The second Honors College seminar investigates the role of immigration and migration in shaping New York City.  Our class will focus on immigrant community formations in the borough of Queens where the racial and ethnic diversity is unparalleled.  If treated as a separate city, Brooklyn and Queens would rank fourth and fifth respectively in population size following New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.  New York City’s status as a global city is, in part, attributable to its diverse and dynamic population.  Driven by immigration, a full 36% of New Yorkers were born outside of the United States but the immigrant presence is even greater in Queens where nearly half of the borough’s residents are foreign-born.  Long established as a majority “minority” city, New York City’s Latino and Asian populations continue to increase in contrast to other racial groups and nowhere is this trend more evident than in Queens where the population share of Latinos is equal to non-Hispanic whites (28%) and followed closely by Asians (23%).  Moreover, Queens’ majority immigrant Latino-Asian population is distinguished by a hyperdiversity of ethnicities, languages, and cultures.

Our class work will inform and possibly contribute to a book project led by QC Professor Ron Hayduk (Political Science) and myself titled, Immigrant Crossroads: Globalization, Incorporation, and Place-Making in Queens, NY.  In addition to an introduction to the extensive literature on post-1965 immigration, our class will engage in a study of the neighborhood landscape of Queens to localize issues of demographic change and race and ethnic relations; post-industrial urbanization and transnational capital; immigrant engagement in social justice activism and political incorporation; and urban labor markets and informality.  We will focus our research on several Queens neighborhoods including Jackson Heights, Corona, and Richmond Hill.