9781422283639

Chinatown Many Chinese men first went to the USA to find work mining gold and building railroads. By the 1880s about 10,000 had moved to New York. Most lived in the Chinatown area of the Lower East Side, to the south of Little Italy. Now over 200,000 Chinese people live there. Its streets are lined with restaurants as well as antique shops, Chinese medicine centers, and Buddhist temples.

PUERTO RICANS About a quarter of New Yorkers are Latinos . Many came from Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island that has been part of the US since 1899. During the 1950s, the US government encouraged Puerto Ricans to move to New York. Some settled in the southeast of Harlem, known as Spanish Harlem or El Barrio. Others moved into Manhattan’s West Side. Gang warfare there between Puerto Ricans and non-Puerto Ricans inspired the musical West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein.

Shoppers in New York’s Chinatown. Food stores in this area sell all kinds of ingredients for Chinese cooking, such as fish, noodles, and bamboo shoots.

African Americans African Americans have lived

in New York since its early years, when many were slaves. After the city abolished slavery in 1827, more moved there from the South, where slavery was still allowed. Even more made the journey north during World War II. By the 1950s about one million black people lived in the area of Harlem, very often in poor slum housing. Since the 1970s the situation has improved, but many black New Yorkers have moved away to areas such as the Bronx.

African Americans form about 25 percent of the New York population and make a vital contribution to the life of the city. ⌂

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