From eddie murphy movies. So, of course, everyone who lived in brooklyn were vampires, and if you wanted to find the clean, you would go to queens, of course. , we are going to export more about flushing, queens, is community, its microcosm of world religions. Before we begin, just a little bit about our author. Has lang r. Scott hanson a phd from the university of chicago. He is but most of his adult life thinking about pluralism in the world, but most of it from the neighborhood of flushing, queens, in new york city of course. He has studied acting and the university, sunni, the university of pennsylvania. Inis currently a lecturer history at the university of pennsylvania. He has studied at the the universityy, of pennsylvania. Ladies and german, please join ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming ruth tonight. Cott hanson [applause] all right. Good evening and welcome. That i should add tonights talk will be filmed by American History tv on cspan3. So, during the question and answer session later, you, too, can be part of history and posterity. [laughter] all set. All right . Turn it up somewhere . We are good. Ok. All right. Thats good. All right. Thanks so much. All right. Thank you so much for taking to talk aboutere the history of the town of lushing, queens, a town that has perhaps the most religiously Diverse Community in the world. You can see on the slide, there are over 200 different places of worship, densely packed in a two and a half square mile radius in the downtown area of flushing. There are 70 hindu temples, six sikhgogues, for mosques, n2 taoistgs, two temples. There is nowhere else in the world you see quite this religious diversity and i will explain some of the factors that diversity. In july fromout the University Press and you will be able to purchase a copy of the book afterwards if you would like for 20. Write up here with the director ,f the fordham University Press fred. So, today is another holiday of sorts. The flushing remonstrance of 1627. Theater 69 years ago, during the , whencolonial period flushing was called part of long 15 englishmenwhen applied to the governor for the pleasure of settling on land tribe,ed from the indian the charter they were granted to establish a town was one of the most liberal arrangements for any settlement in colonial america by or on behalf of any government. The grant seemed to offer almost complete religious freedom. It said, we do give and grant to have and enjoy liberty of conscience according to the custom and manner of holland, without molestation or disservice service from any magistrate or magistrates or any ministerlesiastical that may extend jurisdiction over them. So, hollands custom and manner therding to religion was most lenient attitude of all of the european nations. But flushings charter did not extend to the rest of the colony and they would learn that the charter was a loosely defined concept. The Dutch Reformed Church was the official state religion and the government have the power to forbid assemblies of faith. They could disagree with the dutch reformed, but only if they kept silence about it outside their own homes and if that led to no visible actions in society. The governor did little to enforce these limitations during his incumbency and the presence of a diverse population speaking 18 languages gave rise to a variety of religious groups. 1647 with a new director general, the liberty enjoyed by jeopardized. He was a strict calvinist, and under pressure from churchmen in holland and in the colony, he began persecuting groups that arrived in the colony, including juice and lutherans. Including jews and lutherans. He wrote to him saying jews may exercise in a houses. When several boisterous quakers andved, he jailed them issued proclamations on placards throughout the county, banning all public worship except that of the dutch reform. These were mild punishments compared to what the quakers would face after their arrival in 1687. Quakersgly called because the preachers were seen as boisterous and bold, making their listeners quake with the fear of god, the friends had few friends among the dutch establishment. Embedded the director for bid quakers. One was brutally tortured until his sister intervened. Some in flushing had attended nearby quaker meetings and had become converts by 6057, but forced to meet secretly in the woods. Their plight became a town cause. 16 57,s after christmas, 30 people of different faiths gathered from the general votes of the inhabitants banded together, including the town clerk and sheriff, to sign the flushing remonstrance enter my him of the to remind charter. None were quakers except perhaps one. They believed in the religious freedom of people and extending quakers,of liberty to in addition to anyone else, including presbyterians, baptists, as well as jews, turks, and egyptians. To follow andas enforce a strict interpretation of the law as he interpreted it. The remonstrance did not move him in the least, and he jailed those that he suspected as leaders. , john brownlater began to welcome friends to meet at his newly built house on sunday for first day. He was a merchant from derby sure, england who had migrated, first to boston with his father. That with the puritans in the Massachusetts Bay colony, movingme a friend after to flushing. Jamaica soonn learned of the meetings and a scout came to arrest found and taken to jail. The director was unable to get him to pay a fine or prevent him from holding meetings. He banished him from the colony, sending a letter to his superiors in amsterdam. Bound eventually made its way to amsterdam and pleaded his own case. They were persuaded by his appeal and let him return. And they also sent a letter to rebuke the director for his intolerance of religious dissent and restored liberty of conscience in flushing, if not colony. Re he eventually made his way back to his family january 30, 1664. To put this a bit more in , this is something that was created for the church centenary, the 300 41st anniversary, and it gives you some sense of the history and origins of the documents and the people that i have been describing. Englishugust 27, the rested control of New Amsterdam from the dutch. Changed ands name was anglicized into flushing. In a letter to the new governor nicholls, the dutch strongly advised him not to make any alteration in their Church Government or introduce any new form of worship among them. The result was a remarkable , but stillontinuity influenced by what they had created. Flushing would later claim to be the birthplace of religious freedom in america, and to some extent, they would be right. In a very limited colonial context, flushing does appear to be the first town to have and end liberty of conscious liberty of conscience, as religious freedom was called them. Taken togetherr with the remonstrance and there was no charter in his time, but the liberty of conscience charter did not extend to the rest of the colony, nor was it reinstated in flushing until 1669. Part of is often historical tugs of war over who was first. In rhode island, for instance, similar claims are made on behalf of the portsmouth compound of 1788. The town of providence was founded by Roger Williams in 7036. And while a Royal Charter was established, the religious experiments were not officially granted until a second revised charter of rhode island was granted in 1663, several months after the successful case to the dutch west india company. Of 1630 two,arter as well as an act concerning religion in 1649 and the act of toleration favored catholics. The charter for the province of pennsylvania also came later, in 1681. Bay colony andts connecticut lagged further behind many socalled heretics escaped to join other colonies if they did not suffer inate similar to those the salem witch trials in the 16 90s. Jefferson, who was apparently moved by what he wrote of as the poor quakers and wrote about how sister states long subsided without establishment at all did not write his statute of religious freedom until 1787. What there is no evidence that the remonstrance was read by jefferson or james madison, the evolution of the sequence of events in new york does appear to have made an impression on the minds of the founding fathers. Despite its significance, the flushingse and history largely faded from memory until the early 19th century, when on some of the comprehensive histories of new written. Some churches story and took note and began to include references to the remonstrance and found in their surveys of religion in america as early as 1898. The dominant narratives of American History and religion, at least until the late 20s century, stressed the primary importance of legacy of new england puritanism and settlements along the coast in general. Flushing ships the attention to the middle atlantic colony of new netherland, and its long experiment with pluralism that is perhaps more relevant today. To focus on the history that is more recent the history of new york and the broader history noteligion in america did reach a wide enough audience to make flushing wellknown. This would change when flushing was direct into the international spotlight as it celebrated a series of anniversaries that coincided 193940 worlds fair in flushing world park, the end world war ii, and the height of the cold war. So, here you see a picture of mayor laguardia in the living room of found house, making a radio broadcast for wnyc, marking the 300th anniversary of the founding of flushing. The house wasr, dedicated as a Historical Society and the National Shrine to religious freedom. In 1957, during the height of say you war, went to are not religious could get you labeled as a communist and perhaps you might lose your job or reputation or whatnot, religion became something that more americans sought to display, right . Church, temple attendance soared. We dont know to what extent it was genuine, but we do know there was an increase. ,erhaps for that reason flushings history was resurrected again for the anniversary of the remonstrance. Here it is arriving in city wall the mayorll with receiving it with a very nervous Security Guard on the right. It was on display. It would go on display more recently at the Flushing Library also in 2008 for the 350thed 50th anniversary. I think a lot of people would like to see it come back to queens, but the state archives is holding tightly on to it for redevelopment. Also, if you look at the top right, this commemorative envelope, you can see a special three cent stamp was issued by the u. S. Postal service, where it says the flushing remonstrance, religious freedom in america. If you look sometimes on ebay, you can find old sheets of this. I tried to buy most of them, so good luck. I use them for special occasions, for makeup stamps. It was very much in the public eye. Sent a wire to commemorate the events of 57 as well. Of 1957 as well. This may not look familiar to you right here, but these were the infamous corona ashdowns in what became known as flushing park. If you read the great gatsby, you probably remember one passage where fitzgerald talked about a mountain of ashes in queens. What was once the ugliest site , robert moses, the ,amous parks commissioner decided to make it into one of the most beautiful places in new york. In the 1930s, 19 40s, this was turned into this. Arguably, one of the most famous and important worlds fairs in American History, perhaps besides the chicago worlds fair of 1893. Here, you see the famous trilawn. Many of you are perhaps more familiar with the yunis fear of the 19641965 fair, but this of the making 641965 fair, but this preceded it. After the fair, one of the buildings that came the unsrary office of the General Assembly from 1947 until my 253. 1953. In an historic vote in may 1953, the u. N. Decided to create the state of israel. Many people i have talked to in , one of the rabbis in flushing, said, you know, israel was born in queens. The 1960s, 1970s, flushing, along with many other urban areas, began to fall on hard times to some extent. There was this phenomena and that sociologists refer to as white flight and just urban as then general population began to shift more to the suburbs in the postwar era. This was one of the pictures of theater r keogh rko in its heyday well, not its heyday, but the early 1970s. If you have visited flushing, youre probably more familiar pictures like this. It has been boarded up for some time and its just a tremendous eyesore. A symbol of that urban decay and blight in the 1960s and 1970s. So, what also began to happen though in the late, mid to 60s, as part of the Great Society of johnson,b. Something that he inherited from president kennedy, he sought to reform the nation will Immigration Laws. Pass the immigration act of 1965, something that is sometimes forgotten in discussions of the civil rights acts, the Voting Rights act, and so forth. It was the first bit of the doorsn to open up to the u. S. For the First Time Since the 1920s. Before 1965 you have protestants, catholics, jews, blacks, that after 1965 you begin to see the diversification, every variety christian protestant you can think of. I think a lot of people also, when they think of queens during think back tohaps references to pop culture. Tv shows like all in the family, archie bunker, the loudmouth, but lovable bigot, similar to someone else who was born in Jamaica Estates, forget thatseems to area. F this diverse sorry for editorializing there. But i cant help it. Another shot of of the worlds fair, the famous image of the unisphere. The family pictured is a family i interviewed during the course of the book. On the far right, the woman there with the little girl, who would later grow up to be the founder of one of the most popular dance parties here in new york city since the late 1990s. She grew up in flushing, and that is a picture she shared with me from the 1970s. This is how i initially came to study flushing. I had just finished a masters degree in religion from Columbia University in a was looking for something to do, when one of my professors told me about this harvardarch project at called the pluralism project, which are just started. They were looking for researchers to go around the country and document how the countrys religious landscape had begun to change in the wake makingimmigration act of 55. I was asked to cover new york city. Tall order, right . So, i spent a long time going around to different boroughs and spent a long time in queens and brooklyn, but ended up spending the most time in queens, and especially on the number seven line to flushing. , the diversity that i showed earlier and was just struck by that, i wondered, how could that have happened . What are the factors that led to that . What does it mean . What does it mean to live in the neighborhood like this that is so diverse, that has such a concentrated amount of religious pluralism . Perhaps like nowhere else. While doing that, i also learned about the colonial history i told you about as well. , i realizeded that i probably had a good project of my own turned into a dissertation in chicago and i came back every summer and ultimately moved into flushing after i finished my graduate work there and lived on bound street. For two and a half years. And right across the street from bound house and the queens Historical Society and did a lot of archival work, but also lots oral history, because when you are documenting immigrant communities, that is your only source. Also a lot of participant observation. My weekends were quite dizzy, as you might example, starting on fridays at the local mosque, services,ocal shabbat and then of course, churches on sunday. I visited just about every place in flushing, all times of day trying toand really do as not if he. So, im a historian, but i also ethnographic work as well. The book is a fusion of those teedo things. The first half is supposed to be history, but the more recent material is more ethnographic literature. So, the question i came to ask, diversity is one thing, but thats not very interesting. What do you do with that. What kinds of questions do you ask . College professors who is probably the most senior scholar in america had me read a k by a jesuit deal it theologian, and he asked them with his famous books from that hee we hold these truths, asked how much pluralism and what kind of pluralism can a Pluralist Society stand question mark and conversely, how much unity does a Pluralist Society need to be a Pluralist Society at all . I thought that was a brilliant quotation and one that spoke to 1960sc concerns of the as they began to open up to a more pluralistic view of the world. I also thought, wow. Thats even more relevant today. So that became my guiding question. So, what i ultimately found, my answer to that question, my thesis or argument, in my years of studying flushing, it seemed as if flushing had absorbed a tremendous amount of diversity and still came out ok. Momentsre were isolated of hostility, bias crimes, hate crimes, graffiti, vandalism, these sorts of things, that those were fairly isolate. There was no overt religious warfare on the streets like you see in some parts of the world northern ireland, cashmere, gaza, and so forth, right . You did not see that in the streets of flushing. That is the good news. An area experiencing rapid diversification and demographic change will turn out ok. There will be bumps along the way and challenges to be sure, but those are the possibilities of pluralism. At the same time, i also found there are limits as well. There are linguistic limits in terms of language, signage for instance has sometimes been seen as a problem. ,here have been moments when there was one incident when the nypd local precinct 109th was called for some kind of crime. And they could not find the store because the sign was in korean only. There are some issues they are sometimes. There are spatial limits as well. It is a small space, as you can see. A lot of people densely packed in this urban area. People tend to be fairly protective of whatever little space they have as city dwellers. That is one of the things different about living in a city, has one of the famous sociologists wrote back in the 1930s