Jonathan Cangin
Brooklyn Voices
January 29, 2018
Essay #1
The debate is not what the borough Brooklyn is, it is what Brooklyn is not. Brooklyn is
everything from multicultural, diverse, rich in history, socially and economically divergent.The
borough is constructed by varieties of ethnic groups, different races, cultures, religions, and
values. People who live in Brooklyn experience a multitude of environments that is not found
anywhere else in the world. Brooklyn is a unique place of its own, a place such as nowhere else
in the world and can be described in endless amounts of words. James Agee however, in his
piece of “Brooklyn Is” attempts to describe the borough to the best of his ability as does Walt
Whitman in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”.
In my experience, living in Brooklyn my entire life has meant a great array of things
leading me to be able to have my own description of what “Brooklyn is”. To me, Brooklyn
represents the entire globe, we are in a sense the United Nations. We are a melting pot of
nationalities and at one point or another, the people who call Brooklyn home have been
immigrants or their ancestors were. Currently, white Americans make up 49.5%. This includes
people who come from Italian, German, Polish Russian, English and other European descents.
African Americans make up over one-third of Brooklyn’s population and there are over 877,000
African Americans residing in Brooklyn. Currently, there are approximately 370,000 Caribbean
descendants in the borough. Hispanics and Latinos make up almost one-fifth of Brooklyn’s
population. In addition, over 500,000 Hispanics and Latinos reside in Brooklyn. An additional,
243,000 Asians live in the borough and these are people of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino,
Vietnamese and variety of other countries descent. The numbers here are overwhelming but they
are more than just numbers on a paper. These people bring more than population statistics with
them- they bring personality to Brooklyn. In order to celebrate the numerous nationalities, we
host parades such as the Chinese New Year Parade, St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Puerto Rican Day
Parade, West-Indian Day along with many others. During these parades we allow the pride of
these cultures to reflect and we are able to appreciate their native foods, music, dances, clothing
and everything else that makes the culture unique. However, despite all the greatness that comes
with diversity there is also adversity and Agee focuses his work on these same adversities I see
living in the Borough.
We spoke about all of these different nationalities living amongst a variety of
