New York City is home to the second-largestTaiwanese American population, after theLos Angeles metropolitan area, California, enumerating an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 individuals as of 2020.
The neighborhood ofFlushing, Queens, is one of the largest and fastest growing Taiwanese enclaves outside Asia.Main Street and the area to its west, particularly alongRoosevelt Avenue, have become the primary nexus of Flushing's Taiwanese community. However, this community continues to expand southeastward alongKissena Boulevard and northward beyondNorthern Boulevard.Taiwanese began the surge ofimmigration in the 1980s. Flushing originally started off asLittle Taipei orLittle Taiwan due to the large Taiwanese population. Due to the dominance at the time of working classCantonese immigrants ofManhattan's Chinatown including its poor housing conditions, the more affluent Taiwanese population could not relate to them socioeconomically and settled in Flushing.
Later on, when other groups of non-Cantonese Chinese, mostly speaking Mandarin started arriving into New York City, like the Taiwanese, they could not relate to Manhattan's then dominant Cantonese Chinatown, as a result they mainly settled with Taiwanese to be aroundMandarin Chinese speakers. Later, Flushing's Chinatown would become the main center of different Chinese regional groups and cultures in New York City. By 1990, Asians constituted 41% of the population of the core area of Flushing, with Chinese in turn representing 41% of the Asian population.[1] However, ethnic Chinese, including Taiwanese, are constituting an increasingly dominant proportion of the Asian population as well as of the overall population in Flushing and its Chinatown. A 1986 estimate by the Flushing Chinese Business Association approximated 60,000 Chinese in Flushing alone.[2] Mandarin Chinese, commonly spoken by Taiwanese, has become thelingua franca in New York City's ethnic Chinese communities.[3]
Elmhurst, Queens, also has a large and growing Taiwanese community.[4] Previously a small area with Chinese shops on Broadway between 81st Street and Cornish Avenue, this new Chinatown has now expanded to 45th Avenue and Whitney Avenue. Since 2000, thousands of Taiwanese Americans have migrated intoWhitestone, Queens (白石), given the sizeable presence of the neighboring Flushing Chinatown, and have continued their expansion eastward in Queens and into neighboring affluent and highly educatedNassau County (拿騷縣) onLong Island (長島).[5][6][7]
Facilitating migration from Taiwan to New York City areChina Airlines andEVA Air, which flynon-stop betweenTaipeiTaoyuan International Airport andJohn F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens.
As of 2016[update], the two largest Taiwanese airlines have provided freeshuttle services to and from JFK International Airport in New York City for customers based inNew Jersey.
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