NYC: What Counts Here is the Not the Color of Your Skin but the Quality of Your Work

I recently made the acquaintance of a tutor, who is a native of Trinidad.  He told me that he had relocated to Atlanta some years ago, but found it hard to make a living there.  “The first thing people would ask me,” he said, “is where do you worship?” The answer to that question often determined whether or not he got the job he was seeking.  After struggling for a few years, he moved back to New York.  “Here people don’t care about the color of your skin, or what religion you practice,” he told me.  “They care about the quality of your work.”

The other day, I sought to help one of the tenants of the Executive Office Center at Fresh Meadows, who is Muslim, with a personal referral.  I am a yarmulke (skull cap) wearing orthodox Jew.  He told me of the work he had done for the late Rabbi Wolf of the Great Neck Synagogue, and of other Jewish organizations that had engaged his services.  He said to me, “It’s too bad that everybody can’t come to New York for a lesson in how to live and work with people of all faiths.” 

Mr. Singh, my telecommunications consultant for over twenty-five years is a Sikh.  He wears a turban.   Since arriving in the United States at the age of 17, he has always lived and worked in New York.  He doesn’t advertise and has never advertised because his reputation precedes him.   He also believes that New York offers a level playing field for all races, creeds and colors. “No one is out of place in New York,” he said.  Then, he added, with a laugh, “except possibly the descendents of the original colonists.”  The only time he ever felt threatened by prejudice was just after 9/11.  “People were scared.  They looked at me, and all they saw was my turban,” he said.  “It didn’t last long,” he added, “and it didn’t cost me any work.  People always judged me on the basis of my ability and expertise.” 

I, too, remember my days as the co-owner of First Choice Real Estate, Inc.  First Choice was a microcosm of the borough of Queens, which, with its population of 2.3 million people is the most culturally diverse county in the Untied States.  The agents included such disparate nationalities as Chinese, Koreans, Russians, Irish, Greeks, Indians, Israelis, and spoke a cumulative total of twenty-one different languages.   There was often bickering among the agents, but it was like the bickering of my children. What I remember most about them was not the differences between them, but the family they constituted.