Throughout, “All of the Nations Under Heaven” you are exposed to the idea that New York, from is early beginnings was a city that attracted people from all over the world. Some of reasons that people first came to the city, way back then are still reasons why many people still chose to migrate. From the text you are able to see, that with time the areas from which people first immigrated from has changed and the amount of people entering the city from different countries across the world has also change. With these changes, a new group of people is added to city’s heterogenousity. When the Dutch East Indian Company first started transporting people to Manhattan Island, their reason for doing so was based purely on the economic gains. However, through the transportation that the Dutch East Indian Company provided, many people were able to benefit, and travel to a new area that they thought would be a better home. From the many examples throughout the first few chapters you can see how over the years the city becomes more diverse with people from many different ethnic backgrounds. You can see how different groups ended up living predominantly in one region within the city, and some of reasons that led up to them choosing to move to that area.
It is very interesting to see that even though a lot of the early immigrants, were moving to New York City for similar reasons, because of cultural differences they could not get along. One topic that the text draws attention to is the role that religion played in dividing up the groups. For example, the Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant did not mix well. Even though they were from the same country, trying to escape the same problems and shared the need to prosper economically, they chose to associate with people from different countries, like Germany that shared the same religious values. Religion is just one part of what governed each group’s decisions as they settled throughout the city, and it interesting to see how some of ideas presented in the first few chapters still impact the city today.
