Gentrification, Displacement, and Metropolitan Park Casino in Flushing, New York:

"Gentrification, Displacement, and Metropolitan Park Casino in Flushing, New York: A Conversation with Local Asian Organizers" 

Flushing in New York City, a majority-minority neighborhood, where 71% of the population is Asian, has become both a local and transnational focal point in debates over revitalization and gentrification in the past two decades. These dynamics have coincided with a recent controversy involving Mets owner Steve Cohen, the billionaire hedge fund manager and founder of Point72 Asset Management, who has partnered with Hard Rock International to propose an $8 billion casino and entertainment complex on the parking lots of Mets Stadium between two Asian and Latinx immigrant neighborhoods: Flushing and Corona. 

Sponsored by the Lecture Committee Fund, this talk invites three local Asian organizers from Flushing, New York, who have mobilized the local Asian American community, while building interracial coalitions with Latinx organizers and others. The anti-casino movement provides a compelling case study that challenges the stereotype of Asian Americans as a quiet and apolitical model minority. By building an interracial and interethnic coalition, local Asian organizers, many of whom grew up in Flushing, expose unethical alliances among capitalists, including billionaire Steve Cohen, politicians, and elected officials, and actively resist racial and economic injustice in the Asian community, often undermined by those politicians and elected officials.