But there was something different about this tribe, the Tlaxcala, and when the music ceased and the chatter resumed, the difference became clear: They spoke exclusively Spanish.

READ MORE in The New York Times (and click below for video)

The scene in the stylish, newly renovated grocery on Franklin Avenue, a commercial hub in Crown Heights, would be unimaginable 20 years ago. Back then, the neighborhood was best known for its race riots and drug trade.

But over the past decade, the neighborhood around Franklin Avenue has transformed.

READ MORE in City Limits (and click below for slideshow)

CHANGING IMAGES: Click above for a slideshow of Crown Heights scenes.

On a recent sunny day in sprawling Astoria Park, elderly Greek men sat three-to-a-bench, parents wheeled babies around in strollers, and young residents walked dogs and tossed Frisbees.

The scene was typical of a thriving neighborhood that many residents believe is growing.

“Anybody who has lived here for even a year has seen the tremendous amount of growth that this community continues to encounter,” said Aravella Simotas, a lifelong resident of Astoria and the neighborhood’s current State Assemblywoman.

Census numbers, however, paint a different picture. Astoria, a small, heavily immigrant area of Northwest Queens, grew in both 1990 and 2000. But the 2010 Census indicates a reversal of that trend. Figures shows that Astoria lost about 14,000 people over the last decade, leaving residents and  politicians alternately scratching their heads and loudly protesting against what they call an undercount that could have serious social and political ramifications.

Strong Reactions

Simotas described her reaction to the data as “shocked and awed.”

“In the past 10 years we’ve had a population explosion here,” she said, charging that U.S. Census Bureau workers did not go far enough to get accurate figures.

“Many people don’t speak English here,” Simotas said. “How are they able to communicate [with census workers] if they don’t speak the language?”

Christine Cirillo, who has lived in Astoria for 25 years, also was surprised by the data, and said changes in the housing market indicated that the neighborhood’s population grew.

“A lot of people are now coming…because they’re getting more space for their money,” she said. “Rents have skyrocketed. This I’ve seen.”

She had another theory explaining a possible undercount.

“I think a lot of people didn’t complete the Census,” she stated flatly.

Robin Sidor, who moved to Astoria less than a year ago, said he didn’t fill out a form. “I didn’t know about it,” he said.

Stacy Gimbel Vidal, the assistant branch chief at the Census Public Information Office, declined to comment specifically on the numbers for Astoria, but said there is room for error in the counting process. During the 2000 count, she said, geo-tagging mistakes caused neighborhood counts to show up in different census tracts – taking counts away from one neighborhood and adding them to another.

She noted that local and state governments are claiming that their census counts aren’t correct. And Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city politicians are challenging the numbers.

Big Impact

Whatever the real numbers, the impact of a decreased population in Astoria will be negative for its residents.

“We have to do more with less when we don’t have an accurate count,” said Simotas.

Federal social benefit programs distribute grant money to states in part based on census numbers. States then distribute those funds to counties, also based in part on census numbers, and so on down the line.

In 2000, a Price Waterhouse study found an undercount cost New York City about $700 million in aid, with most of the losses coming through Medicaid. There are 617,353 people on Medicaid in Queens, said Nick Scorza, a spokesman for the city Human Resources Administration. Some some 43,000 Medicaid recipients in Astoria could see access to their benefits restricted as federal funding to their neighborhood drops.

The data also has the potential to reshape Astoria through redistricting, the process through which congressional and state legislative district boundaries are redrawn.

Both the state legislature and The Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR), a census research organization that analyzes demographic data, reshape district boundaries to ensure that an equal number of state residents are represented in each. When the population in one census tract drops, that tract may be added to a different neighborhood to maintain an equal number of voters in each district. In other words, the geographical shape of a voting district changes in proportion to its population, and the politicians representing each district sometimes have to move.

For Astoria, where local politicians tend to be lifelong residents and household names – the Vallone family has represented Astoria in the City Council for more than 40 years, for example  – redistricting could be a jarring experience. Simotas said her district could expand, and that she doesn’t relish the thought of suddenly representing a constituency she does not know well.

Political Ramifications

State Senator Michael Gianaris faces a very different problem. Born and raised in Astoria, he could be forced to leave his home if he wants to remain in his district. Gianaris, despite repeated calls to his office, did not comment on the situation. But Adam Riff, executive director of NY Uprising, former Mayor Ed Koch’s newly-formed coalition that calls for transparency and independence in redistricting plans, warned of the potential for politically motivated redistricting.

“If a legislator wants their district to look a certain way, on the other side there’s another one who hasn’t played along, this can impact his/her district in a negative way,” Riff said.

Simotas pointed out that Gianaris is part of the Democratic minority in Albany, and that should Republicans “want to cause problems, they can certainly cut him out of his district.

“People who have a problem with his positions may decide that his district should look different,” she said.

After discussing the potential changes in Astoria, Simotas revised her reaction to the census numbers.

“[It’s] completely unacceptable,” she said. “Shocked and awed is a nice way of putting it.”

——

Click the link below to listen to a podcast about residents’ perspectives on Astoria’s decreased population count.

BRONX – Oscar Castro was one of thousands of Hispanics growing up in the Bronx. Yet, as a Dominican, he felt like an outsider in a neighborhood where most of his neighbors were Puerto Rican. He ended up marrying his high school sweetheart, Joeliz, who is of Puerto Rican heritage.

Now, Castro and his wife are part of a growing trend of second-generation Puerto Ricans and Dominicans who are crossing cultures through marriage – and becoming part of the new “DominiRican” generation.

That’s all changing. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency declared the Gowanus Canal a Superfund site, which is set for a clean up over the next decade. In 2012, Whole Foods supermarket will open a store on Third Avenue, on what is currently a fenced-in, empty lot. Real estate activity, new businesses and a growing music and art scene are all transforming this once-predominantly Italian community into something new – a few hipsters are already living in houseboats on the canal.

“It’s a situation of a large, obsolete manufacturing zone that is slowly being reimagined,” said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, an organization that advocates for and preserves the historic value of neighborhoods undergoing change.

Younger Population

Part of this new change in Gowanus has come as a response to high housing costs in Manhattan and rising prices in gentrified area of Brooklyn. Younger residents, particularly those in the art and music communities, have slowly moved into the neighborhood over the past few years, Bankoff said. According to the American Community Survey, 33 percent of Gowanus’ population is 25 to 34 years old – up from 27 percent in 2000 – representing an increase of nearly 1,000 people.

Angelo Bruno, 65, has lived in Gowanus all his life. He remembers the days when now-upscale Fifth Avenue was what he called a “no fly zone,” and Third Avenue was too dangerous to walk alone. He bought his home on Carroll Street and Third in Gowanus in 1974 for just $25,000. “You can never predict real estate…But I knew, I had the sense, that when Seventh Avenue filled up and then Fifth Avenue [Park Slope] filled up, that this was the next place to go,” Bruno said.

Bruno opened an Asian Fusion restaurant called Michael & Pings eight months ago on Third Avenue and Eight Street. Several other businesses – Four and Twenty Blackbirds and Whisky Tango Foxtrot – a pie shop and lounge, are among his new neighbors.

Five block away, construction is about to begin on the 50,000-square-feet Whole Foods. Michael Sinatra, a spokesman for Whole Foods, said the company made a commitment to help clean the Superfund site.  The store also will develop an outdoor space for leisure and a 20,000-square-foot rooftop greenhouse – a contrast to the graffiti and trash that currently take up the space.

The ‘Next Tribeca’

All of these factors – the businesses, the real estate push, the newcomers and the clean up – are pointing to a new and more expensive Gowanus. “I will lay down dollars that real estate prices are going to go up more than I will lay down dollars that the sun will go up tomorrow,” Bankoff said, referring to the general real estate picture in the city. Gowanus is especially on the rise as the median sales price in 2000 was $85,000 for a home, according to Trulia.com and today is above $800,000. This is almost $300,000 higher than the median for the rest of Brooklyn.

Richard Rebillino, who owns several Gowanus properties through his company R&R Realty, said he would buy more properties in the area if the opportunity came his way.

“We feel this area will become the next Tribeca,” Rebillino said. Rebillino has helped many Brooklyn artists move to Gowanus to open studios and art spaces. There are growing pains s the neighborhood carves out a new identity: a dance club on Third Avenue Gowanus failed, and turned into rock and jazz live music venue.

Despite real estate efforts to push Gowanus to essentially become a part of Park Slope, Bankoff believes that Gowanus will retain its own identity. He notes the area shares similar characteristics to Dumbo, Soho and the Meat Packing District, which all began as industrial neighborhoods and became artist hubs. The reasons people move to Park Slope, he said, are for the school districts, the park, the brownstones and the community.

The reasons people will move to Gowanus, he said, will be something entirely different.

BROOKLYN – For more than 25 years, Urban Bush Women, a dance troupe and cultural organization, has been entertaining New York City, and for the past eight years, the Fort Greene community with performances, workshops and classes. Their latest series, “Being Bushified,” honors the history of hip-hop and dance.

BROOKLYN – Carroll Gardens has long been known for its Italian traditions. But a new wave of French immigrants is transforming this community into Little Paris. Will the newcomers stay?

Click to go to video project.

Of the approximately eight million people in New York City, fewer than half were born in New York State, according to American Community Survey data from 2005 to 2009. Though the U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t count who was actually born in the city, it’s a common anecdote that no one ever meets anyone who was actually born here.

Almost three million New Yorkers, a little over a third of the city’s population, are born in other countries, according to the same data. Many others are born in other states, U.S. territories or  in upstate New York.

Here, six New Yorkers, two born in other states and four born in other countries, recount their journeys to the Big Apple. They answer the question: What is it like to be an outsider and live in the melting pot?

Click the picture above or the link below to hear their stories.

Journey To NYC

Ugandans, in New York and in Africa, are trying to bring attention to the murder of David Kato. The activist was slain in Uganda four months after he and other gays and lesbians were outed by a local paper. A demonstration in Manhattan earlier this year – which drew more than 200 protesters, including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn – was organized by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) to pressure the Ugandan government to launch a full investigation into Kato’s murder.

BRONX – When Mohammed Mujumder arrived in the United States from his native Bangladesh 22 years ago, he found no one to advise him about how to succeed in his new country.

How did one find work? Obtain an affordable place to live? Find halal (pork-free) food as his Islamic faith dictated?

Six months went by before Mujumder, who had been a lawyer in Bangladesh, got a job. Only after he stopped presenting himself as an attorney to potential employers – even when he was applying for a job as a grocery clerk – did he land a gig.

“Do they need a lawyer in a grocery store? No, hell no!” Mujumder recalled with a grin. “Only say your name and that you want work.”

Free Advice

This is the kind of practical advice that Mujumder, 47, offers newer Bangladeshi immigrants for free every Saturday at his Parkchester Tax Immigration and Legal Services business in the Bronx. During the week, he works full-time as a paralegal at a law firm in midtown Manhattan.

“I tell them how to get a job, how to navigate government benefits,” Mujumder said, his hand movements punctuating his speech, delivered in heavily accented English. “If you cannot become doctor, become nurse. Be more dummy, become nurse’s aide. Be more dummy, become pharmacist’s assistant.

“I raise awareness about how to be successful,” he said.

The Bangladeshi community in Parkchester and surrounding neighborhoods making up Community District 9 in the Bronx has swelled since Mujumder and his family first moved to the area in 1989. With low-cost housing a major lure, the neighborhood’s Bangladeshi population has more than doubled to 3,287 in 2010 from 1,388 in 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The overall Asian population in the Bronx has grown more than 20 percent since 2000.

Along a stretch of Starling Avenue between Castle Hill Avenue and Unionport Road, the presence of dozens of Bangladeshi retailers, restaurants, and grocery stores prompted the City Council in 2008 to rename the strip Bangla Bazaar. Parkchester locals refer to the area as Little Bangladesh.

Shopkeepers said their businesses continue to fill a growing need.

“We had a lot of Bengali community people, but we didn’t have any good restaurants,” said Mohammed Rahman Khokon, who opened Neerob, a Bangladeshi restaurant on Starling a little more than two years ago. “People went to Jackson Heights or Jamaica for our Bangladeshi food.”

Anwara Sultana clerks at the Nishat Elegance store that her nephew owns on McGraw Avenue just west of Unionport Road. The shop, which specializes in the silken saris, bejeweled dresses and gold-plated bracelets and bangles common in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, is the only one of its kind in the area, Sultana said.

“All the people love the Indian style,” said Sultana, whose family operated a similar clothing store in Bangladesh.

Making a Mark

Like the largely Jewish, Italian and Irish immigrant communities who populated the area decades before them, the Bangladeshi community in Community District 9 has steadily increased its presence in terms of home and business ownership – and political participation.

Mujumder is a member of Community Board 9, an appointee of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. Last year, he ran unsuccessfully to be a Democratic Party judicial convention delegate. He may consider a run for City Council at some point, he said.

“I’d love to see him run,” said Abu Shakoor, 67, a retired electrical engineer and friend of Mujumder, who emigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh in 1971. “He’s worked so hard for the past 20 years. People, after being successful, they go into politics to give something back and help the people.

“We have experienced a demographic change,” added Shakoor, who is a member of the Parkchester condominium board and is assistant district governor of the local Rotary Club. “Sometimes public officials have the good intent to represent everybody, but sometimes they can’t address their issues because they don’t know their language, their culture. So it’s important that somebody should represent them from within their community.”

Visiting ‘Our Leader’

Mujumder’s “our leader,” Jashim Uddin Mahmud said as he met with him one recent Saturday to get advice on finding a job. Mahmud and his wife came to this country on an immigrant visa one year ago after being sponsored by his father-in-law, who immigrated to the U.S. earlier.

Mahmud was among about a half-dozen men waiting to be shown into Mujumder’s inner office. They sat in metal chairs lined along the wall of the narrow first-floor apartment of a row house where Mujumder’s tax and immigration office is housed.

Diplomas, certificates and commendations citing Mujumder’s accomplishments hung on the walls of the waiting area and inner office: past and now incoming president of the Central Bronx Rotary Club; president of the Bangladeshi American Community Council; his master of laws degree from Touro College; a certificate indicating his successful completion of a paralegal course; an invite to last year’s Christmas party thrown by the borough president’s father, State Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. and State Assemblyman Marcos Crespo.

Inside Mujumder’s office, Mahmud explained that he edited a weekly newspaper in Bangladesh and that he had some accounting experience. He moved to the Bronx a month ago from Boston, where he had had no luck finding work. Now, he was willing to take “any job.”

Mujumder’s career advice was pragmatic.

Hard Work

“I’m advising him to go into accounting,” he said. “Telling him to go to Baruch. Become a CPA. Looking for a job has to be a job. Any job. You do anything to survive.”

Part of helping new immigrants adjust to their new lives in the U.S. is breaking down their perceptions about their adopted country, said Yesin Kowshik, Mujumder’s assistant for the last four years. Kowshik, 18 and a college student, arrived in the U.S. with his family when he was 3.

New immigrants “think America is the land of riches,” Kowshik said. “They don’t see the hard work you have to go through to be successful.”

That’s where Mujumder comes in.

“People who have been here longer should look back at others less fortunate,” Mujumder said. “It is my job to help them.”

Text by Dara N. Sharif

Video by Ashley Welch