The American Radical

New York and Amsterdam

“…About 13 percent of the foreign-born population in the Netherlands lives in Amsterdam; 3 New York City has slightly less than 8 percent of the U.S. foreignborn population. 4 The naturalness of the way in which these migratory flows are commonly characterized and in which labels are attached to them-"Muslims" in Amsterdam, "nonwhites" in New York-also point to remarkable social, political, and discursive differences. And, finally, there are profound differences in scale.…”

“…Between 1980 and 2010, non-Hispanic whites went from 52 to 33 percent of New York City's population, Hispanics from 20 to 29 percent, Asians from 3 to 13 percent, and non-Hispanic blacks, reinforced by immigration from the Caribbean and, to a lesser extent, from Africa, held fairly steady, 24 percent in 1980, 23 percent in 2010 (Lobo and Salvo 2013). Not surprisingly, views of race and ethnicity have changed as well-"Asian, " for example, no longer means Chinese in New York City but also Indian, Korean, Filipino, and Bangladeshi, to name a few, and Puerto Ricans, who several decades ago equaled "Hispanic, " are now outnumbered by a combination of Dominicans, Mexicans, Colombians, and Ecuadorians, among others (Foner 2000(Foner , 2005(Foner , 2013; see Waters, this volume).…”