Panel discussions, films, art exhibits, and more: October 2014 Calendar of Events

Written by Mia Olesen

This month delight your senses at colorful festivals, parades, and tours organized by several of NYC’s immigrant communities! And during rainy or chilly fall days, we recommend you visit the large number of exhibitions, lectures, and interesting films shown around the city with a special focus on immigrants or women. We hope to see you around!

October 5, 12-8pm: Diwali Festival, South Street Seaport (Financial District, Manhattan), free – Join in on the celebrations at South Street Seaport for Diwali, the Festival of Lights celebrated by Hindus all over the world. Fireworks at 7pm.

October 7, 6.30pm: Lecture: “Black Feminist Futures and the Practice of Fugitivity”, Barnard College, James Room, 4th Floor Barnard Hall (Morningside Heights, Manhattan), free – Tina Campt is a professor of Africana and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the newly appointed co-director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women. In this lecture, Campt will discuss black diaspora culture and explore possibilities for new feminist futures and how our everyday engagements with power complicate how we understand feminist struggle.

October 8, 6.30pm: Talk: One Out of Three and 103 Orchard, The Tenement Museum (Lower East Side, Manhattan), free – Professors Nancy Foner, Phil Kasinitz, and Margaret Chin will discuss contemporary immigration to New York City and give a sneak preview of the upcoming 103 Orchard Street Exhibit.

October 9, 10am: Tour: A Cook’s Tour of Chinatown, meeting place: southwest corner of Grand and Elizabeth Streets (Chinatown, Manhattan), $35 – China is the 2nd largest immigrant group in New York City. Explore the city’s fascinating Chinatown with Chef Russell Moss as you venture through the neighborhood’s narrow streets and visit his favorite restaurants and shops.

October 9, 7.30pm: Film: Who is Dayani Cristal?, Regal Union Square Stadium 14 (East Village, Manhattan), $15 – This documentary provides us with an insider’s look at the brutal reality of migration and US border security. Director Marc Silver and Mexican actor Gabriel García Bernal retrace the steps of a migrant from a small Honduras town to the Sonoran desert in Arizona, where border officers found his body in the summer 2010. For those who would prefer to watch the documentary from home, it is now available on Netflix!

October 9 – 12, 12.30-1.30pm: Dance Performance: The Grass is Always Greener, 14th Street/Union Square Park, in front of Whole Foods (Greenwich Village, Manhattan), free – This dance performance captures the struggles facing immigrants in the United States. Directed by Argentinian Choreographer Anabella Lenzu, the performance moves in between the turn of the 20th century, during the great waves of immigration at Ellis Island, and modern day, while blending in scenes from the current challenges in US immigration policy. Lenzu seeks to unpack the question of what it means to be an immigrant, whether in 1900 or in 2014.

October 10-12: Russian Documentary Film Festival, various locations (Manhattan and Brooklyn) – The Seventh Annual Russian Documentary Film Festival in New York presents a varied program of new documentaries, which won prizes in Russian and international film festival, and delve into Russia’s history and Russian contemporary society.

October 11, 10am-8pm: Panamanian Day Parade, starts at Bergen Street and Franklin Avenue and ends at President Street and Classon Avenue, (Crown Heights, Brooklyn), free – Panamanians celebrate their independence on October 11 with their annual parade of music, traditional dresses, and delicious food. Come and join the celebrations!

October 12, 11:00am-5:00pm: 50th Hispanic Day Parade, 5th Avenue from 44th to 72th Street (Midtown/Lenox Hill, Manhattan), free – Since 1985, the colorful Hispanic Parade has been a showcase for Hispanic solidarity. It encourages the traditional values, music, costumes, and folklore of each participating country in the parade.

October 18, 1pm-4pm: Diwali Festival at Asia Society, Asia Society (Lenox Hill, Manhattan), $12 for non-members, $5 for students, seniors, and children – Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights and New Year, is a time to celebrate good fortune, family, and friendships. Celebrate at the Asia Society with various performances, and arts and crafts activities.

October 21, 10.45am: Jewish Harlem Tour, meeting place: northeast corner of Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. and 125th Street (Harlem, Manhattan), $35 – For a time, Harlem was known as “Jewish Harlem”: between the 1880s and the 1930s it was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the US, with many Jewish immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe settling there rather than in the already overcrowded Lower East Side downtown. This tour is a fascinating guided journey through Harlem’s Jewish past and long forgotten history.

October 21, 6pm: Lecture: “Removal of Criminals? The Massive Deportations of Mexican Migrants from the U.S.”, Barnard College, Sulzberger Parlor, 3rd floor Barnard Hall (Morningside Heights, Manhattan), free – The US government has deported more than two million Mexican immigrants since 2003 using the argument that many of them are criminals. This lecture by Rafael Alarcón analyzes whether these immigrants have committed serious crimes other than having undocumented status. Rafael Alarcón is an internationally renowned sociologist and author of Mobile Human Capital: Skilled Immigrants in the Booming Times of Silicon Valley.

October 22, 6pm: Talk: League of Kitchens, The Tenement Museum, (Lower East Side, Manhattan), free – The organization League of Kitchens provides immersive experiences where immigrants teach intimate cooking workshops in their homes. The organization’s founder Lisa Gross, food writer Molly O’Neill, and trained immigrant home cooks will discuss the power of cultural exchanges through cooking and eating together.

October 23, 6pm: Mali Now – Defining Mali Through Women’s Voices, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Upper East Side, Manhattan), $30 – Professor Henry Louis Gates, producer of “The Road to Timbuktu” part of the PBS series Wonders of the African World, explores the history, culture, and politics of contemporary Mali with a special focus on women. He will discuss what the future holds for the cultural, architectural, and intellectual treasures of this country and the West Africa region.

October 26, 7.30pm: Harlem Stage Opera: Makandal, Peter B. Lewis Theater at the Guggenheim Museum (Upper East Side, Manhattan), $30-35 – In this new opera, an eighteenth-century Haitian slave revolt intertwines with twenty-first-century Haitian, Cuban, and Dominican immigrants seeking freedom. Historic, contemporary, and mythic themes are reflected through the music. Excerpts of the opera will be performed prior to the world premiere.

October 27, 6.30pm: The Immigrant and the University: Peder Sather and Gold Rush California, Scandinavia House (Murray Hill, Manhattan), free – Norwegian writer Karin Sveen tells the story of Peder Sather, who immigrated from a remote corner of Norway to New York in 1832, became a successful banker and entrepreneur in the US, and is still remembered today as a founder and liberal benefactor of the University of California at Berkeley.

October 30, 6pm: Arts in the Cuban Diaspora, Barnard College, Sulzberger Parlor, 3rd floor Barnard Hall, (Morningside Heights, Manhattan), free – This event exhibits the works of several artists from the Cuban diaspora, including painters, poets, musicians, and more.

Ongoing exhibit, starting September 26: Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion, New York Historical Society (Upper West Side, Manhattan), $19 for adults, $12 for students – The exhibition explores the history of trade and immigration between China and the United States. Through stories of Chinese immigration from the late 18th century to the present, it raises the question of what it means to be an American.  The exhibit will run through April 19, 2015.

Ongoing exhibit, starting October 11: Outside the Comfort Zone by Korean-born artist Jewyo Rhii, Queens Museum (Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens), $8 – Being a New York City immigrant herself, Jewyo Rhii’s exhibition reflects on the insecurity, resentment, and vulnerability of a displaced individual’s daily struggles. Rhii seeks to incorporate this through sculptural installation, video, and drawing. The exhibit will run through February 8, 2015.

Ongoing exhibit, starting October 22: Letters from Afar, Museum of the City of New York (East Harlem, Manhattan), $10 – Letters from Afar is a video art installation by Hungarian artist Péter Forgács and is based on home videos made by New York’s Jewish immigrants who travelled back to visit Poland during the 1920s and 1930s. The films document poignant family reunions and everyday life in small Polish towns in the years before the Second World War. The exhibit will run through March 22, 2015.