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]

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 the cannoli wattalapam .”

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]

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]

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.