The Bangladeshi community in Los Angeles has lost the vote to break away from Koreatown and secure a council of its own within the city.
More than 19,000 voters turned up earlier this week for what was meant to be a simple vote to divide an existing neighbourhood council into two.
The run-up to the election and the campaign to stop a separate council for Little Bangladesh, the four-block area in Central Los Angeles, has left the Bangladeshi community bitter and disappointed.
“For us it was something to feel proud about,” says Nazrul Alam, the president of the Bangladesh Unity Federation Los Angeles, adding, “But the Koreans turned it into a fight as if we were trying to take their country.”
Even the city officials called the voter turnout for this kind of vote “unprecedented”.
Little Bangladesh was officially recognised by the City of Los Angeles in 2010 and has served as a commercial centre and a cultural hub for immigrants from Bangladesh.
Nearby colleges and the area’s largest mosque, the Islamic Center of Southern California, has drawn Bangladeshi immigrants to this locality since the 1960s.
The Little Bangladesh signpost was installed in 2011 but the area continues to be governed by Koreatown council.
“If we had won the vote for a separate council, it would have meant that the city would have allotted us a separate budget and the name would have been Little Bangladesh Council,” says Alam.
But the leaflets circulated before the elections by those opposing the formation of a new council were highly misleading. It said: We need your vote to KEEP KOREATOWN.
In fact, the vote was not to replace Koreatown with Little Bangladesh or alter its physical borders but it was projected as the fight to “safeguard our town, Koreatown”.
“People were brought in from other parts of the city and the voting went on till midnight,” says Alam.
“Our people came to vote but when they saw the long queues, they left,” he said.
Of the total votes, more than 98 percent went against the creation of a Little Bangladesh council.
The community can request for another vote next year but Alam says the results would be no different if proper commitment and seriousness was lacking.
“We realised we were not ready for this kind of fight. The community did not take it seriously,” he says.
The Korean community was jubilant after the vote.
“What we’re seeing is the rising of a community, an understanding of the strength of our collective voice and ultimately, the power of our vote,” Korean American Coalition Executive Director Joon Bang told the local media.
“This is just the beginning of the Korean American community’s political growth and civic involvement,” he added.