The twenty-first century brought many changes to New York City. The inherent character and essence of the city changed at this time as new immigrants and new leaders, as well as new urban developments and issues, came to the forefront.
By the end of the twentieth century, NYC had outdone itself in terms of the range and number of immigrants living there; by the 1990s, immigrants comprised the highest percentage of the city’s population since the early 1900s. As new groups of people came to New York, they “simultaneously challenged and enriched the nation’s most diverse ‘Immigrant City.’”
One immigrant group that had an important impact on New York is Asians. These immigrants, namely Chinese and Korean, worked hard to create a variety of professional establishments to serve their co-ethnics, thereby bringing new vitality to declining neighborhoods. Asians endured the weight of the model minority myth at the same time that they worked and assimilated in the city; stereotypes of Asians as intelligent, driven, and hard-working created an image that many Asian immigrants strived to live up to.
In addition, Latinos came to form one of NYC’s dominant immigrant groups. Before the later half of the twentieth century, Puerto Ricans comprised the dominant Latino group in New York, contributing to the city’s culture through “music, language and strong family traditions.” In the 1960s and 70s, however, this changed as new immigration increased, bringing other Latino groups to the city. Dominicans made up one of these other Latino groups. Despite their differences, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans are both transnational people and have had to deal with being considered too Puerto Rican/Dominican in the America but also too American in Puerto Rico/the Dominican Republic. Dominicans’ citizenship in the U.S. has allowed them to seek local political power through city and state elections. Despite the economically mixed experiences and separate cultural/ethnic identities of Latino immigrant groups, Latinos have found satisfying, sustainable lives in New York and have ultimately created a much more inclusive identity among Latinos from all different countries and cultures.
West Indians comprised another dominant group of immigrants in NYC. Upon coming to the U.S., West Indians had to experience and reassess ideas of race in ways that they did not have to in their countries of birth, where race just wasn’t an issue. West Indians eventually acquired success in business and other professions, and a rift soon formed between West Indians and African Americans. Although West Indians immigrants in New York maintained a strong cultural identity and sense of ethnic pride, their common race inevitably connected them to and united them with African Americans. This interconnectedness of race and identity has contributed to NYC’s face of diversity.
In the 1990s and 2000s, New York’s political leaders demonstrated how “a city is an experiment in the social contract.” Rudolph Giuliani changed the face of New York from liberal to much more conservative and created a lot of social turmoil with his approach to issues of race as well as many other issues. In spite of the contentions caused by Giuliani, many people consider him a great mayor due to the significant lowering of crime rates while he was in office as well as his response to 9/11.
