By Alex Robinson
As the final stop on Queens’ International Express, Flushing serves as the epicenter of Asian immigration in the borough.
The neighborhood has the borough’s largest concentration of Asian immigrants and has continued to see its foreign-born population dominate and grow.
Flushing’s foreign-born population constituted 67.7 percent of its entire population in 2011, according to data compiled in the 2013 Newest New Yorkers report from the city Department of City Planning. While its total number of immigrants — 63,900 — was the fourth largest in the borough’s neighborhoods, it had a higher percentage of foreign-born immigrants than any other neighborhood in Queens.
There were 2,656 more foreign-born immigrants in the neighborhood since 2000, which was a 4.3 percent increase.
Nearly 80 percent of the immigrant population in Flushing was Asian. Chinese foreign-born immigrants made up 49 percent of this population. Koreans made up 12 percent and Indians make up 6.5 percent.
The largest non-Asian immigrant group in the neighborhood were Colombian immigrants, who made up 4.1 percent of the foreign-born population. No other non-Asian, foreign-born immigrants make up more than 2 percent.
Flushing also had the largest number of foreign-born immigrants of any neighborhood in northeast Queens.
The Flushing community recently celebrated its diversity in origins by unveiling a mural called “Flushing’s World Fair” at the 40th Road entrance to the Flushing-Main Street Long Island Rail Road station.
John Choe, director of One Flushing, a community-based economic development center that coordinated the mural’s production, said its name was not only an homage to the World’s Fairs of old that Queens hosted, but also a reference to the diversity of the neighborhood.
“If you want to see the world, come to Flushing,” he said.
Reach reporter Alex Robinson by e-mail at arobinson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
