Living in New York, it is impossible not to notice the distinct enclaves around us. As Tarry Hum states in her article, one of the most distinct enclaves in New York City is that of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, which today is made up of “fewer than one in five ” non-Hispanic white residents. This area was mostly settled by Asians and Latinos, the former currently making up three quarters of the town’s population.
Being of European descent, I find it interesting reading about how much Sunset Park has changed over the years. Hum points out that “until the 1980s, Sunset Park was largely a working-class neighborhood of European immigrants and their descendants.” As previously stated, currently less than one fifth of the population is made up of non-Hispanic white residents. This is probably due to the immigrants finding better jobs and living conditions elsewhere, along with the influx of Chinese and Latin American residents to Sunset Park around this time. It only follows that the Europeans would want to move elsewhere to live in their own culture and form their own enclaves.
I strongly believe that New York City is completely different from the rest of America. Someone from another part of the world may say that it is only the people and the technology that are different, but I disagree. Someone who has lived in New York their whole life can say that it has many small, culturally diverse “cities” within itself which as a whole form New York—Chinatown and Little Italy, to name a couple. Not many other cities across the United States can say the same for themselves. One of the most unique things about New York is that although we have so many different enclaves, they each manage to preserve their own culture, which helps each of the areas maintain their individual diversity. This allows Queens to be the most culturally diverse county in the world.
