On Steinway Street in downtown Astoria stands a sign with the name Dimitris Kastanas. The name of the expatriate journalist can be found where for decades the studios of New Greek TV, the only Greek television station of the expatriate community, which was a point of reference for generations of immigrants, were housed.
Today, on the same street, which was for years a symbol of the Greek presence in New York, the wind of another era blows. This region is represented in the city’s Legislative Assembly by , the first person of South Asian descent and only the third Muslim ever to be elected to this office.
“I represent Steinway Street, the same street where Michael Bloomberg created the police unit to illegally track Muslims because of their faith. And now, the representative of that street is going to run for the same office that created that section.” Mamdani had declared at the beginning of his election campaign.
The image is almost symbolic, as in a city that is changing rapidly, the , in privilege and in social assertion. For him Christodoulos Athanasatosjournalist of the historical expatriate newspaper “Ethnikos Kyrykas”, these elections have important particularities both at the level of political substance and at the level of symbolism. “Andrew Cuomo didn’t speak to the world, he didn’t touch on the hot topics of a city that is becoming less and less sustainable, while Mamdani talked about the problems of everyday life” he says in “Step”.
However, in the Greek-American community, perceptions vary. “The small and medium-sized entrepreneur puts more emphasis on whether he will be taxed more or on the issue of public safety. So it makes sense for him to be more wary of Mamdani.” Athanasatos explains.
On the contrary, “a younger, American college graduate struggling to pay the rent can more easily support a progressive candidate. It is a mistake to think that expats vote as a single bloc based on their national identity. They vote based on their economic and social interests and the ideological identity they have formed within American society.”.
THE Timoleon Ziogasa mathematician who emigrated during the Greek crisis, describes with cold numbers a city that is suffocating from inflation. “The minimum increase in rental prices is at least 40%. New York outwardly shows the image of a city of opportunity, but it has always been a city of great social inequalities. That gap has widened and is now reaching the middle class.” he tells us. “There is a silent mass,”. As he says, the same neighborhoods that almost elected him Trump today they seem to support Mamdani by 80%.
Regarding immigration, he explains that there is a gap between the oldest immigrants who arrived in the U.S. “the good old days” and managed through their hard work to achieve the American dream, and the younger ones who encountered a completely different economic reality. “For immigrants who came later, as indeed for most young Americans today, the dream of home ownership seems like a distant utopia”.
In the expatriate radio station Hellas FM, the Dimitris Filippidis records every morning the moods of the listeners. “The topic of the elections monopolizes the interest of current affairs. We hear daily concern about the next day, especially in case of Mamdani’s victory”. Fears, he tells us, are expressed “both from ordinary expats and from businessmen and property owners”.
But the uncertainty does not only concern Mamdani. “There is also concern about the alternative solution that is former Governor Cuomo”.
