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“Unity Maps” for New York City
Newsday – Redistricting maps proposed by a coalition of interest groups to take into account New York City’s Asian-American, Latino and black populations.
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund proposed the “Unity Map,” a joint effort with LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Institute for Latino Policy, and the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College. The map redraws district lines to take into account New York City’s Asian-American, Latino, and black populations.
According to the map’s sponsors, by preserving both traditional and emerging neighborhoods within congressional districts, all three communities of color achieve fair representation. The Unity Map unites splintered Asian-American communities in Eastern Queens with all of Flushing and Bayside within one congressional district. The Asian-American communities of Jackson Heights and Elmhurst are kept within one congressional district, as are the communities of Manhattan’s Chinatown and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. For New York City’s 2.3 million Latinos, the Unity Map achieves three Latino majority districts compared to the current one, while preserving the existing two congressional districts for the city’s 2.2 million black residents.
According to Unity Map sponsors, Census 2010 found that the Asian-American population grew 32 percent in New York City in the past decade to more than 1 million, or to 13 percent of the population. Yet under district lines drawn a decade earlier, there is only one Asian-American majority district in the State Assembly. In existing maps, the Asian-American community in Elmhurst is split into five Assembly districts. In Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park, the Asian-American community is fractured into six Assembly districts. The Unity Map proposes four Asian-American-majority Assembly districts, 16 Latino-majority districts compared to the current 13, and preserves the existing 13 black-majority districts, all in accordance with each community’s respective growth and in compliance with the Voting Rights Act and U.S. Constitution.
According to its sponsors, this is a revised proposal for a State Senate map that takes into account New York’s “block-on-border rule.” The 2010 census found that in Queens, the Asian-American community grew 300 times faster than the rest of the borough’s population to more than half a million. This Unity Map proposes the first Asian-American majority State Senate district in New York City. It achieves this while increasing Latino- majority State Senate districts from five to seven in relation to their growth.