How exceptional is New York? Migration and multiculturalism in the empire city

This article builds on the 'city as context' framework in analysing the way the unique features of particular cities help in understanding the effects of immigration and resulting cultural diversity. The focus is on New York City and on how recent immigration has transformed the social construction of race and ethnicity and the nature of intergroup relations there. New York's remarkable ethnic and racial diversity, its immigrant history, and institutions have combined to make it a receiving city, in many ways, like no other in the United States. Multiculturalism, it is argued, has evolved there in what might be called a particular New York way.