From Queens: The Brand Residents Don't Buy
Date of Birth 27 May 1990
Birthplace Far Rockaway, Queens, NY
Location Cedarhurst, Long Island, NY
Education
|Queens College
Major Media Studies
One day when I was in 3rd grade, I was holding both a crayon and some pretzels in each hand. While I was talking to my friend, I took a bite out of what I thought was a pretzel but was actually a Crayola cerulean crayon. It took a few seconds for me to realize what happened and hours to get the crayon out of my teeth. I had to drink hot tea to melt the crayon out of my mouth. Delicious :)
Contents |
Gentrification in Queens
Bloomberg diversity in tv and media
Our Project- Methodology
When we first started our project, we studied the borough of Queens very generally, not yet looking into different neighborhoods. We split up into three groups, each tackling a different topic. We gathered together some research on the racial and ethnic diversity, poverty and income inequality, as well as property ownership, housing abandonment, and foreclosure rates in Queens. Then we took our information and compared Queens to the other four boroughs. Based on our simple research, we discovered that Queens is one of the most diverse boroughs, is average in terms of poverty, NOT SURE ABOUT GROUP 3- GET INFO FROM THEM
Overview
Within northern, central, and eastern Queens, the three neighborhoods that contain the largest contingency of immigrants are Flushing, Corona, and Rego Park. As of 2002, Flushing contained the most immigrants with 2,293, Corona had 1,792, and Rego Park had 852. Not only are these community populations immigrant-rich, they are also diverse in the immigrants they contain. Looking at these three neighborhoods, with immigrants from China, Korea, Colombia, Russia, India, and more, you can begin to get the sense of just how diverse the borough of Queens is.
Flushing
The earliest known inhabitants of Flushing were the Matinecock Indians, one of thirteen tribes on Long Island. The first Europeans to settle in Flushing were the Dutch, who arrived in 1628, when Flushing was part of New Netherlands. In 1639 the Dutch governor, William Kieft, purchased all the land from the Native Americans that would later become Queens County. On October 10, 1645, the town of Flushing itself was founded, although it was originally named Vlissingen, after the seaport in the Netherlands. Later, when the English took over the colony, the name was anglicized to Flushing. The British continued to occupy Flushing throughout the Revolution.
In the early nineteenth century, a number of African Americans settled in Flushing, attracted by the tolerance of the Quakers. A few decades later, in 1843, immigrants from Europe, Central and South America settled to Flushing, largely due to their enrollment in the Flushing Institute, a secondary school for boys.
During the 1960’s many Japanese, Chinese and Koreans settled in Flushing. From 1970-1980, the non-Hispanic White population in Flushing drastically decreased from 76.2% down to 46.9%. During those years, there was a major increase in the Asian, Hispanic, and African American populations. There was another wave of immigration in the 1980’s, 20% were Chinese (mostly from Taiwan), 20% were Korean, and the rest was comprised of other groups from India, Colombia, Afghanistan, Guyana, the Dominican Republic, Pakistan, the Philippines and El Salvador. According to the 2000 census, the number of Chinese and Asian Indians making Flushing as their home has almost doubled from 1990 to 2000.
Rego Park
Before English settlers lived in Rego Park, this area of Queens was called Whitepot. The name originated from the Native American and English land purchase transaction 350 years ago, when the English bought the land for three clay white pots. Rego Park, adjacent to Forest Hills, was mostly farmland until the 1920's when the Real Good Construction Company bought land in this area and constructed over 500 homes. The first families that lived in this suburbanized neighborhood were mostly German and Dutch immigrant farmers. From 1880 to the start of World War I, New York City experienced a giant increase in Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. As a result of the construction of bridges and subways, more Jewish families were able to relocate to areas in Brooklyn and Queens, especially Rego Park. This neighborhood has always been a community of Jewish culture and experienced a second wave of Jewish immigrants several decades later.
Beginning in the 1970's Rego Park became home to many immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The largest group of Bukarian Jews came from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. By the time of their arrival, most Jewish communities had settled in the Forest Hills-Rego Park area. However, community life and assimilation between Russian émigrés and the old Jewish community was not always peaceful. The older Jewish community was comprised of mostly elderly people who spoke Yiddish and Hebrew. On the other hand, the new Jewish immigrants spoke Russian and raised their children under Russian cultural values, which was not recognized by the old Jewish immigrants. Due to their upward mobility, after several years of living in Rego Park, many Russian Jews moved away from this ethnic enclave, leaving behind “the elderly, the least educated and the illegal immigrants who continue to need the emotional and economic buffer zone that the enclaves provide” (Foner 113). While Rego Park is still home to a large Jewish community, there are many immigrants from Colombia, South Korea, India and China. Almost 56% of the population is Caucasian, while about a quarter is Asian or Pacific Islander.
Corona
Robert Coe of Hempstead, Long Island began the first official settlement of Corona in 1655, however, it was not until 1883 that the area was officially referred to as Corona Heights. From 1684 to 1910, the area was mostly inhabited by farming families. In 1885 as the population moved away from farming and other institutions were created, such as saloons. At this time, the ethnic make up of Corona contained English, Irish, Italian, German, and Scandinavian immigrants. The population remained the same until the 1970s, when Corona became dominated by an influx of both Hispanic (mainly Dominican) immigrants, and a White population.
By 1990, Corona was almost completely Hispanic. This shift to Hispanic-dominated population followed the general trend in NYC. From 1970 to 1990, 42 percent of the neighborhoods in NYC that were dominated by Hispanics and Whites became dominated solely by the Hispanic group.
Works Cited
(Binder, Frederick M., and David M. Reimers. All the Nations Under Heaven. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. 114-17. Print.)
("Community and Library History." The Encyclopedia of New York. Ed. Kenneth T. Jackson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. N. pag. Web. 18 Feb. 2010.)
(Foner, Nancy, ed. New Immigrants in New York. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Print.)
("Forest Hills/Rego Park." NYC Department of Housing and Development. N.p., 2010. Web. 19 Feb. 2010. <http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/buyers/nychome-neighborhoods-queens-foresthills-regopark.shtml>.)
(Gottlieb, Jeff. "Forest Hill and Rego Park Historical Chronology." Queens, New York. N.p., 2004. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. <http://queensnewyork.com/forest/chronology.html>.)
(Lobo, Arun Peter, Ronald J.O Flores, and Joseph J. Salvo. "The Impact of Hispanic Growth on the Racial/Ethnic Composition of New York City Neighborhoods." Urban Affairs Review (202): 703-27. Print.)
("Rego Park, Queens, NY ." Real Estate: Community Profiles. New York Times, 2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2010. <http://realestate.nytimes.com/community/rego-park-queensny usa/demographics>.)
(Seyfried, Vincent F. The Story of Corona from Farmland to City Suburb 1650-1935, Queens Community Series. New York: Queens Community Series, 1986. Print.)
Smith, Christopher J. International Migration Review, Vol. 29, No. 1, Special Issue: Diversity and Comparability: International Migrants in Host Countries on Four Continents. (Spring, 1995), pp. 59-84.
