Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2025

Document Type

Capstone Project

Degree Name

M.A.

Program

International Migration Studies

Advisor

Monica Varsanyi

Committee Members

Richard Ocejo

Subject Categories

Migration Studies

Keywords

migrants, migration studies, placemaking, rights-claiming, community gardens, local membership

Abstract

Since the spring of 2022, New York City has seen an increased rate of newly-arrived migrants from countries in Latin and Central America, Asia, and Africa. In accordance with the city’s “right to shelter” obligation, NYC has provided shelter for migrants by converting hotels, office buildings, and even tents, into make-shift lodging designed for temporary stay. Within a year, anti-immigrant rhetoric from Mayor Eric Adams sparked activism from both immigrant rights organizations and long-term residents who don’t want migrant shelters in their neighborhoods. These shelters lack the necessary food, privacy, social services, and structure that is owed to homeless residents of the city. One of these shelters sits on Stockton Street, at the border of Bushwick/Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. Its overcrowded, dusty, and scarce conditions have pushed the migrants living there to engage with the wider community. This paper explores the active involvement of the migrants living at Stockton Street in Bushwick City Farms (BCF), a community garden located across the street from the shelter. Over the last three years, migrants living at Stockton Street have engaged in garden maintenance, communal cooking and cleaning, as well as participation in mutual aid efforts such as weekly food distributions that support both local migrants and long-term residents alike. As BCF has opened its space to this new community, so too have the migrants appropriated the space through acts of placemaking in order to address their needs for food security, social services, and a sense of belonging amidst faltering efforts at the city level. Through these efforts, these acts of placemaking qualify as rights-claiming activities as they address the disparities they face in the shelter and demand the same representation and visibility owed to longer-term residents of New York City. These rights-claiming activities have earned the migrants at Stockton Street access to local membership, yet unfortunately not national citizenship.

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