ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on diasporic heritage and questions the relationship of place and cultural identity in a world of mass ethnic transplantation through the study of a length of shoreline on Jamaica Bay in Queens, New York. This beach territory has been valued and shaped by two primary groups that stake conflicting claims to the space – the institutional presence of the National Park Service, whose Gateway National Recreation Area park rangers protect the Bay from ecological harm, and the local Guyanese residents who have adopted the bay and shoreline as a metaphorical Ganges. These citizens move through the city and deposit offerings in Jamaica Bay, while rangers continue to argue that the practice causes harm to the bay’s fragile ecosystem. Using a landscape architecture graduate design course as a means of gathering research and generating site interpretations, the chapter assesses the balance of cultural and environmental values and how global perspectives in heritage conservation and interpretive design methods might contribute to the negotiation of such place conflict and sustain the site as a locale of cross-cultural exchange.
