Chinatowns in Queens
There are multiple Chinatowns in the borough of Queens in New York City. The original Queens Chinatown emerged in Flushing, initially as a satellite of the original Manhattan Chinatown, before evolving its own identity, surpassing in scale the original Manhattan Chinatown, and subsequently in turn spawning its own satellite Chinatowns in Elmhurst, Corona, and eastern Queens.
Context
The New York metropolitan area contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside Asia, comprising an estimated 893,697 uniracial individuals as of 2017, including at least 12 Chinatowns - six in New York City proper, and one each in Nassau County, Long Island; Cherry Hill, Edison, New Jersey; and Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, not to mention fledgling ethnic Chinese enclaves emerging throughout the New York City metropolitan area. Chinese Americans, as a whole, have had a significant tenure in New York City. The first Chinese immigrants came to Lower Manhattan around 1870, looking for the "golden" opportunities America had to offer. By 1880, the enclave around Five Points was estimated to have from 200 to as many as 1,100 members.However, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which went into effect in 1882, caused an abrupt decline in the number of Chinese who immigrated to New York and the rest of the United States. Later, in 1943, the Chinese were given a small quota, and the community's population gradually increased until 1968, when the quota was lifted and the Chinese American population skyrocketed. In the past few years, the Cantonese dialect that has dominated the Chinatowns for decades is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin Chinese, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.
Citywide demographics
As the city proper with the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia by a wide margin, estimated at 628,763 as of 2017, and as the primary destination for new Chinese immigrants, New York City is subdivided into official municipal boroughs, which themselves are home to significant Chinese populations, with Brooklyn and Queens, adjacently located on Long Island, leading the fastest growth. After the City of New York itself, the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn encompass the largest Chinese populations, respectively, of all municipalities in the United States.Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠)
Flushing Chinatown, or Mandarin Town Flushing in Flushing, is one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic Chinese enclaves outside Asia, as well as within New York City itself. Flushing Chinatown is in Main Street and the area to its west, particularly along Roosevelt Avenue, have become the primary nexus of Flushing Chinatown. However, Chinatown continues to expand southeastward along Kissena Boulevard and northward beyond Northern Boulevard. The Flushing Chinatown houses over 30,000 individuals born in China alone, the largest Chinatown by this metric outside Asia and one of the largest and fastest-growing Chinatowns in the world. Conversely, the Flushing Chinatown has also become the epicenter of organized prostitution in the United States.History
Before Chinatown
In 1645, Flushing was established by Dutch settlers on the eastern bank of Flushing Creek under charter of the Dutch West India Company and was part of the New Netherland colony. The settlement was named after the city of Vlissingen, in the southwestern Netherlands, the main port of the company; Flushing is the historic anglicization of the Dutch name of that town.In 1664, the English took control of New Amsterdam, ending Dutch control of the colony, and renamed it the Province of New York. When Queens County was established in 1683, the "Town of Flushing" was one of the original five towns which comprised the county. Many historical references to Flushing are to this town, bounded from Newtown on the west by Flushing Creek, from Jamaica on the south by the "hills"—that is, the terminal moraine left by the last glacier, and from Hempstead on the east by what later became the Nassau County line. The town was dissolved in 1898 when Queens became a borough of New York City, and the term "Flushing" today usually refers to a much smaller area, including the former Village of Flushing and the areas immediately to the east and south. It was later settled by multiple ethnic groups, including people of European, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, African American, and eventually Asian ancestry.
Emergence as Little Taipei / Little Taiwan
In the 1970s, a Chinese community established a foothold in Flushing, whose demographic constituency had been predominantly Caucasian, interspersed with a small Japanese community. This wave of immigrants from Taiwan were the first to arrive and developed Flushing's Chinatown. It was known as Little Taipei or Little Taiwan . Many who arrived were the descendants of former soldiers and political supporters of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalist Party, which had lost the war against the Communist Party of China, and established themselves in Taiwan. Along with immigrants from Taiwan at this time, a large South Korean population has also called Flushing home.Before the 1970s, Cantonese immigrants had vastly dominated Chinese immigration to New York City; however, during the 1970s, the Taiwanese immigrants were the first wave of Chinese immigrants who spoke Mandarin rather than Cantonese to arrive in New York City. Due to the dominance of Cantonese-speaking immigrants, who were largely working-class in Manhattan's Chinatown, as well as the language barrier and poor housing conditions there, Taiwanese immigrants, who were more likely to have attained higher educational standards and socioeconomic status, could not relate to Manhattan's Chinatown, and chose to settle in Flushing instead. As the Taiwanese population grew, a Flushing Chinatown was created with a higher standard of living and better housing conditions.
Mandarin Town, Flushing
Over the years, many new non-Cantonese ethnic Chinese immigrants from different regions and provinces of China started to arrive in New York City and settled in Flushing through word of mouth. This led to the creation of a more Mandarin-speaking Chinatown or Mandarin Town that gradually replaced Little Taipei. This wave of immigrants spoke Mandarin and various regional/provincial dialects. The early 90s and 2000s brought a wave of Fuzhounese Americans and Wenzhounese immigrants. Like the Taiwanese, they faced cultural and communication problems in Manhattan's dominant Cantonese-speaking Chinatown and settled in Flushing as well as Elmhurst, Queens, which also has a significant Mandarin-speaking population. Flushing's Chinese population became very diverse over the next few decades as people from different provinces started to arrive, infusing their varied languages and cultures into this new "Chinatown." Due to the increased opening of Mainland China, there has also been a growing Northern Chinese population in Flushing.Flushing and its Chinatown abuts the rapidly growing Long Island Koreatown as well.
Chinese demographic
The intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, in the heart of the Chinatown neighborhood, hosts a large concentration of Chinese businesses, including Chinese restaurants. Chinese-owned businesses in particular dominate the area along Main Street and the blocks west of it, while Korean businesses are found in a substantial number east of Main Street and east of the Flushing Chinatown, on Union Street. The majority of signs and advertisements of stores in the area have become Chinese. Ethnic Chinese constitute an increasingly dominant proportion of the Asian population and as well as of the overall population in Flushing. Consequently, Flushing's Chinatown has grown rapidly enough to become the largest Chinatown outside Asia. The Flushing Chinatown has surpassed the original Manhattan Chinatown in size.A 1986 estimate by the Flushing Chinese Business Association approximated 60,000 Chinese in Flushing alone. By 1990, Asians constituted 41% of the population of the core area of Flushing, with Chinese in turn representing 41% of the Asian population. However, ethnic Chinese are constituting an increasingly dominant proportion of the Asian population as well as of the overall population in Flushing and its Chinatown. High rates of both legal and illegal immigration from Mainland China continue to spur the ongoing rise of the ethnic Chinese population in Flushing, as in all of New York City's Chinatowns.
on Main Street in Flushing
Flushing's Chinatown ranks as New York City's second-largest Chinese community with 33,526 Chinese, up from 17,363, a 93% increase. The Brooklyn Chinatown is the second-the largest Chinatown of NYC with 34,218 Chinese residents, up from 19,963 in 2000, a 71% increase. As for Manhattan's Chinatown, its Chinese population declined by 17%, from 34,554 to 28,681 since 2000, to become the third-largest.
Of all the Chinatowns of New York City, the Flushing Chinatown is also the most diverse, with large populations of Chinese groups from various regions of Mainland China and Taiwan. The Northeastern Chinese immigrants are increasingly becoming the largest Chinese group in Flushing.
Streetscape
Culture
Flushing Chinatown now rivals Manhattan's Chinatown as a center of Chinese culture and has been called the "Chinese Times Square" or the "Chinese Manhattan". The Lunar New Year Parade has become a growing annual celebration of Chinese New Year. More and larger Chinese supermarkets are locating and selling a diverse and uniquely vast array of Chinese food and ingredient selections in Flushing, the largest of which include Hong Kong Supermarket and New York Supermarket, which also happen to be rapidly growing Chinese American chain supermarkets. The segment of Main Street between Roosevelt Avenue and Kissena Boulevard represents the cultural heart of Flushing Chinatown. Flushing's rise as an epicenter of Chinese culture outside Asia has been attributed to the remarkable diversity of regional Chinese demographics represented.Languages
, Fuzhou dialect, Min Nan Fujianese, Wu Chinese, Beijing dialect, Wenzhounese, Shanghainese, Suzhou dialect, Hangzhou dialect, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and English are all prevalently spoken in Flushing Chinatown, while Hakka and the Mongolian language are now emerging.Cuisine
The popular styles of Chinese cuisine are ubiquitously accessible in Flushing, including Hakka, Taiwanese, Shanghainese, Hunanese, Szechuan, Cantonese, Fujianese, Xinjiang, Zhejiang, and Korean Chinese cuisine. Even the relatively obscure Dongbei style of cuisine indigenous to Northeast China is now available in Flushing, as well as Mongolian cuisine and Uyghur cuisine. These diverse Chinese immigrant populations have brought with them their own regional food cuisines which have led to Flushing being considered the "food mecca" for Chinese regional cuisine outside of Asia.Media
The World Journal, one of the largest Chinese-language newspapers outside China, is headquartered in adjacent Whitestone, Queens, with offices in Flushing as well. Numerous other Chinese newspapers such as the China Press, Sing Tao Daily, The Epoch Times, as well as other English-language publications, are available in the Flushing Chinatown.SinoVision, one of the largest Chinese-speaking media networks in North America also has headquarters in Flushing.
Educational centers
In accompaniment with its rapid growth, Flushing in particular has witnessed the proliferation of highly competitive businesses touted as educational centers as well as non-profit organizations declaring the intent to educate the community. Some entities offer education in Mandarin, the lingua franca of Mainland China; others profess to provide students with intensive training in computer and technological proficiency; while still others entice high school students with rigorous preparatory classes for college entrance examinations in mathematics, science, and English literacy.Public institutions and services
The largest of the Flushing branches of the Queens Borough Public Library is located at the intersection of Kissena Boulevard and Main Street. This library houses an auditorium for public events.New York Hospital Queens, a member of the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System, is a major medical center providing Flushing as well as surrounding communities with comprehensive medical care services. Numerous tertiary medical clinics also serve the residents of Flushing.
A diverse array of social services geared toward assisting recent as well as established Chinese immigrants is readily available in Flushing.