Who is Flushing JieJie

I'm the one who held the door for you while you were loaded down with groceries, the one who gave you a seat on the #7 train when you looked dead on your feet. When was I was also too tired to stand another minute I asked the kid next to me to give you his seat.

I'm the one who told that guy not to cut the line at the fruit and vegetable stand, and to wait his turn like everyone else. The one who brought up affordable housing at every political debate, the one who walks down funky Main Street with you in the summer, when its so rancid you want to hold your breath. I shop at the same stores and eat at the same restaurants you do.

I'm the one who stood next to the military recruiter on Roosevelt and gave your son anti-war literature when they told him he could become a citizen by joining the military because I knew you want your son to go to college after high school and not to Iraq. And when the military man said I was in his turf, I told him, "Brother you are mistaken. This is my community, my neighbors; children who I watched grow up. To you, they are a quota and a job. You are the one sitting at MY kitchen table."

I feel the anger and pain, when I read of the latest stabbing or hear gunshots suddenly ring out in the wee hours of a quiet Flushing night. I grieve and pray for the fallen sons and daughters, wives and husbands, killed by gangs, domestic violence, by poverty, by overwork, disease, by emptiness of spirit.

I march in Flushing parades, I burn incense in the temples, now and then I go to Mass. I've stopped burglaries in process, planted flowers, support our local Flushing businesses, I campaign and complain, vote and volunteer.

I see the greedy developers, turning our community into a place where only the wealthy can afford to life, where the only way we can remain is if we want to live 10 to a room.

I'm the Big Sister who catches you when you fall and tells you not to moan over the fact that you fell; but to find out what made you stumble, and will help you to clear that path, so others won't have to stumble too.