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India Square,home to the highest concentration of Asian Indians in the Western Hemisphere, [2] and known as "Little India," is a South Asian-focused commercial and restaurant district in the Bombay,Journal Square,and Marion Section neighborhoods of Jersey City,New Jersey,U.S.
The area is a rapidly growing Indian New Yorker ethnic enclave within the New York metropolitan area. [1] [2] The neighborhood is centered on Newark Avenue,between Tonnele Avenue and JFK Boulevard,and is considered to be part of the larger Journal Square District. This area has been home to the largest outdoor Navratri festivities in New Jersey as well as several Hindu temples. [7] This portion of Newark Avenue is lined with grocery stores including Patel Brothers and Subzi Mandi Cash &Carry, [8] electronics vendors,video stores,clothing stores,and restaurants,and is one of the busiest pedestrian areas of this part of the city,often stopping traffic for hours. According to the 2000 census,there were nearly 13,000 Indians living in this two-block stretch in Jersey City,up from 3,000 in 1980,increasing commensurately between 2000 and 2010. [9] As of the 2010 census,over 27,000 Asian Indians accounted for 10.9% of Jersey City's population, [10] the highest proportion of any major U.S. city. After dark,the businesses light flashing signs and the street crowds continue.
Although India Square continues to represent the heart of Little India in Jersey City,situated between Tonnele Avenue and John F. Kennedy Boulevard,Little India itself as of 2019 has been expanding further eastward along Newark Avenue,through Jersey City's Little Manila ,to Summit Avenue and the Five Corners neighborhood.
In 2023,a decorative archway sign at the entrance to Indian Square was installed to mark the area. [11] A large white Bengal tiger street mural also adorns the area. [12]
An annual,color-filled spring Holi festival has taken place in Jersey City since 1992,centered upon India Square and attracting significant participation and international media attention. [13] [14]
Other named ethnic enclaves in northeastern New Jersey include:
Koreatown, or K-Town, is an ethnic Korean enclave in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, centered on 32nd Street between Madison Avenue and the intersection with Sixth Avenue and Broadway, which is known as Greeley Square. The neighborhood in Midtown South features over 150 businesses of various types and sizes, ranging from small restaurants and beauty salons to large branches of Korean banking conglomerates. Koreatown, Manhattan, has become described as the "Korean Times Square" and has emerged as the international economic outpost for the Korean chaebol.
Koreatown is a neighborhood in central Los Angeles, California, centered near Eighth Street and Irolo Street.
A Koreatown (Korean: 코리아타운), also known as a Little Korea or Little Seoul, is a Korean-dominated ethnic enclave within a city or metropolitan area outside the Korean Peninsula.
Little India is an Indian or South Asian sociocultural environment outside India or the Indian subcontinent. It especially refers to an area with a significant concentration of South Asian residents and a diverse collection of Indian businesses. Frequently, Little Indias have Hindu temples, mosques, and gurdwaras. They may also host celebrations of national and religious festivals and serve as gathering places for South Asians. As such, they are microcosms of India. Little Indias are often tourist attractions and are frequented by fans of Indian cuisine, Indian culture, Indian clothing, Indian music, and Indian cinema.
Bangladeshi Americans are American citizens with Bangladeshi origin or descent. Bangladeshi Americans are predominantly Bengali Americans and are usually Bengali speaking Muslims with roots in Bangladesh. Since the early 1970s, Bangladeshi immigrants have arrived in significant numbers to become one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S. New York City is home to two-thirds of the Bangladeshi American population. Meanwhile, Paterson, New Jersey; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey are also home to notable Bangladeshi communities. An estimated 400,000 people leave Bangladesh annually with the sole goal of finding employment in other countries.
Five Corners is a neighborhood located at the intersection of Summit Avenue, Newark Avenue, and Hoboken Avenue in Jersey City, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, and is situated in the northeastern portion of the larger Journal Square district. The name of the intersection is used for the neighborhood radiating from the crossing, which is adjacent to the Hilltop, just south of Bergen Arches and The Divided Highway.
Marion is a section of Jersey City in Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Since its founding in 1625 by Dutch traders as New Amsterdam, New York City has been a major destination for immigrants of many nationalities who have formed ethnic enclaves, neighborhoods dominated by one ethnicity. Freed African American slaves also moved to New York City in the Great Migration and the later Second Great Migration and formed ethnic enclaves. These neighborhoods are set apart from the main city by differences such as food, goods for sale, or even language. Ethnic enclaves provide inhabitants security in work and social opportunities, but limit economic opportunities, do not encourage the development of English speaking, and keep immigrants in their own culture.
The first Brooklyn Chinatown, was originally established in the Sunset Park area of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic Chinese enclaves outside of Asia, as well as within New York City itself. Because this Chinatown is rapidly evolving into an enclave predominantly of Fuzhou immigrants from Fujian Province in China, it is now increasingly common to refer to it as the Little Fuzhou or Fuzhou Town of the Western Hemisphere; as well as the largest Fuzhou enclave of New York City.
Guyanese Americans are American people with Guyanese ancestry or immigrants who were born in Guyana. Guyana is home to people of many different national, ethnic and religious origins. As of 2019, there are 231,649 Guyanese Americans currently living in the United States. The majority of Guyanese live in New York City – some 140,000 – making them the fifth-largest foreign-born population in the city.
Tamil Americans are Americans who are of Tamil origin. The majority of Tamil Americans come from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Significant minorities are from other Indian states like Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, etc., as well as from other countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore.
One of the largest Vietnamese neighborhoods in the United States is Philadelphia's Little Saigon, located in Passyunk Square, a neighborhood in South Philadelphia. This heart of the Philadelphia metropolitan area's rapidly growing Vietnamese community is centered on the intersection of S. Eighth Street and Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia, with "one of the largest Vietnamese populations on the east coast," and is a district where "... neon signs lure shoppers into grocery stores, restaurants, and karaoke bars set back from the street in low-rise concrete strip malls. Shoppers pushing carts laden with rice noodles, bean cakes and imported spices and sauces pack suburban-style parking lots behind the complexes." The author further states that the Vietnamese are now the largest ethnic community in the Washington Avenue/Passyunk Square section of the city and that the entire Vietnamese population of Philadelphia is larger than that of New York City.
Uzbek Americans are Americans of Uzbek descent. The community also includes those who have dual American and Uzbek citizenship.
The New York metropolitan area is home to the largest and most prominent ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, hosting Chinese populations representing all 34 provincial-level administrative units of China. The Chinese American population of the New York City metropolitan area was an estimated 893,697 as of 2017, constituting the largest and most prominent metropolitan Asian national diaspora outside Asia. New York City itself contains by far the highest ethnic Chinese population of any individual city outside Asia, estimated at 628,763 as of 2017.
There are multiple Chinatowns in the borough of Queens in New York City. The original Queens Chinatown emerged in Flushing, initially as a satellite of the original Manhattan Chinatown, before evolving its own identity, surpassing in scale the original Manhattan Chinatown, and subsequently, in turn, spawning its own satellite Chinatowns in Elmhurst, Corona, and eastern Queens. As of 2023, illegal Chinese immigration to New York has accelerated, and its Flushing neighborhood has become the present-day global epicenter receiving Chinese immigration as well as the international control center directing such migration. As of 2024, a significant new wave of Chinese Uyghur Muslims is fleeing religious persecution in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Province and seeking religious freedom in New York, and concentrating in Queens.
In the New York metropolitan area, Filipinos constitute one of the largest diasporas in the Western Hemisphere. By 2014 Census estimates, the New York City-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area was home to 262,375 Filipino Americans, 221,612 (84.5%) of them uniracial Filipinos.
Indians in the New York City metropolitan area constitute one of the largest and fastest-growing ethnicities in the New York City metropolitan area of the United States. The New York City region is home to the largest and most prominent Indian American population among metropolitan areas by a significant margin, enumerating 711,174 uniracial individuals based on the 2013–2017 U.S. Census American Community Survey estimates. The Asian Indian population also represents the second-largest metropolitan Asian national diaspora both outside of Asia and within the New York City metropolitan area, following the also rapidly growing and hemisphere-leading population of the estimated 893,697 uniracial Chinese in the New York City metropolitan area in 2017.
Gujarati Americans are Americans who trace their ancestry to Gujarat, India. They are a subgroup of Indian Americans.