Queens might be the most diverse place on earth. Among its 2.3 million souls, you can find enclaves of almost any culture you care to name. All of it is packed inside a densely populated melting pot. I love it. When we came to the US, I did not imagine living in a place with such vitality.
I have lived in diverse places before, but not to the same extent. There is also a trend that everywhere is becoming more diverse as the world gets smaller and humans migrate more readily. So, for example, I look back at the South London of the 1980’s or the Birmingham (UK) of the early 1990’s, and recall places with many active cultures, but somehow without the same depth.
You can think of it like merging colours in an oil painting. For most of the world, there is one dominant colour in the painting. As other colours emerge, they look like dots on a landscape, hardly spreading. So, for example, a small community of Chinese lived in the south coast English towns where I grew up. They were very localised and there was little mixing, let alone inter-marriage. One result was that the Chinese restaurants had a menu that looked Chinese only to white people, with items that any visitor from China would not recognise as Chinese at all. The only way to succeed as a minority in such a culture was to maintain tight links among a small network, while also adopting habits to fit the demands of the majority.
The Balti houses of Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook southern suburbs of Birmingham took diversity to the next level. A large population of South Asians from particular districts of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh came to reside in these districts. There was enough critical mass for services to grow centred on the needs of those communities, rather than just white neighbours. Nonetheless, the communities were strengthened by creating a brand of restaurant that did cater to whites as well.
This may have been a positive turning point in race relations. There is always resentment and fear of people of difference. While a community is small, it has to be as invisible as possible to the majority, with many activities taking place in private homes. Then they grow and become obvious, like a large blob on a canvas, and are resented. One way to progress beyond that is to find a way to appeal to the majority. It was harder to resent the South Asians of Birmingham, while enjoying a Balti most Friday nights.
The Queens of 2019 takes this forward several more levels. The canvas appears more pixelated. First, there is no dominant colour, though if you look closely enough at any part of the canvas you will see pixels of different colours clustered together. Next, the number of different colours covers everything conceivable from humanity. Lastly, there is a recognisable blurring of the colours. Each culture has begun a process of fusion with its neighbours to create something marvellous and with broader appeal.
I can only hope that Queens becomes the template for how humanity lives in the future, because I can only see upsides. Of course, there are many hurdles to jump on this journey. Queens has the advantage of never really having a majority culture, and, like the rest of New York, being generally populated by people who have chosen to come and to make something of their lives, so maybe being more open and optimistic then most – agile rather than rooted in my characterisation. And don’t let me lead you to believe that there is no prejudice or resentment in Queens – sadly, you don't have to be a majoritarian to be a racist.
Still, despite its many tensions, living here renders much political discourse not just ugly but plain daft. Whether it is Trump’s remorseless drumbeat or Theresa May’s put down of people of no culture, most of us here have moved well beyond that.
An example of how Queens works can be found at one of my favourite shops, Sariling Atin on Queens Boulevard opposite Queens Centre mall. Sariling Atin is a Philippine establishment. Queens has a Philippine quarter in the same way as it has an everything else quarter, centred in Woodside but spreading as far as this establishment. Walk inside and you could be time-travelling to Manila.
The place is only about ten feet wide, which must help to keep the rent manageable, and the managers use every square foot to great effect to offer multiple services, primarily targeted at Filipinos. The counter by the door serves as a bank for remittances, with three suppliers available for sending money back home. That same counter has fresh produce like mangoes, and serves as a till for ambient, chilled and frozen goods stacked in the body of the shop. These goods are mainly brands used in Philippine cooking, as well as lots of rice. Near the entrance you can also find plenty of small ads for apartments, handymen, and so on.
Venture deeper in the shop and you arrive in a café of about eight tightly packed tables, overlooked by a TV continually playing Philippine shows, usually camp talent contests or karaoke. You queue at another counter at the far end to choose between many freshly prepared Philippine dishes there, which are also available for takeout.
So in this small space they manage to combine a bank, grocer, market, café, takeout and theatre, all with a Philippine flavour. It is marvellous, and I love visiting, even if I often have to hand my shopping list over to an assistant or even put my wife on the phone to them. Tagalog merges with English and Spanish, immigrants of multiple generations merge with immigrants of other cultures, and everybody is the better for it. I am often greeted by Philippine matrons brought up to be deferential to colonial rulers, ladies of a certain age who dream of marrying off their daughters and who love nothing more than to gossip with their friends about how poor the mangoes are this season or some church scandal.
This is Queens at its best, tightly packed, perhaps a bit shoddy, but efficient. No doubt the menu evolves over time and fusions develop from other cultures, and maybe some of these even make their way back to Manila. This is how humanity develops. Perhaps in the future, one of the people running Sariling Atin will pair off with someone from another background, and the fusion will accelerate.
I frequent Sariling Atin because of my connection to the Philippine culture. But if I crossed the boulevard and headed towards Elmhurst or Corona, I would find similar establishments, first for different parts of China or Korea, then for every country of Latin America. No doubt each of these is subtly different, in ways that I could only start to fathom if I had friends from particular cultures. But I can use any of them in blissful ignorance and feel welcome in all of them.
This is the joy of Queens. And, I hope and believe, it is the joy of humanity to come. Now I will settle back and enjoy some bistek or adobo.
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