Taiwanese people in New York City

New York City is home to the second-largest Taiwanese American population, after the Los Angeles metropolitan area, California, enumerating an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 individuals as of 2020.

History and location

The neighborhood of Flushing, Queens, is one of the largest and fastest growing Taiwanese enclaves outside Asia. Main Street and the area to its west, particularly along Roosevelt Avenue, have become the primary nexus of Flushing's Taiwanese community. However, this community continues to expand southeastward along Kissena Boulevard and northward beyond Northern Boulevard. Taiwanese began the surge of immigration in the 1980s. Flushing originally started off as Little Taipei or Little Taiwan due to the large Taiwanese population. Due to the dominance at the time of working class Cantonese immigrants of Manhattan's Chinatown including its poor housing conditions, the more affluent Taiwanese population could not relate to them socioeconomically and settled in Flushing.

Later on, when other groups of non-Cantonese Chinese, mostly speaking Mandarin started arriving into New York City, like the Taiwanese, they could not relate to Manhattan's then dominant Cantonese Chinatown, as a result they mainly settled with Taiwanese to be around Mandarin Chinese speakers. Later, Flushing's Chinatown would become the main center of different Chinese regional groups and cultures in New York City. By 1990, Asians constituted 41% of the population of the core area of Flushing, with Chinese in turn representing 41% of the Asian population.^[1] However, ethnic Chinese, including Taiwanese, are constituting an increasingly dominant proportion of the Asian population as well as of the overall population in Flushing and its Chinatown. A 1986 estimate by the Flushing Chinese Business Association approximated 60,000 Chinese in Flushing alone.^[2] Mandarin Chinese, commonly spoken by Taiwanese, has become the lingua franca in New York City's ethnic Chinese communities.^[3]

Elmhurst, Queens, also has a large and growing Taiwanese community.^[4] Previously a small area with Chinese shops on Broadway between 81st Street and Cornish Avenue, this new Chinatown has now expanded to 45th Avenue and Whitney Avenue. Since 2000, thousands of Taiwanese Americans have migrated into Whitestone, Queens (白石), given the sizeable presence of the neighboring Flushing Chinatown, and have continued their expansion eastward in Queens and into neighboring affluent and highly educated Nassau County (拿騷縣) on Long Island (長島).^[5]^[6]^[7]

Transportation

Facilitating migration from Taiwan to New York City are China Airlines and EVA Air, which fly non-stop between Taipei Taoyuan International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens.

As of 2016^[update], the two largest Taiwanese airlines have provided free shuttle services to and from JFK International Airport in New York City for customers based in New Jersey.

China Airlines's service stops in Fort Lee, Parsippany, and Jersey City^[8]
EVA Air's service stops in Jersey City, Piscataway, Fort Lee, and East Hanover.^[9]