

"For proof, ride the subway from Manhattan out to Queens some workday during the evening rush. Every skin tone on the human palette is represented on those trains. Passengers may converse in Cantonese or Punjabi, may wear turbans or saris. Just for fun, try to guess who will get off at which stop, bound for which national enclave. The Koreans may step off in Flushing and the Colombians in Corona, while the Afghans leave at Jackson Heights and the Bukharians in Rego Park."

On how Queens represents a larger "idea" of America:

"Queens is like a conglomerate that keeps diversifying its portfolio, the better to profit from synergies. When it comes to being international, the Olympic Games have nothing on this borough. Unlike, say, the Iowa wheat fields, Queens is what this country is supposed to be all about, the true American heartland. It's every inch a symbol of the great experiment in freedom and democracy that is America itself. Still, tourists to New York would rather see the Empire State Building. So nobody ever comes out to Queens, only everyone, and seldom to visit, only to live here. "

On new faces, same game:

"The names and faces are different from three decades ago, but the sport itself, how it's played, remains the same. Dribble. Pass. Shoot. Rebound. You have yet to see a style of play remotely identifiable as, say, Middle Eastern. The new arrivals may still observe Ramadan and eat paratha, but they all look to slash to the hoop like Kobe. They all aspire to play American. "

On reality but how the game brings a hopeful, ideal vision for the future:

"Even in famously liberal New York, not everyone wants the country's doors flung open to admit immigrants from everywhere in the world. You hear a refrain of doomsday warnings about neighborhoods being invaded and going downhill, of many longstanding residents ultimately leaving in dismay or even disgust. Given the close quarters in which New Yorkers live, ethnic tensions run as high here as anywhere.
Still, in almost three decades playing basketball here, you've never seen evidence on the courts of any issue over national differences. No name-calling, no arguments, no fistfights. In the occasional game involving Arabs and Israelis, you've actually seen peace break out. That's why the changing of the guard in Queens renews your faith in the future, and never more so than as July Fourth approaches. Sappy as the sentiment sounds the moment it enters your brain, you think: if we can all play together, maybe someday we can all live together, too.

Please read the entire article and do check out the pictures accompanying the article. They are pretty amazing!

posted by payal @ 3:12 PM