While reading “All the Nations Under Heaven,” it becomes apparent just how unique New York City is as a world center of ethnic mixture and diversity. We seem to take for granted that all religions, ethnicities, races, and cultures coexist harmoniously (for the most part) in this enormous city, but clearly this has not always been the case. Although New York City may still have its shortcomings in terms of ethnic and racial harmony, for the most part, anyone and everyone can come to the Big Apple and not have to worry about unequal opportunities based solely on where they come from.

I found it interesting and a bit surprising that New Amsterdam, in its early days of largely Dutch-run trade, was a very tolerant settlement. I’ve always had a vague idea that the Dutch are a quite tolerant people, but I was surprised and happy to learn that the early settlement of New Amsterdam let people of different religions do what they wanted, for the most part. It’s fascinating to read about how as the city became gradually larger and more mixed, that it went through phases of high tolerance and tense relations between people of different races, religions, and ethnicities.

For someone who has spent her entire life in the bustling melting pot that is New York City, it’s pretty hard for me to imagine what it would be like to arrive in a completely new place and not speak the language of most people surrounding you. My mother immigrated to New York City from Colombia when she was around 10 years old. She recalls how difficult it was to assimilate in a school where she spoke not one word of the English. As if being a Spanish-speaking foreigner didn’t make her enough of an outcast, she was also put into a Polish Catholic school when she first arrived. She was the only non-Polish student, and although the majority of the school’s students were welcoming and friendly, she remembers that many kids would call her disgusting slurs and disrespect her because of her Latin American origins. Eventually she became settled and made many friends, and learned English rather quickly. All things considered, this was also the 1970s, a time when most people were more tolerant than in the past, and immigrants could assimilate fairly quickly without much trouble. I can hardly imagine how strange it would be to be a young immigrant in New York City in the 18th or 19th century, when people were much more divided and prejudiced.