Jackson Heights

New York's Queens Borough has been touted as "one of the most diverse places on earth" and hankering to see how this staggering mix of 1 million immigrants gets on was at the top of my agenda today. The faces in the subway slowly changed from fairer Manhattanites to resembe the color of the global average and the buzz of different dialects further evidenced the claim of the 138 different languages spoken within the area.

I ate lunch at Korean BBQ place, bordered by a Fillipino market and Bangladeshi deli, across the street from a Mexican Cantina and Japanese hair salon. I resisted the urge to stop at the "Rincon de Chuzo" (Kebab Corner) but smiled as I had found a cluster of Colombian and Ecuadorian restaurants. I could go on for days pointing out the differences between New York and Los Angeles but instead I'll pose a hypothesis brought about by my walk through Jackson Heights: LA is more segregated due to geographic layouts of neighborhoods and their relative proximity to each other; meaning that LA's Koreatown is fairly isolated from say, a Latino neighborhood in La Puente. NY's limiting of urban sprawl (due to geographic reasons) has placed people from different backgrounds on top of each other, comprising diverse neighborhoods such as Queens. In any case, my day in Queens was a lovely venture into one of the world's most diverse areas that showed me how immigrants from different backgrounds can form a collective community.

Nuestra Historia: Immigration in NY

Fleshing out some of my thoughts from the Immigration Protest, I felt compelled to make a visit to Liberty and Ellis Islands, seeing how some 10 million immigrants (who now have around 100 million living US relatives) came to find themselves in the U.S. by way of New York city.

It's interesting to see how America sold the idea of needing immigrants to develop and work its' newly purchased (or acquired) territories in the 19th century and how this idea slowly gave way to the most hotly debated topics among already naturalized citizens. Basically the only thing that changed over he years were the destination countries of immigrants and stricter immigration policies. As immigrants to the U.S. increasingly came from Asian and Latin American countries in the 20th century, the US implemented tighter immigration reforms, some quite racist, such as Operation Wetback (yes, really).

True, some xenophobia has always existed towards new immigrants in the US, whether Irish and Italian or Chinese and Mexican immigrants. What worries me is the lack of perspective of those so eager to persecute the newcomers in failing to realize that they themselves might not exist if it were not for immigration. One of my favorite arguements on immigration comes from Fareed Zakaria's "Post-American World." To paraphrase: immigrants are in many ways, the backbone of the United States, they provide a cheap source of labor that keeps America's wheels turning in addition to contributing to the rich cultural fabric that is the US of A.

Perhaps most importantly, immigrants coming to the US and obtaining a better life for themselves and their loved ones demonstrates that the American Dream is still alive and well, which is why so many people still want to live here and believe in our values. This ideology, often overlooked by those who could care less about the American Dream, is still one of the most important ideas we can communicate to the world and as Zakaria argues, one of the biggest hopes we have for maintaining our edge in the world.

Immigration Nation

I awoke to the feel-good, organ-pumpin' rhythms of the 125th St. Baptist Church in Harlem this morning. It's interesting to be in a neighborhood that still preserves some of the old ways as there are 3 churches bordering my friend Josh's apartment. Stepping off the plane from LA was reminder of how international New York is as  I heard French, German, Italian, Chinese and Spanish all before hopping on the subway to Harlem.

No sooner had I set off to explore than I found myself smack dab in the middle of the Immigration Day protest marching down Broadway. While there were plenty of Ecuadorians, Guatemalans, Colombians, and of course, Mexicans; I found it interesting that they were supported by several other U.S. ethnic minorities. Filipino, Indians (Desis from the Subcontinent), Native American and Muslim groups all marched in solidarity with their Latino counterparts, protesting the passage of Arizona's controversial immigration bill as well as Senator Schumer's (D-NY) immigration reforms including a new ID card proposal.

In addition to the interesting mixture of protesters, I found myself considering the Public Diplomacy implications of the hundreds of foreign tourists who viewed the protest and how the international audience (particularly those in Latin America) are interpreting the American public's reaction to these immigration reforms. The mere fact that a law put into place in Arizona can have such a huge impact (inter)nationally makes me realize how happy I am for those that can peacefully express their outrage and how much I hope that foreigners realize laws like Arizona's SB1070 do not represent the U.S. as a whole.