Javier Gomez: “Everything else is secondary.”

INTERVIEW DETAILS —

Narrator: Javier Gomez

Interviewer: Cristiana Baik

Date: March 27, 2011

Location: Mr. Gomez’s home

Duration: 1:57:7

Born in 1971, in Sunset Park, Javier Gomez has been a sanitation worker with the DSNY for seven years. The interview focused on his experiences working out of the Brooklyn 7 Sanitation district (it serves Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, and Sunset Park), the challenging conditions of working in bad weather, the dangers of the job, and his thoughts on the demographic changes that have occurred in Sunset Park. Sunset Park was a focal point because Javier was also raised there. Throughout the interview, he juxtaposed his memories of growing up in a neighborhood that was once dominated by Italians and Norwegians (there is a memorable description of his childhood memories of Sunset Park pool), to the Sunset Park that he sees today, which is a demographic mosaic of different populations (including Chinese, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Mexican communities).

Javier Gomez clip