Essay Example on NYC: A Melting Pot for Immigrants: 4 Decades of Transformation

New York City has continued to establish itself as the top immigrant destination in the United States, US. Over the past four decades, the city demographic characteristics have undergone tremendous transformations due to an influx of immigrants into the city (Kraly, Percy & Miyares, 33). At around 1999, an estimated one-third of the city's population was foreigners, with the city hosting one in every ten national foreigners. This demographic characteristic, according to Kent and Mederios (n.p), was proportionally similar to that at the onset of the twentieth century and about three-fold the entire US population. As quoted by Alba et al. (625), the New York City Metropolitan has long been an epicenter of ethnic and racial transformation being witnessed across the US. By mid-century, the city was already marked with racial and ethnic diversity due to its historical establishment as an entry port for immigrant minorities, a trend that has grown seven-fold since. This population influx in New York City marked with racial and cultural diversity is also widely attributed to changes in the immigration policies at around 1965, which led to the wave of immigration. The immigration tendencies, coupled with an interactive labor market and shifting residents, has propounded the complexity of ethnic and racial socio-demographics in the city (Hempstead, 336).

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At around 1963, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick, as cited by Alba et al. (626) defined New York as a city that was geographically and numerically predominant with European immigrants' descendants, particularly the Irish, Jewish and Italians. At this time, the immigrant minorities, precisely the Puerto Ricans and African Americans, were still fresh migrants dealing with struggles to establish themselves in the city. The suburban realm was homogeneously predominant with whites of European ancestry, most likely the descendants of Northern and Western European immigrants, the primary inhabitants of the city. With time, however, as quoted by Ernst (n.p), the latter demographic group departed the New York City metropolitan for either better suburbs or other cities altogether. As this shift took place, new immigrants majorly the Hispanics, Asians, and Caribbean moved into the places vacated by the migrating population, beating the earlier minorities like the African American population to the comparatively appealing neighborhoods. This led to a more entrenched demographic complexity within New York that is hard to define through a simple and neatly patterned racial and ethnic distribution.

Often, the multiplicity of racial and ethnic minorities complicates socialism and models of neighborhood interaction (Guzman & Hector, 895). A trend that has been witnessed in New York City. According to Forner (n.p), this model was first constructed by both Duncan in 1957 and Taeuber in 1965 in assessing the impact of the Great Migration of blacks to predominantly white areas. Initially, as the racial minorities impregnated the white-dominated residences, the theoretical dominance of assimilation assumed their influence. Gradually when blacks ceased to be the sole significant minority, the focus shifted towards other minority groups such as Asians and Hispanics. First, as propounded by Denton, Nancy, and Douglas (797), indices such as the Dissimilarity Index, which is the most appreciated, for a specific minority group remain relatively stable over time in particular regions. This implies, albeit, without proof, that changes in residential characteristics for a racially and ethnically diverse socio-demographic construction occurs relatively slowly over time. However, Freund Rudolf, and William (n.p), argue from a different perspective. Blending both racial integration and polarization, they propound a thesis of emergent African-American underclass in New York City around the 1980s. According to the later, the emergent middle-class blacks with time continued to migrate from the ghetto settlements into more affluent neighborhoods, which often were dominated by white persons. On the other hand, however, another majority of poor blacks remained stuck in racially homogeneous residents marked with social and physical degradation.

As quoted by Alba et al. (628), as the New York City racial and ethnic diversity continued to expand, the city began witnessing an inclination towards specific racial and ethnic pairings in some neighborhoods than others. This propounded by Denton, Nancy, and Douglas (797), in their exposure index report on racial and ethnic demographic patterns between 1970 and 1980 which revealed that Asians and Hispanics are more segregated from blacks than non-Hispanic whites. In their study on the New York population patterns in 1980, Denton, Nancy, and Douglas found that on average, black persons resided in areas with only 16.4 percent whites, in contrast with 33 percent on average for the Hispanic, and 56 percent whites on average for Asians. However, pieces of evidence also pointed towards racial and ethnic distancing between the minorities. For instance, Hispanics were likely to reside within tracts with the black population (23.2 %), in contrast with Asians at 11.9 %.

This trend has continued over time, and the population distribution in New York has continued to grow in a bad way, particularly marked with racial and ethnic segregation and economic disparity. Alba et al. (629), quoting Denton and Massey, however, conflict this evidence. According to the later, the neighborhoods around the 1970s and 1980s were marked with a directional change towards a complex racial-ethnic integration and diversity. Around 1970, 13.9 percent of settlement tracts were exclusively white; however this dropped to 6.9 percent by 1980. In the same fashion, there was a rise in the percentage of residential tracts with all the members of the minorities from 19.9% in 1970 to 42.1% in 1980 (Kent, Mary, n.p). This evidence, albeit accurate, unfortunately, conflicts with the high level of segregation witnessed for the Black population.

In the recent, numerically, the non-Hispanic white socio-demographic group continue to decline, both in terms of population size and even substantially as a fraction of the city's population. Around 1970, according to Kraly, Ellen, and Ines (33), the non-Hispanic population was the dominant racial group constituting 76 percent of the population. This, however, dipped to 62% by 1990 and has continued to be so over time. The decline is more pronounced in central cities than in the suburban, albeit, it has been witnessed in both. In the wake of this dramatic population shift for non-Hispanic whites, the has been a witnessed increase in the population of Hispanic, black, and Asian racial groups, in some instance, this increase being rapid and is widely attributed to immigration. Tremendous changes, however, have been witnessed among Hispanics and Asians.

The surge in minority population in New York has been felt throughout the region and has had its fair share of distasteful impact in the city. As much as residential characteristics vary substantially by group, the African-American population has continued to define extremes by remaining the predominant group the larger city, while unfortunately also remaining the most segregated socio-demographic group both in suburban and city localities (Hempstead, 345). Hence, as much as their residential patterns have not remained stagnant, this socio-demographic group has continued to experience strong elements of continuity with the past (Alba et al., 632). This is reflected by the continued diminished representation of the black population in the suburbs despite substantial inhabitation in the region.

Despite the relatively more extended time of racial diversity and integration in New York City, it is still evident that the city continues to grow marked with racial divide and distancing. As much as a relatively bigger number of the black population has managed to shift to suburbs today, often, they are still more likely to be found in ghetto-like community constructions with a larger minority population and considerably a high fraction of residents living in poverty. A typical example of such set up is as quoted by Alba et al. (632) is Hempstead, Long Island. Worse still, in other regions like Harlem, Manhattan, and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn African-Americans remain extremely segregated from whites, numerically dominating these regions, if not being the exclusive population.

Conclusion

New York City has witnessed a fair share of immigrant population surge over time, with the region being possibly one of the most significant areas in the US-dominated by foreign-birthed persons. Over time, the racially and ethnically divided population has attempted to attain racial integration and diversity. However, several pieces of evidence still point that despite the continued growth of New York, the city is always marked with regional, racial divide and segregation. The city has not yet fully realized homogeneity in racial blend with its settlement regions, and there has been a continued population bias, particularly towards the African-American socio-demographic group. The city continues to witness an economic heterogeneity and disparity between its various racial and ethnic groups, which considerably affects it as a whole. This unwanted phenomenon, however, is substantially attributable to immigration.

Works Cited

Alba, Richard D., et al. "Neighborhood change under conditions of mass immigration: The New York City region, 1970-1990." International Migration Review 29.3 (1995): 625-656.

Cordero-Guzman, Hector R. "Community-based organisations and migration in New York City." Journal of ethnic and migration studies 31.5 (2005): 889-909.

Denton, Nancy A., and Douglas S. Massey. "Residential segregation of blacks, Hispanics, and Asians by socioeconomic status and generation." Social Science Quarterly 69.4 (1988): 797.

Ernst, Robert. Immigrant Life in New York City, 1825-1863. Syracuse University Press, 1994.

Foner, Nancy, ed. New Immigrants in New York. Columbia University Press, 2001.

Foner, Nancy, ed. One out of three: Immigrant New York in the twenty-first century. Columbia University Press, 2013.

Freund, Rudolf J., William J. Wilson, and Ping Sa. Regression analysis. Elsevier, 2006.

Hempstead, Katherine. "Immigration and native migration in New York City, 1985-1990." Population Research and Policy Review 22.4 (2003): 333-349.

Kent, Mary Mederios. Immigration and America's Black population. Vol. 62. No. 4. Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, 2007.

Kraly, Ellen Percy, and Ines Miyares. "Immigration to New York: Policy, Population." New Immigrants in New York (2001): 33.