New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani blamed the exclusion of key migrant populations in his city on his predecessor.
“This map was initially created by the prior administration in 2023, and when we inherited it, we added a few additional neighborhoods,” Mamdani said. “It’s clearly not an exhaustive list of the more than 200 ethnic communities that call our city home, and we’re going to be making additional changes in the future to reflect that.”
He added, “That includes adding ‘Little Italy’ to the map.”
According to the New York Post, the former Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, never made a migrant map. Instead, Adams’ Office of Immigrant Affairs created illustrations detailing each of the city’s migrant populations as part of its annual Immigrant Heritage Week.
Last week, Mamdani’s office published a map of migrants called “New York City Immigrant Enclaves,” which detailed 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.
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.”
