I like to keep track of the various industries where desis are making an impact, especially in New York City. When I was growing up, almost all the news stands were owned by Bangladeshis. Later, Punjabis became a major presence in taxi cabs in the city and gas stations in the suburbs. But the one I missed along the way had to do with Sri Lankans and porn stores [hat tip Manish].
In 1999, Tunku Varadarajan wrote an article for the NYT about Gujarati motel owners that contained the following throwaway line:
Sri Lankans, in case you didn’t know this, run most porn-video stores… [Link]
I did some digging, and the best estimates I could find show only a 10% ownership of the video smut business (I’m not entirely sure that these figures describe the same period as Varadarajan’s article, and they may be low since they came from within the Sri Lankan community). Still, no matter what the numbers, it’s a fascinating history.
The story starts, as all good New York City stories start, with the Mafia. La Cosa Nostra had dominated New York’s red light businesses for a number of decades but finally found their dominance undone by new technology:
Video’s emergence in the ’80s changed the Mafia’s porn role. No longer could the mob dominate distribution by simply running adult theaters and peep shows. Gotti and Basciano allowed businessmen without ties to the Mafia to move into retail stores. Immigrant entrepreneurs, particularly from Israel and Sri Lanka, multiplied X-rated video shops in New York neighborhoods from Greenwhich Village to Queens.
“The days of Mob influence are gone,” claimed a Sri Lankan businessman. “There’s no money in the business for them. Tapes used to be $100 each. Now they’re selling for $3:99.” [Link]
Confusingly, the same source also tells an alternate story, one where Sri Lankans entered the business earlier, working with the Mafia at first:
Sri Lankans worked for the Mafia through the 1980s and moved into ownership when the Mafia left. [Link]
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p>This generates a great image in my mind, almost Benneton-like in its pluralism, of Sicilian and Sri Lankan mobsters working side by side to bring smut to the city that never sleeps. If this is true, a lot of hollywood dialogue needs to be rewritten and desi actors will start to complain that they only get roles as doctors, terrorists or gangsters. Sri Lankan script doctors will have to be hired to write lines like this:
“Leave the gun. Take thecannoliwattalapam .”
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This specialization in pornography has caused a rift in the community between the older, more educated immigrants who hold “respectable” jobs and the newer immigrants who work hard to increase sales of Kleenex. Surprisingly these tensions are stronger than any between Tamil and Sinhala immigrants:
Often, edging in has meant trying to exploit an occupational niche that other groups have ignored–or rejected. For many Sri Lankans, that path has led to working in the sex shops of Times Square, a marginal job that became even less desirable when the city passed anti-pornography laws three years ago… In fact, the biggest tensions in New York City’s Sri Lankan enclave don’t stem from old ethnic animosity. Instead, the conflicts are about how best to get by–and get ahead–in the new world. Some professional Sri Lankans worry their community’s reputation will be sullied by the sex-store workers. [Link]
But that may also be what opened the door to this business for the new Sri Lankans: Simply put, dirty jobs are easier to get. As their island-nation’s economy crumbled under the strain of a long civil war, a new wave of Sri Lankans wound up in New York in the early 1990s. Many were here illegally, tourists who overstayed their visas or sailors who skipped ship. When they arrived, the city was recovering from a recession and still suffering from double-digit unemployment. Porn shops, unlike more dignified industries, were hiring.
The city doesn’t track the ethnicity of the store owners, but Sri Lankans estimate that their countrymen own between 10 and 15 stores–almost 10 percent of the 140 to 150 stores still operating. They are a visible presence in Times Square, if you know where to look. Among the owners is a man known to some as Lucky N because he has decided that the letter “n” is auspicious for him. He has given his establishments names like Neptune, Nimble and Nectar. [Link]
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p>If correct, then 10% of the video smut store trade is a far cry from “running most porn video stores”. However, as I clarified above, we don’t know if this is an underestimate by people within the community who are bent on downplaying their now notorious status. And even if they do only own 10% of the video porn stores, this is a sorce of great shame and friction within a fairly small community:
Many of the Sri Lankans who came during the last decade came illegally. It was these men who wound up working in the porn shops, and they are now the source of the friction in this supposedly conservative community. Few employees and owners, for instance, even admit to what they do; in conversation, they say they work “in video stores” or, more euphemistically, “in the film business.”
“They’re too embarrassed to even tell their families what they’re doing,” says Bante Kondanna, the priest at the Buddhist temple. With a master’s in social work from Fordham University, the reverend is well trained to observe and help remedy the pressures in the community. He says the sex store workers and owners are afraid of mixing with the rest of the community because “they think people will look down on them.”…. The more affluent Sri Lankans of Staten Island have dealt with this smutty secret by avoiding it. Many professionals prefer to attend services in a temple in the Queens neighborhood of Kew Gardens. (Another temple is being constructed in Hollis Hills.) But for people without cars–the bulk of the Staten Island community–that’s a journey of more than two hours. In effect, the commute forms a cordon sanitaire between the two groups. [Link]
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Sadly, this sense of shame only marginalizes the porn store workers further, rather than helping them find jobs outside the industry. This is one of the reasons I am so impatient with desi sense of propriety and decorum – it’s more about protecting yourself than extending a helping hand to those you disapprove of. Either accept the workers, or help them out. But marginalizing them doesn’t change anything, it just allows some people to act sanctimonious.
A sad situation. I can only see it getting worse, perhaps spiraling into all-out civil war.
well said.
Actually Ennis if you even casually pass by the “adult” stores not just in Times Square but in Greenwich Village without going in you will always be greeted on the outside by a Indian uncle! This has been a known fact that everyone always jokes about. So I can only imagine how it can be assumed that the industry is teeming with them. But it’s a job and it’s a living, it’s not like they are porn stars themselves and it’s a industry that obviously has clients. Someone’s gotta do it.
I know someone who’s father owned one of these stores for over a decade and he didn’t find out till he was in his 20s and it was because a friend of his went in the store and saw his father. And their relationship was really damaged but at the end of the day all I can say is ‘didn’t he put you thru college? Get over it!’
I think it’s similar to the Guju ownership of liquor stores…and I agree with you here:
Can’t give you any razib like stats, but anecdotally, I’ve lived in NYC for a looooooong time and 100%, yes 100% of the adult stores I’ve…er…walked past…yeah, that’s the ticket, had a desi looking dude
behind the counterstanding outside.Am I being PC incorrect in saying this? In Toronto there are a LOT of Sri Lankan Tamil gangs and quite a few of them are engaged in porn and prostitution where newcomer Tamil girls from Sri Lanka are pushed into the trade for $$. Sad, but I guess it happens everywhere.
Well since the smut trade includes more than running a porn video store, probably Sri Lankans run a huge percentage of the sores which constitutres 10% of the entire industry…which is pretty huge, profitable, and just as important, defensive.
Probably the internet will put them out of business though.
Damn. I’m going to incriminate myself here. When I was a young student in London I used to work in a bar in Soho and I became friends with the owner of a porn shop on Charing Cross Road who was Sri Lankan. I don’t know if he was Tamil or Sinhala but he had a Catholic name and a massive collection of ‘ethnic’ videos and magazines, and it was unusual in that half of the stuff was gay porn. So you had gay and straight men hanging out in the same porn shop, which is quite unusual I think.
Those were my ‘I’m-such-a-cool-guy-hanging-out-on-the-sleazy-underbelly-of-life’ days – we all go through them don’t we, listening to the Velvet Underground and acting as if you’re the greatest taboo breaker in the world.
No? You didnt? OK I admit, it was because I got cheap porn, so sue me, I was 19.
By the way Ennis, you made me laugh out loud with the kleenex and wattalapam-cannoli lines 😉
This is so bizarre. The one porno-movie theatre I am aware of in Toronto, around Bloor and Bathurst, always has a Tamil guy out front. I thought that was strange, but apparently not.
Roy, do you have anything to back that claim up?
I’m speaking from having been to Toronto and mixing with the Sri Lankan Tamil crowd there.
This is from online sources:
Most prostitutes have to advertise and this makes the industry easy to monitor at times. Most Canadian phone books carry advertisements from escort agencies, and advertisements for prostitutes can be found in many community papers. In Toronto, most such advertisements can be found in two weekly papers, Now Magazine and Eye Magazine. Starting in mid 1995, some of the advertisers offering negotiable affection began to describe themselves as East Indians, Sri Lankans, Tamils, or as having freshly arrived from Jaffna (the main Tamil city in Sri Lanka). These ads can still be found, but in all fairness they were only a few in a sea of similar ones for women of many different backgrounds.
In 1998, a pair of sources in the Tamil Community told one of the authors about “Camilla”, a madam for a Tamil hooker ring in Toronto. The story was that most of the clientele were Tamils, but the thinking about CamillaÂ’s organization was that a man who could afford a few hundred bucks for an hour or two of pleasure could also then be fingered as someone who could afford to increase his donations to the TigersÂ’ cause. The story was impossible to confirm for several reasons, but Camilla does still advertise in the ‘Adult PersonalÂ’ section of Now Magazine.
One additional datum about prostitution and the Tigers arises out of people smuggling activities (another key industry for the LTTE). In the mid 1990s, it was not unknown for some Sri Lankan women to be abused or raped while being smuggled towards Canada, and some were deliberately stranded in Thailand and forced into prostitution there.
http://www.mackenzieinstitute.com/2003/other_peoples_wars7.htm
Ennis, do you have stats on the proportion of Sri Lankans to all New Yorkers? (I’m too lazy to look it up myself.) Just wondering how disproportionate their involvement is, if 10% is truly the ownership.
Of course, working here in the Garment district of Manhattan, otherwise known as the cheap-pizza-and-porn district, I could do a quick survey of the surrounding establishments, if someone will teach me the proper greeting in Tamil…
M E-L, Vanakkam means hello.
Roy, thanks for the information. I think the worse of the Tamil gang problem in Toronto is behind us. A few years back the police did some major raids that took down the two big gangs in the city, the VVT and AK Kannan. As to whether that would have an effect on the prostitution issue you bring up, I don’t know. I suspect it doesn’t.
ME-L:
The problem is estimating the number of illegals. The community is pretty small, but I think larger than what Wikipedia tells us:
M E-L, Vanhakkam means hello in Tamil, ayubhovan means hello in Sinhala.
I think this porn-ring thing is pretty endemic to the Sri Lankan community irrespective of ethnicity (yay..smut conqueres all) because Staten Island is mostly Sinhala, I think.
Smut’s always been a way to make money, even back in Sri Lanka. The Dead Milkmen had a song titled for a reason. European pervs loved the island back in the 70s and 80s. What Thailand is now, only sort of quieter and classier about it.
And yeah, the LTTE is in on the action and coerces Tamils into working it, and tithing to the cause. The Sinhala crowd’s jsut in it to make money.
What about the Muslims (both Moor and Malay) and the Burghers cicatrix? :-p
Those South Asian population stats don’t seem to count the Guyanese and Trinidadian PIOs. There are over 130,000 Guyanese in New York alone, the majority of which are of Indian descent. So the desi population of Queens is considerably larger. Richmond Hill and Ozone Park, for example, are majority Guyanese.
Shit you people are taking over New York!
Sharam kar!
OK actually it’s not unusual. The average porn shop (in NY) caters to both. The “male” store is usually in the basement or a separate section. A lot of porn stars(don’t ask) swing both ways, men and women and put out films to cater to both segments.
On a ridiculous aside…the Indian theater in Jackson Heights in Queen used to be the biggest porn theater in Queens back in the day and from the looks of it doesn’t look like anyone ever bothered to “clean” it up!!
A few months back, I was helping my wife organize a bachelorette party for a friend. So we went looking for some humorous/interesting sex toys etc, in downtown Manhattan. We ended up at this store on Nassau street (close to city hall), which, of course, was owned by a Sri Lankan gentleman. While conversing (haggling for a desi discount), he happened to mention that a couple of interesting tid bits – A significant number of his clients are desi wall street types, who like me and the wife, always expected a “desi discount”. And, that between his family and extended family, they owned more than a dozen porn stores in Manhattan.
Ennis –
“Either accept the workers, or help them out. But marginalizing them doesnÂ’t change anything, it just allows some people to act sanctimonious.”
I know that in the above statement, you bore no malintent. Howvever, despite best intentions, it does have a pejorative tone and does seem to connote, that somehow, working in the (Legal) porn industry is unacceptable.
p.s. If only the Sri Lankans were as outraged by the ugly discrimination they visited upon the Tamil minority post independence….then, maybe the Island wouldn’t be in such a mess.
Yes, the Eagle Theater in Jackson Heights was once a house of sleaze. The springs on the old seats were broken–I tore a gash in a pair jeans once just by shifting my weight during a Shah Rukh Khan movie. But the theater has now been cleaned up a bit, with all new seats. Rats no longer scurry by the two big doors on either side of the screen.
I know someone who’s father owned one of these stores for over a decade and he didn’t find out till he was in his 20s and it was because a friend of his went in the store and saw his father. And their relationship was really damaged but at the end of the day all I can say is ‘didn’t he put you thru college? Get over it!’
that’s f**king disgusting behavior. and i don’t mean the father’s….
OOooooooooo that’s news. Too bad they haven’t cleaned up the patrons 🙂
I agree 100%
You know that almost all doughnut stores in California are owned and run by Cambodians? Another odd niche that welcomed people willing to work ungodly hours.
Kritic – these are low wage paying jobs that the people who hold are ashamed of. If so, then yes, it would be “helping them out” to facilitate their placement elsewhere. That’s not a moral judgement on their actions. It’s a statement about where people are versus where they would like to be. That’s why I said that they could either accept them or help them (find new jobs) …
I am reminded of the Chippendales story:
There was a NYT article back about 10 years ago IIRC about how the business of restoring of the city’s brownstones was being cornered by immigrants from Bangladesh.
Great article, Ennis. The sales of kleenex! You’re a genius.
JOAT and Preston, reading your comments, I couldn’t help but think of this great passage in Maximum City. It’s from the first chapter, in which Suketu Mehta describes his boyhood in Queens (stop sniggering at the back), and his visits to the Eagle theater:
That’s a beautiful thing.
I never read Maximum City but right on man, I think this is how everyone felt. I saw two movies there back in the 90s and never went back, it was so freaky you didn’t even need to have the knowledge that it was once a porn theater, it just had this scuzzy feel to it. Now that more mainstream theaters are showing desi movies I see no reason to go to Eagle theater. But then again I don’t watch too many desi movies so what am I talking about.
15: Is this the reason Arthur Clarke lives in Sri Lanka? Rumors have it that it is also the reason why he was given Knights Bachelor instead of Knighhood. Not sure though.
cij,
Rumors have always swirled around Arthur C. Clark’s reasons for staying in Sri Lanka. Hard to say…the police are very willing to turn a blind eye one rich white foreigners various sexcapades, but then again, the country istruly beautiful and he leads the sort of priviledged life with little super-colonial-british touches that (I’m told) don’t exist even in Britian anymore.
On the topic of Jackson Heights’ reapproximating Bombay, we (I say “we” because I live in JH) have our own Bombay dance bar, every night after 10:00 at the Dosa Diner on 73rd Street (great place for an SM meetup):
link to story in Mumbai Mirror
For some reason, the first time you click this link, you get the MM main page. Come back and click again, you’ll go to the story. In the interest of fairness, when Aseem interviewed those girls and I took their pictures, they made it quite clear that they did not dance in bars in India.
more pictures
“If only the Sri Lankans were as outraged by the ugly discrimination they visited upon the Tamil minority post independence”
But Tamils weren’t worried about the discrimination metered out to Sinhalese and Muslims under the colonial administration on the island, when Tamils (12.6% of the population) held over 50% of government posts in every sector imaginable. It was all hunky dory then, apparently.
Check out: http://www.infolanka.com/org/srilanka/issues/acslu.html
Rumors have always swirled around Arthur C. Clark’s reasons for staying in Sri Lanka. Hard to say…the police are very willing to turn a blind eye one rich white foreigners various sexcapades, but then again, the country istruly beautiful and he leads the sort of priviledged life with little super-colonial-british touches that (I’m told) don’t exist even in Britian anymore.
Why blame the Sri Lankans. This shit happens in Goa, Kerala, Varanasi all the time. Indeed it would be interesting if the US/UK/Australia shared their sex offender databases with the Indian government. I bet a big chunk of the goras and goris wouldn’t be getting any visas.