Immigrant Crossroads Globalization, Incorporation, and Placemaking in Queens, New York

Nearly half the 2.3 million residents of Queens, New York are foreign-born. Immigrants in Queens hail from more than 120 countries and speak more than 135 languages. As an epicenter of immigrant diversity, Queens is an urban gateway that exemplifies opportunities and challenges in shaping a multi-racial democracy. 

The editors and contributors to Immigrant Crossroads examine the social, spatial, economic, and political dynamics that stem from this fast-growing urbanization. The interdisciplinary chapters examine residential patterns and neighborhood identities, immigrant incorporation and mobilizations, and community building and activism.

Essays combine qualitative and quantitative research methods to address globalization and the unprecedented racial and ethnic diversity as a result of international migration. Chapters on incorporation focus on immigrant participation and representation in electoral politics, and advocacy for immigrant inclusion in urban governance and service provision. A section of Immigrant Crossroads concerns placemaking, focusing on the production of neighborhood spaces and identities as well as immigrant activism and community development and control.

Based on engaged and robust analysis, Immigrant Crossroads highlights the dynamics of this urban gateway.

Tarry Hum is Chair of the Department of Urban Studies at Queens College and a member of the Doctoral Faculty at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood: Sunset Park (Temple).
Ron Hayduk is Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University and author of Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting in the United States and Gatekeepers to the Franchise: Shaping Election Administration in New York, and co-editor of From Act Up to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization, and Democracy’s Moment: Reforming America’s Political System in the 21st Century.
Francois Pierre-Louis Jr. is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Queens College, CUNY. He is the author of Haitians in New York City: Transnationalism and Hometown Associations.
Michael Alan Krasner is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Queens College and co-director of the Taft Institute for Government and Civic Education. He is the co-author of American Government: Structure and Process, Second Edition (with Stephen Chaberski) and the author of Going for It: How to Organize a Grassroots Campaign and Win, and Immigrant New Yorkers: Use the Power of Your Vote!