NEW YORK, July 13 (Our New York News) — New York City will add Little Italy to its public-facing immigrant-enclaves map after criticism over its omission, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Friday.
Mamdani said the map was “initially created by the prior administration in 2023” and that his team added some neighborhoods after inheriting it. He said the list is “not an exhaustive list” of the city’s more than 200 ethnic communities and that more changes will be made, including Little Italy.
The city’s map highlighted 30 immigrant communities across the five boroughs, including places such as Koreatown, Little Pakistan and Little Yemen, but did not include Little Italy.
The omission drew sharp criticism from Italian American groups and members of the City Council’s Italian Caucus. In a statement, the caucus said, “You cannot narrate the tale of immigrant New York while erasing one of the city’s most prominent and historically vital immigrant populations,” and called the omission “incomplete at best and insulting at worst.”
Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella also objected, saying, “Ignorance is not a good ingredient for highlighting the sacrifices of so many who built this City and gave so much.” Mike Crispi, president of the Italian American Civil Rights League, said, “This is not a clerical error. This is cultural erasure.”
A City Hall spokesperson said the guide was intended to “showcase neighborhoods in New York City with significant foreign-born populations from various regions and countries around the globe.” The mayor’s office said the immigrant-enclave series began during the Adams administration and that more neighborhoods are planned in the coming months.
