A corner of Midtown Manhattan was awash in color and Bhangra music as hundreds of Hindus congregated for their yearly Holi celebration. The Dag Hammarskjold Park hosted the fourth New York edition of the festival of colors on March 31.
The growing Nepalese community in New York defied the cold on a recent morning for the city’s first “Walk for Nepal” benefit at Flushing Meadow-Corona Park.
In the heart of Jackson Heights, Queens, the two floors of the Nepalese restaurant Himalayan Yak are filled with customers and staff overjoyed that CNN’s Hero of the Year award was won by one of their own, Pushpa Basnet.
A Nepali immigrant prep cook says that he was forced to work long hours for little or no pay, and was essentially imprisoned in group housing on Long Island while working at Masala Wok & Grill, an Indian fusion restaurant in Selden, Long Island.
A cheap manicure and pedicure is considered an entitlement of city life by many New Yorkers. But trouble has been brewing in the city’s nail salon industry, where workers say they’re underpaid, abused and exploited.
Feet in 2 Worlds dug into the story of Shanti Gurung, the ex-maid of an Indian diplomat and her husband who says that she was brought to America as a teenager and forced to work 16-hour days without pay.
In 2010, Binod Roka noticed his children trying to hide their Nepalese heritage in hopes of fitting in at school. To help them appreciate their roots, he co-founded a series of poetry readings, which have become gathering places for Queens’ Nepalese community.
The small, but growing, Nepalese community in Queens celebrates festivals like Dashain to bring a sense of home to their lives.
