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. African-American freedmen 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.

, there are 3.1 million immigrants in New York City. This accounts for 37% of the city population and 45% of its workforce. Ethnic enclaves in New York include Caribbean, Asian, European, Latin American, Middle Eastern and Jewish groups, who immigrated from or whose ancestors immigrated from various countries. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York.

History of immigration to and ethnic enclaves in New York City

New York City was founded in 1625, by Dutch traders as New Amsterdam. The settlement was a slow growing village, but it was diverse. However, the Netherlands never had a large emigrant population, and the colony attracted few Dutch and more people from different ethnic groups. As early as 1646, 18 languages were spoken in New Amsterdam, and ethnic groups within New Amsterdam included Dutch, Danes, English, Flemish, French, Germans, Irish, Italians, Norwegians, Poles, Portuguese, Romanians Scots, Swedes, Walloons, and Bohemians. The young, diverse village also became a seafarer's town, with taverns and smugglers. After Peter Stuyvesant became Director, New Amsterdam began to grow more quickly, achieving a population of 1,500, and growing to 2,000 by 1655 and almost to 9,000 in 1664, when the British seized the colony, renaming it New York.

Colonial New York City was also a center of religious diversity, including one of the first Jewish congregations, along with Philadelphia, Savannah, and Newport, in what was to become the United States.

African American

The first recorded African Americans were brought to the present-day United States in 1619 as slaves. In 1780, under British occupation, New York City had approximately 10,000 freed people of African descent, the largest concentration of such people in North America. New York State began emancipating slaves in 1799, and in 1841, all slaves in New York State were freed, and many of New York's emancipated slaves lived in or moved to Fort Greene, Brooklyn. All slaves in the United States were later freed in 1865, with the end of the American Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. After the Civil War, African Americans left the South, where slavery had been the strongest, in large numbers. These movements are now known as the Great Migration, during the 1910s and 1920s and the Second Great Migration, from the end of World War II until 1970.

After arriving in New York, the African Americans formed neighborhoods, partially due to racism of the landlords at the time. The socioeconomic center of these neighborhoods, and all of "Black America", was Harlem, in Northern Manhattan. Hamilton Heights, on Harlem's western side, was a nicer part of Harlem, and Sugar Hill, named because its inhabitants enjoyed the "sweet life", was the nicest part.

In the 1930s, after the Independent Subway System's Eighth Avenue and Fulton Street subways opened, Harlem residents began to leave crowded Harlem for Brooklyn. The first neighborhood African Americans moved to in large numbers was Bedford–Stuyvesant, composed of the neighborhoods Bedford, Stuyvesant Heights, Weeksville (which had an established African American community by the time of the New York Draft Riots), and Ocean Hill. From Bedford-Stuyvesant, African Americans moved into the surrounding neighborhoods, including Crown Heights, East New York and Brownsville After World War II, "white flight" occurred, in which predominantly white residents moved to the suburbs and were replaced with minority residents. Neighborhoods that experienced this include Canarsie, Flatbush, and East Flatbush.

Queens also experienced "white flight". Jamaica and South Jamaica both underwent ethnic change. Some of Queens' African American neighborhoods are housing projects or housing cooperatives, such as Queensbridge and LeFrak City. Other African American neighborhoods include Laurelton, Cambria Heights, Hollis, Springfield Gardens, and St. Albans.

The Bronx experienced white flight, which was mostly confined to the South Bronx and mostly in the 1970s.

Staten Island is home to the oldest continuously settled free-black community in the United States, Sandy Ground. This community along the Southwestern shore of Staten Island was once home to thousands of free-black men and women, who came to Staten Island to work as oystermen. Members of this community also settled and established communities on the North Shore, such as West New Brighton and Port Richmond after oyster fishing became scarce in 1916. Many African Americans settled in several North Shore communities during the Great Migration, such as Arlington, Mariners Harbor, and New Brighton. Although the black community of Staten Island is mostly dispersed throughout the North Shore of the Island, there are several African Americans living on the South Shore.

West African

There is at least one community of West Africans in New York, concentrated in Le Petit Senegal in Harlem, Manhattan. The enclave is situated on 116th Street between St. Nicholas and 8th Avenues, and is home to a large number of Francophone West Africans.

An enclave of Liberians developed in Staten Island at the end of the 20th century, following the turbulent Liberian Civil War.

Caribbean

According to the 2010 US Census data on brooklyn.com there are approximately 370,000 (16.4%) Caribbean descendants in Brooklyn. That figure includes persons who identify as Dominican (3.3%), but does not include the (7.4%) Puerto Rican population. Including Puerto Ricans, there are approximately 560,000 (23.8%) persons of Caribbean descent in Brooklyn. Similar, but not identical demographics in America exist in Miami, but there are fewer people of Cuban descent in New York.

Guyanese, Surinamese, Jamaican, and Trinidadian New York City has large Guyanese, Surinamese, and Trinidadian communities, which not only includes Afro-Caribbeans, but also Indo-Caribbeans; Indo-Guyanese, Indo-Surinamese, Indo-Jamaican, and Indo-Trinidadian (Indo-Caribbean Americans). The largest one is in Ozone Park, Queens, on the area located in between 101st and Liberty Avenues; this neighborhood extends to Richmond Hill, along Liberty Avenue between Lefferts Boulevard and the Van Wyck Expressway. Guyanese and Trinidadians in New York City number around 227,582 .

Indo-Guyanese, Indo-Jamaican, and, Indo-Surinamese, Indo-Trinidadians originated in India. After the abolition of slavery, and formerly enslaved Blacks refused to continue working for their former owners on the plantations, South Asians were brought to Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and other parts of the Caribbean to work as indentured servants. These South Asians were mostly Hindu, but there were also Muslims, and Christians who were brought from India. A majority of these South Asians spoke Bhojpuri or Caribbean Hindustani. The descendants of these indentured servants later immigrated to New York City and to other places around the world, such as Toronto. In NYC, they mostly live in Richmond Hill and Ozone Park, which have many Hindu, Muslim, and Christian people.

Afro-Guyanese, Afro-Surinamese and Afro-Trinidadians live in neighborhoods like Canarsie or Flatbush in Brooklyn. However, a majority of the Jamaican population is Black, as Indo-Jamaicans form an extremely small minority.

The largest population of Jamaican Americans in the United States can be found in New York State. About 3.5% of the population of Brooklyn is of Jamaican heritage. In 1655, Jamaica was captured by the British, who brought African slaves in large numbers to work on plantations. The African slaves were emancipated in 1838, and owners starting paying wages to workers, who were now free to immigrate to the United States. Many Jamaicans immigrated in the years following 1944, when the United States economy was rebuilding from World War II, seeing opportunity. After 1965, when immigration quotas were lifted, Jamaican immigration skyrocketed again.

Jamaican neighborhoods include Queens Village and Jamaica in Queens; Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush in Brooklyn, and Wakefield, Williamsbridge and Tremont in the Bronx.

Haitian According to the 2000 census, there are about 200,000 Haitians/Haitian Americans in Brooklyn, showing that it is home to the largest number of Haitian immigrants in New York City. The neighborhood that has the largest Haitian community in New York is Flatbush. The 2010 US Census indicates that 3% of Brooklynites are of Haitian descent. On Flatbush Avenue, Nostrand Avenue and Church Avenue it is possible to find Haitian businesses and restaurants. Other prominent Haitian neighborhoods include Prospect Heights, Bensonhurst, Park Slope, East Flatbush, Lefferts Gardens, Bushwick, Canarsie, Midwood, Crown Heights, Flatlands and Kensington in Brooklyn as well as Springfield Gardens, South Jamaica, Hollis, Queens Village, Cambria Heights, Laurelton and Rosedale in Queens.

South, East and Southeast Asian

South Asian Bangladeshi , there are more than 74,000 Bangladeshis in New York City, a majority of whom reside in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. The Bangladeshis in New York tend to form enclaves in neighborhoods predominantly populated by Indian Americans. These enclaves include one in Kensington, featuring Bangladeshi grocers, hairdressers, and halal markets. Kensington's enclave was formed in the mid-1990s as a small community of Bangladeshi shops. Bangladeshis have tried to leave a permanent legacy, making a failed attempt to rename McDonald Avenue after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh which was not backed by the surrounding residents of that area, they however within themselves have nicknamed the area Bangla Town.

The largest Bangladeshi enclave is on 73rd Street in Jackson Heights, which they share with the Indian, Pakistani and Filipinos of that area. As well as one on Hillside Avenue in Queens, and one in Parkchester. As well as living alongside the Indians, Bangladeshis own many of the Indian restaurants in Brooklyn and Queens.

Indian

Indian Americans are another group that has settled in New York City, forming a few different ethnic enclaves. One of these is called "Curry Row" and is in the East Village, Manhattan, centered on 6th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues, another is called "Curry Hill" or "Little India", centered on Lexington Avenue between 26th and 31st Streets, and another is in Jackson Heights, Queens, centered on 74th Street between Roosevelt and 37th Avenue.

Richmond Hill is another "Little India" community. This area has the largest Sikh population in the New York City area. It is also known as "Little Punjab". There is also a "Little Indo-Caribbean" community in Richmond Hill with many Indo-Caribbean Americans.

Some of the region's main centers of Indian culture are located in central New Jersey, particularly in Middlesex County. In Edison, New Jersey, ethnic Asian Indians represent more than 28% of the population,DP-1 - Profile of General Population and Housing Characteristics: 2010 for Edison township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States Census Bureau. Accessed December 25, 2011. the highest percentage of any place in the United States with more than 1,000 residents identifying their ancestry.Asian Indian Communities, EPodunk. Accessed October 5, 2011. The Oak Tree Road area, which crosses through Edison and Iselin is a growing cultural hub with high concentrations of Indian stores and restaurants.