New York, a Mosaic of Nationalities

by Songül Arslan

Have you ever wondered why New York is New York and what makes this city so fascinating? So many treasures come to mind when I think of New York. Skyscrapers, the Empire State Building, Wall Street, hip clubs and expensive restaurants, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Battery Island, and hot dogs on street corners.

Most of all, I think of the cosmopolitan atmosphere that New York breathes. Name a nation or ethnicity from around the world and it is represented in New York, which some say is the capital city of the world. The representation of cultures is what makes New York - where the entire world lives in one place - different from any other big city in the world.

When you look back in history, New York has always been a safe haven, a refuge for people from other countries. Migrants were either dying to build a new life elsewhere because of socio-economic reasons or were forced to live abroad because of war and other degrading situations. From the first time Ellis Island, the gateway to the city, opened in 1892 until its closing in 1954, millions and millions of immigrants entered the city. Ellis Island has become a symbol of the new world ever since.

Immigration red tape started back then. Not everybody was allowed to enter the New World. About a fifth of the people were detained on the island because of the threat of disease and a very small percentage was sent home for political reasons.Luckily, the majority could enter and the population grew to its current height of 17 million. This is more than the population of The Netherlands or Belgium or Denmark and more than the populations of Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg combined.

There is a museum on Ellis Island where you can see nostalgic photographs of the first immigrants. Faces in black and white stare at you and you wonder what they were thinking and what their hopes and dreams were at the moment their picture was taken. Like everybody else, they wanted to build a life and make a good living.

And the same applies today. The immigrant culture is an even more integral part of New York culture than ever. Whether it's Chinatown, Little Italy or the Pakistani or African taxi driver you have a conversation with, all nationalities make up the mosaic that is New York and gives the city a distinct flavor.