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A Chinese-American contingent performed a lion dance. Korean-Americans and Norwegian-Americans wore their cultural garb.
One woman holding aloft the German flag said she never thought she'd see the day that she would proudly carry it. Another waved the flag of New Zealand as she rode in a wheelchair.
Sunset Park's diversity - a microcosm of the city - was on parade.
In a show of what one organizer referred to as "ethnic pride manifesting as community pride," on more than 300 residents representing the more than 60 ethnic groups in the community carried the colors of their homelands Oct. 22 in the first Sunset Park Parade of Flags.
"We wanted to do it mainly because Sunset Park doesn't have a positive identity at this point," said Renee Giordano, secretary of Sunset Park Restoration, one of about 20 local groups that organized the parade.
In a community where residents have rallied together to fight such issues as a proposed sludge processing plant, a jail barge, prostitution and purveyors of pornographic materials, "this is one of the first projects where everything is upbeat," Giordano noted.
"We realized that it...