| Antony Zeng

The Politics of New York

Professor Moss

5/10/2017

The Development of Flushing

Since the coming of the 19th century, many Chinese immigrants

arrived in New York City looking for jobs and the many opportunities it

was perceived to be offered. While most Chinese have arrived in the

United States for the California Gold Rush, most migrated to the New York

City after the jobs in the gold mines died out and were forced to take

agricultural, factory, and garment jobs. By the late 19 th century, Chinese

immigrants have begun forming social enclaves around the Five Points

area that had up to 1000 people. From this one enclave formed in lower

Manhattan now called Chinatown, many new Chinese enclaves have been

developed all across the city, from the one located in Woodside, Queens

to the long street down 8th Ave; however, the most important and the

topic of this paper is the one found towards the northern end of main

street called Flushing.

Flushings open doors and the reason for its flourishing population is

best explained by the numerous ethnic groups that resides there,

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including Hispanic, Middle Eastern, European, African American, and last

but definitely not least, Asians. Ethnic enclaves are urban neighborhoods

in which immigrants and those of ethnic minorities are concentrated not

only residentially and socially, but also by the cultural aspects influencing

their daily actions. Ethnic enclaves are much more widespread and large

in size in the U.S. compared to other countries due to our countries rather

accepting and open borders. Since the 1980, these social enclaves have

not only become denser and influenced by culture, but also increasingly

isolated. Throughout New York City, because these social enclaves

develop as independent communities without much influence from

existing culture, they become significantly more appealing to immigrants

due to the resemblance to home, and subsequently encourages and

increased level of immigration from foreign countries.

These ethnic enclaves are urban neighborhoods where specific

ethnic minorities are concentrated together often leading to many racial

issues and residential segregation. Within the ethnic enclaves, businesses

are often majorly owned, operated, and frequented disproportionately by

these same ethnic groups. For the Chinese people, these ethnic enclaves

were some of the only places where they were allowed to live without the

fear of being oppressed by other ethnicities. Due to the Chinese Exclusion

Act that took effect in 1882, there was a major decline in the allowed
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number of Chinese emigrating to New York forcing those that were

already here to group together and form these enclaves. Therefore, the

strength of these communities is a result of their concentration of people

and their overwhelming sense of community. Prior to the 1970s. the main

Chinese enclave was located in lower Manhattan or what is now called

Chinatown; however, soon, they expanded towards the neighborhood in

Queens called Flushing.

Originally Flushing was a neighborhood that primarily consisted of a

non-Hispanic white population that had a small Japanese community. The

first wave of Chinese immigrants came from Taiwan and were the first to

start altering Flushing to become Queens version of Chinatown. Originally

it was nicknamed to be Little Taipei. Many of these Taiwanese immigrants

were the children of former Chinese soldiers that settled in Taiwan after

escaping the war against The Communist Party of China. A majority of

these Taiwanese people spoke the common dialect of Mandarin that was

the official language of China in 1913. This dialect alone made this new

ethnic enclave fundamentally different from that of Chinatowns

population that a majority of spoke Cantonese. Due to the induction of

Mandarin in flushing, this led to the swarm of Chinese immigrants from all

over China that were originally ostracized and restricted due to the

difference in language. The Taiwanese people were known to have

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attained higher educational standards and social economic status

compared to the population that were originating from mainland China. As

a result of this, Flushing has a higher standard of living, cleaner and

better housing conditions and all-around improvements compared to

Chinatown.

With the mandarin being the first variant of Chinese that is

introduced to Flushing, this opened the door for more Mandarin speaking

immigrants from China. Originally because the popular dialect in

Chinatown was that of Cantonese, many original mainland Chinese

immigrants felt unwelcomed and segregated, but because Mandarin

became the official dialect of China in the early 1900s, most mainland

Chinese immigrants felt a sense of home when they came to Flushing.

With this initial seed of language coming from the adaptation of Mandarin

in flushing, it soon blossomed to the point where the Chinese population

became very diverse over the next few decades as the people from

different provinces speaking different dialects came to Flushing and

infusing their various cultures and own touch of home upon Flushing.

While the majority of the Asian population in Flushing are Chinese, there

is a rapidly growing population of Korean immigrants from South Korea

that has set up Koreatown right next door to the Flushing chinatown.
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Based on the information from the 2010 United States Census, the

population of Flushing was 72,008 people with an increase of over 2000

people from the 69,362 counted in 2000. Flushing covers an area of 853.6

acres of land with a population density of 84.4 acres. These numbers are

rather surprising because if you visit Flushing any day of the week at

nearly any time of the day, the streets would be bustling with people.

However, the reason why the pop density is rather low is because

Flushing is also now a giant transportation hub with a small minority of

people living in the actual location of Flushing. With a majority of these

people living further away in other parts of Queens, Flushing is merely

just a station for these people to pass through instead of a terminal of

where they end up staying. The ethnic diversity of the neighborhood was

9.5% White, 4.2% African American, .1% Native American, 0.1% Pacific

Islander, 14.9& Hispanic and nearly 70% Asian.

While arguably the busiest and most congested intersection in NYC

belonging to that of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, there are all sorts

of public transportation here that will connect you not only to the five

boroughs and New York, but also to the rest of the world. The 7 train has a

subway terminal here that connects the residents of Flushing to the other

4 boroughs of NYC. Over 15 different bus lines also is available within a 1-

mile range of downtown Flushing with over half of these lines either
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originating or terminating in Flushing. Also the Long Island Rail Road stop

brings even more traffic here from Long Island. The Long Island Rail Road

has had a presence in flushing since the mid 1800s, originally with two

different stops located here. The current one, Flushing Main Street, and

the one that was decommissioned in 1932 called Flushing Bridge Street.

This stop was terminated in 1932 but the sole existing stop still carries

the main street name that differentiates these two stops instead of

renaming solely Flushing Stop. Finally, located on the waterfront of

Flushing Bay, Laguardia Airport is the third busiest airport that services

New York City, and working injunction with JFK and Newark Liberty

International Airport, it creates the largest airport system in the United

States.

Main Street Flushing can be considered one of the busiest and

probably most unique shopping district in NYC as its storefronts are chock

full of stores selling Far East health care items, supermarkets selling

uniquely Asian fruits and a lot of restaurants debuting specialties of

various places in Asia. The shops and restaurants of downtown Flushing

plays a large part in the popularity of this place. Some of the more

popular options are tiny malls tucked inside a tiny store front. The main

example, New World Mall has many stores inside that sells groceries,

massages, houseware, jewelry and electronics on its upper floors. In the

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basement of this mall contains a food courts containing food from

different regions across China. On the other side of the spectrum are the

Shops at Skyview Center, a much more western mall with many national

retailers and famous clothing brands to choose from.

Although most people may associate Flushing as solely a Chinatown

in Queens, in fact, Flushing is actually constituted of many different

people from many different nations including South Korea, Ireland,

Greece, Russia, Italy, India and many other. With Chinese and Koreans

constituting the lion share of the population in Flushing, that shall be the

communities we most focus open. To distinguish the different parts of

Flushing that we will refer to the locations these two ethnicity occupy, we

will call the Chinese part of Flushing as Mandarin town while referring to

the Korean part of Flushing as Koreatown.

Mandarin town located primarily located around the intersection of

main street and Roosevelt avenue but continues far down main street on

both ends. This Chinese ethnic enclaves is one of the largest and fastest

growing enclave outside of Asia. Ethnic Chinese people makes up an

increasingly dominant portion of the Asian population as well as the

overall population in Flushing. Furthermore, Flushings Mandarin town has

grown rapidly and has become the second largest Chinatown outside of
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Asia and may soon surpass Chinatown in Manhattan within a few years.

An estimate by the Flushing Chinese Business Association in 1986

estimated that there were approximately 60000 Chinese people in

Flushing alone. Ethnic Chinese people are making up a large portion of

the population in Flushing and this is spurred on by the high rates of both

legal and illegal immigration from Mainland China. As an ethnic enclave

for Chinese people, Mandarin Town has been a center of Chinese culture

that now rivals Chinatown in Manhattan. Ironically it was no more than 15

years ago where if a person wanted to buy authentic Chinese food or

products, they would have to make the trek out to Manhattan to purchase

it in Chinatown. Now, more and more Chinese supermarkets and specialty

stores are popping up and selling a vast and unique array of Chinese food.

Furthermore, a lot of major Chinese corporations are setting up

headquarters in or near flushing, the most notable being the World Journal

and Agricultural Bank of China. While most Americans may perceive

Chinese food as a singular entity, in truth, there are numerous different

styles all originating from various parts of China. Flushing is the first place

in America where so many different popular styles of Chinese cuisine is

readily accessible including Taiwanese, Shanghainese, Hunanese,

Szeechuan, Cantonese and even obscure styles that are unique to remote

regions of China like Dongbei style. The diverse amount of language has
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also played a large part in the rapid growth of Mandarin Town. According

to one of its many inhabitants from Shanding, a province in the north,

hes noticing a lot more Mandarin speakers in Mandarin Town with

northern accents and their own dialect. This leads to the inhabitant to feel

less lonely in a new city. Bon Yu still remembers the first time he heard an

accent from his hometown of Qingdao, Shandong's largest city. "It felt

like, 'Oh my God, I finally found someone from my hometown,' " he says.

More diverse people basically results in the Chinese food in America being

refined and diverse.

Finally, the other large ethnic enclave that originates in Flushing is

that of Koreatown. While it may originate in Flushing, it expands much

further than just flushing and spreads eastwards to Murray Hill,

Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston and Little Neck. According to the 2010

United states Census, there are about 64107 Koreans living in Queens. A

large influx of Korean immigrants came to Koreatown in the 1980s who

were workers either in the medical field or a Korean international student.

They established an ethnic enclave on union street in Flushing between

35th and 41st avenue that had restaurants, supermarkets, karaoke bars,

banking institution and various other storefronts. AS the community grew

it wealth and status over the next few years, the Koreans expanded their

enclave eastwards down Northern Boulevard and eventually into adjacent

suburban neighborhoods of Nassau County in Long Island. This expansion

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has led to the creation of an American Meokjagolmok or Korean

Restaurant Street that is much larger in size and sheer number of

restaurants than the Korea town in midtown Manhattan. Furthermore, the

Koreans were forced to expand eastwards towards long island due to the

inability to move westwards from the enormous Mandarin Town in main

street. While not nearly as prevalent as these two previous ethnic

enclaves, there are many other communities that are present in flushing.

Especially in East Flushing, there are substantially more Irish, Greek,

Russian and Italian communities that have their own ethnic business

catering to these communities as a result of the lack of dominance from

the Chinese and Korean business in downtown Flushing.

Even from the earliest of time, Flushing is one of the most

religiously diverse and accepting communities in all of America. Flushing

was the site of the drafting of a document believed to be one of the

earliest in American history proclaiming the right to religious freedom.

The document, the Flushing Remonstrance was signed by a group of 30

local residents in 1657 as a response to a decree against Quakers by Gov.

Peter Stuyvesant. Today, Flushing has numerous different houses of

worship ranging from the Dutch Colonial epoch Quaker meeting house,

toe the Sri Maha Ballabha Ganapati Devasthanam, the oldest Hindu

temple in the United States.

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References

Beckhusen, Julia. "Living And Working In Ethnic Enclaves: Language Proficiency Of

Immigrants In U.S. Metropolitan Areas". N.p., 2016. Web.

Evans, M.D.R. "DO ETHNIC ENCLAVES BENEFIT OR HARM LINGUISTICALLY

ISOLATED EMPLOYEES?". Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 22 (2004): 281-318.
Web.

Portes, Alejandro and David Manuel Hernandez. "Ethnic Prophecies: A Review Essay".
Contemporary Sociology 32.4 (2003): 418. Web.

Xie, Yu and Margaret Gough. "Ethnic Enclaves And The Earnings Of Immigrants". N.p., 2016.
Web.

Haller, Vera. "Downtown Flushing: Where Asian Cultures Thrive." The New York Times.
The New York Times, 01 Oct. 2014. Web. 10 May 2017.

Wang, Hansi Lo. "Leaving China's North, Immigrants Redefine Chinese In New
York." NPR. NPR, 26 Jan. 2016. Web. 10 May 2017.
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Walsh, Kevin. "Guide to Main Street in Flushing, Queens." Brownstoner. Brownstoner, 08

Sept. 2015. Web. 10 May 2017.

MEDIA REFERENCE

Podcast:

WNYC,. "Are Ethnic Enclaves Bad For Immigrants?". Micropolis. N.p., 2016. Web. 18 Dec.
2016.