Questions:

1. What do you think causes internal migration within New York City? What factors were most important in determining this migration (economic, social, etc.)?
2. How do you think undocumented immigration and lack of participation in the census affect the validity of Joe Salvo’s points? Also, how do you think undocumented immigration has affected internal migration?

There is no doubting the evidence that internal migration occurs, but it is curious to see that even as different ethnic groups move within New York City, neighborhoods containing a particular ethnicity are still prominent. For example, areas in upper east Queens are becoming more and more asian when in the past, they were mostly white. As a resident of Fresh Meadows, I have seen the change of people within my neighborhood. It was mostly White when I moved there, but now I can see that most of my neighbors are Chinese. It wasn’t as if all of the Whites left as a group and all of the Chinese came and moved in, it was a gradual process that I didn’t notice until recently.

Joe Salvo’s talk about the census was extremely useful and informative. In his talk, Salvo talked about all the different statistics that focused on all the different immigrant groups present in New York City, a city full of diversity. I always had the perception that New York City was considered a “Melting Pot” of all the different races, however after the talk, I realized that although others may consider the city a melting pot, the all the ethnic groups seem to tend to stick with their own group. Rather than branching out and living with people of other cultures, most areas are of one dominant ethnic group only.

Something that I found extremely fascinating from his talk was when he mentioned the story about Indian cab drivers. He told us that a high percentage of these drivers obtained a college degree from India, and that was something that I begun to ponder on. Another thing that I found interesting was the fact that more and more of the younger Chinese population are beginning to move towards Central Park.

Some questions I had from the talk were:

Why would these Indian cab drivers leave India, where they had a good education, to become just taxi drivers here in the United States?

Why are these Chinese immigrants moving to Central Park, rather than Chinatown, where most of the same ethnic groups live?

Joe Salvo’s talk on was extremely fascinating and informative. Although I thought I knew a significant amount about immigrant communities in New York City, I realized that my perceptions of immigrant communities outside of those in Queens of which I am familiar with, were not always accurate. For example, I had always assumed that only Chinese immigrants and their families really lived in Manhattan’s Chinatown, and I did not realize that in fact many White and Latino Americans are now renting apartments in Chinatown. Additionally I was completely unaware of the Latino community’s growing presence in Staten Island.

I also was impressed with Joe Salvo’s ability to use of specific demographic data to show us the bigger picture of the ever-changing demographics in New York City. His constant citation of census data definitely helped me realize that the demographics of an area is constantly changing. For example, when Salvo cited the increasing percentage of Asians living around West Central Park over the past few years, I realized that even a few years from now, more Asians will live in Central Park West

Finally, Joe Salvo’s talk was extremely thought provoking. This is because although he made the point that we can use census data to predict what New York City will look like in the future, it can often be unexpectedly difficult because the demographics of New York City are dynamic. Immigrants from a plethora of countries are constantly moving into the city. Some return, back to their homeland, others move towards the suburbs or other parts of the city, and some stay put where they settled. I do agree with Joe Salvo that regardless of what kinds of immigrants come into New York City, the gentrification of several areas of New York City, such as the Lower East Side, Harlem, and Hell’s Kitchen is inevitable. However, although these areas are changing rapidly, I do not know if these areas will necessarily become as gentrified as places such as the Upper East Side. Nevertheless, the exact demographics of New York City, even a decade from now can be difficult to pinpoint, but by studying the most recent demographics of New York city and the trends in immigration, we can get an idea of what New York City might look like in the future.

The Joe Salvo talk at the very beginning of the semester was a great precursor for the Peopling of New York Class we are currently enrolled in. In his talk, Salvo talked about demographics and statistics regarding various ethnic groups in New York City. One particular point I found interesting from his lecture was that about ten percent of the United States foreign born immigrants, live in New York City. This is interesting because NYC is just a small island on the East Coast of a very large country. Yet, it attracts so many immigrants. One has to stop and wonder what it is that makes New York so exceptional that it draws so many immigrants. We are also asked to pick two questions from the Joe Salvo talk:

1) Why exactly is it that neighborhoods are constantly experiencing changes in  their demographics? What causes these dramatic shifts? Is there something in the neighborhood environment itself that is changing?

2) Why is it that statistics show that in some cultures the percentages of women and men employed are almost equal but in others they are very different? Is this solely culture dependent or are there other factors?

Two interesting things that piqued my curiosity from Joe Salvo’s talk were both about population migration within New York City:

1) Gentrification has occurred in previous low-income neighborhoods of Harlem and the Lower East Side, as a result of influx of non-family upper middle class residents.

2) Sections of Northern Queens, like Whitestone, Bayside, and Fresh Meadows, are seeing the greatest increase in Asian immigration, while areas with highly concentrated Asian populations, like Chinatown, have remained relatively steady.

Questions: Can Joe Salvo’s data be considered accurate if people identify themselves as the wrong ethnicity?

Why do people move out of New York City if it is such a diverse city with so many opportunities?

Some comments/notes:

– A cycle of emigration and immigration is imperative for a city like New York to function. Different groups entering and leaving a city increases diversity.

– There is a direct correlation between the movement of Asians into an area and with Hispanics and Latinos in the area. Both groups move into relatively the same area shown between maps from Staten Island and Brooklyn.

– Although Manhattan is considered the melting pot of the world, the five boroughs are also extremely diverse when looked at individually.

– Contrary to what most would think, a majority of Indian cab drivers (80%) have a college degree and do not come to the U.S for a better education but instead may come for quick cash.

– A quarter of immigrants in New York do not display English proficiency because the population is constantly changing, not because they adamantly refuse to learn the language.

– One thing that I found interesting about the Salvo talk is how so many Asians have moved into the West Central Park area in the past decade. I didn’t really notice that many Asians every time I go to the West side, just a lot of people of the caucasian race. This influx of Asians into the historically known “rich” neighborhoods may be due to the fact that many people want to move up the social ladder, and white people in society are currently at the top of the ladder. There may be a mentality that if you moved into caucasian neighborhoods, then you may be able to share their social status. That is why the American dream is to move into rich urban neighborhoods or into peaceful suburbs with grass lawns and white picket fences, perfect models of a happy caucasian family.

– Another thing that I found interesting about the Salvo talk was how the Asian population is dropping in downtown Chinatown while the European population is rising there. This may be because the second generation of Asians want to move up the social ladder so they tend to move out of the old Chinatowns to live in the richer New York neighborhoods. Another factor may be because the rent in downtown Chinatown used to be really cheap because of all the old tenements, and the new generation of white people wanted to take advantage of these low rent apartments that are also really close to popular downtown areas like SOHO, Tribeca, and City Hall. Now that the rents in Chinatown are getting higher because of the growing caucasian presence, Asians may actually want to move back into Chinatown to move up the social ladder again and embrace their Chinese culture at the same time.

Joe Salvo’s discussion of population demographics in New York City was eye-opening. Although I’ve always understood New York to be a diverse, immigrant hub, but this was the first time that anyone had shown and explained the actual statistics surrounding population and diversity in New York City.

The discussion left me with several questions:

1) Does it seem likely that our political understanding of “American” is incongruent with the legal definition of “American”? Specifically, anyone born in the United States is an American, yet our cultural understanding of the term (not to mention our political representation at the federal level) remains largely “European.”

* In class, we discussed the common conception that “money= white= American.” This proves my point…

2) Although it is practical and in most cases necessary to learn English, the United States has no official language. Would Joe Salvo agree with the idea that our lack of a national language encourages immigration? Does it make us more “open,” or is english understood to be the de facto official language regardless, in which case language is not a pull factor?

3) Does the municipality of New York City have an incentive to encourage or discourage gentrification? Could New York City even do anything about it if it wanted to? In the short term, gentrification creates more ethnically diverse neighborhoods, although in the long run, those neighborhoods eventually become more homogenous.

Lastly, I wanted to finish by commenting on a discussion we had as a class. We had briefly touched upon the “fluidity of ethnicity”- basically, in a certain place, we identify as one ethnicity, yet in a different place we identify as yet another ethnicity. While it’s true that this is often self-inflicted (not necessarily in a bad way, obviously), it is often based on the perception of others. For example, when I am in Italy, I am seen as American because I speak english, live in the States, and have an American accent when I speak Italian, even though I was born in Italy, speak fluent italian, and have held Italian citizenship from birth. The opposite is true here in the States: obviously, no one contests that I am American, but people find it easier to identity me as Italian because I was born and lived there, and speak the language. It’s an important window into the way people think about ethnicity: although not always bad or discriminatory, I think that people find it easier to identify someone “else” as “different” because to define everyone as the same thing as you are yourself (in this case, American) means that your understanding of that categorization must be constantly fluid, suggesting that our understanding of self is, on some level, unstable. Perhaps that is why, as Nancy Foner explained, a Mexican-American in Texas will always be “hispanic,” even if they are American. They are American, but they’re not like us. Just a thought…

These are some points I noted concerning the talk given by Joe Salvo on immigration patterns inNew York City:

• Constant cycle of new immigrants: learn language–> leave city–> new immigrants
• What is American?
  • White non Hispanic origin or anyone who’s just wealthier
  • Already a diverse place
  • People don’t really identify as American; closer ties to roots–> Depends on community
  • America thought of as more of a culture
  • New York City is more diverse compared to the rest of the country
  • (Refer to Nancy Foner article)
  • has to do with the amount of generations that have been in America –> in your family: the more generations that are American the looser the ties can be from your roots, the more you might identify yourself with America versus your own culture.
  • Sometimes new immigrants identify automatically as “American” because they are proud to have access to all the opportunities that America has to offer versus their native country.
  • Mix of cultures coincide because working towards common goal
  • Why are Asians moving to central park west and why are young white single adults moving to Spanish harlem, etc.?
    • Financially driven
    • Goals determine time period which influence where/ what you want to live in
    • Statistics show in the last recession; young Asian Americans more unemployed but when got jobs made good money –> influenced move to central park west
    • Young whites to Spanish harlem: affordable housing, liberal standpoint on race, edgier lifestyle?
    • Move to New York to work–> leads to young able working people

I don’t understand why the gentrification of a neighborhood and its maintenance of diversity are considered by Joe Salvo to be mutually exclusive. The Lower East Side, for example, is considered to be heavily gentrified, but it is still very ethnically, racially, and to an extent, (in the case of long-held real estate vs newly-bought properties) socio-economic. I don’t believe that the idea of gentrification of a neighborhood is (literally or figuratively,) a matter of black and white, or ever can be, in the same way that wealth and ethnicity cannot be considered mutually exclusive.

Two Interesting points/ Questions on Joe Salvo’s lecture

-The concept of “Net Migration” was very interesting and something I hadn’t thought about. Joe Salvo also suggested this fact would be something that many people haven’t considered much. We talk so much about people moving into the city that we forget that there are people traveling out of the city at the same time, creating this dynamic population. What are reasons for people to leave the city and how does the city promote this balance in order to have enough resources for everyone?

-The NYC economy is unique in that we have immigrants doing small tasked jobs or low wage jobs in order to fuel the economy. We also have a large young workforce. Other cities and towns have their youth leaving them (ex. “How’s Detroit?” “Detroit is very old” as Joe Salvo said). What attracts people to our city specifically and why can’t other cities create an economy to better support young immigrant workforce?