New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani published a map of migrants across the city, although a major group that helped build the city was seemingly forgotten. The map, titled “New York City Immigrant Enclaves,” details 30 areas in the five boroughs with migrant populations, such as Chinatown in Flushing, Little Africa in the Bronx, Little Ecuador, Little India, and many others.
Italians were left out of the map.
The Italian American Civil Rights League condemned the map, with the group’s president, Mike Crispi, stating that the error is a “cultural erasure.” He called Little Italy “sacred ground” where “Italian immigrants came with nothing,” worked, ran shops, built churches, and “helped make New York what it is.”
“Mamdani’s City Hall can find room for every fashionable progressive constituency, but somehow it cannot find Little Italy,” Crispy explained. “Our culture is good enough for their photo ops, our food is good enough for their fundraisers, and our neighborhoods are good enough for tourism dollars – but when it comes time to recognize Italian Americans, they erase us.”
“Little Italy is not dead,” he added. “Little Italy is not optional. Little Italy is New York.”
Spencer Pratt, who ran for mayor of Los Angeles, also condemned the map. “Leaving out the Italian, Jewish, and Irish enclaves in NYC is like leaving out Mexican and Persian enclaves in LA,” he wrote on X. “It’s not an ‘oopsie!’ This is deliberate subversion. The communist must erase your history so he can demolish your home and make it his own.”
