Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Identities Across Scales
The way we make sense of ourselves in an increas-
ingly globalized world is complex. We have different
identities at different scales: individual, local, regional,
national, and global. At the individual scale, we may see
ourselves as a daughter, a brother, a golfer, or a student.
At the local scale, we may see ourselves as members of
a community, leaders of a campus organization, or resi-
dents of a neighborhood. At the regional scale, we may
see ourselves as Southerners, as north Georgians, as
Atlantans, as Yankees living in the South, or as migrants
from another region of the world. At the national scale,
we may see ourselves as American, as college students,
or as members of a national political party. At the global
scale, we may see ourselves as Western, as educated, as
relatively wealthy, or as free.
One way to view an individual's various identities is
to treat them as nested, one inside of the other; the appro-
priate identity is revealed at the appropriate scale. In this
vein, each larger territorial extent of geographic space has
its own corresponding set of identities. Today, more geog-
raphers see identities as fl uid, intertwined, and context
dependent rather than as neatly nested. Identities affect
each other in and across scales, and the ways places and
peoples interact across scales simultaneously affect identi-
ties within and across scales.
New immigrants to a city often move to low-income
areas that are being gradually abandoned by older immi-
grant groups. This process is called
succession
. In New
York, Puerto Ricans moved into the immigrant Jewish
neighborhood of East Harlem in the early twentieth cen-
tury, successively assuming a dominant presence in the
neighborhood. With the infl ux of Puerto Ricans, new
names for the neighborhood developed, and today it is
frequently called Spanish Harlem or El Barrio (meaning
“neighborhood” in Spanish). As the Puerto Rican popu-
lation grew, new storefronts appeared, catering to the
Puerto Rican population, such as travel agencies (special-
izing in fl ights to Puerto Rico), specialty grocery stores,
and dance and music studios.
Like the immigrant fl ow from Puerto Rico, the
large-scale immigrant fl ow from the Dominican Repub-
lic that began in 1965 resulted in a distinct neighborhood
and cultural landscape. Dominican immigrants landed in
the Washington Heights/Inwood neighorhood of upper
Manhattan, a neighborhood previously occupied by
immigrant Jews, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and
Cubans. Miyares reports that although a Jewish cultural
landscape persists, including a Jewish university, syna-
gogues, and Jewish delicatessens, the cultural landscape
of Washington Heights is clearly Dominican—from
store signs in Spanish to the presence of the colors of the
Dominican fl ag (Fig. 5.7).
New York is unique because of the sheer number and
diversity of its immigrant population. The city's cultural
landscape refl ects its unique population. As Miyares explains:
The Scale of New York City
One way scale affects identity is by helping to shape what
is seen—what identity is apparent to others and to our-
selves at different scales. To demonstrate this idea, we
can shift our focus from residential segregation in all
large metropolitan areas in North America to one enor-
mous metropolitan area, New York City. New York has
a greater number and diversity of immigrants than any
other city in the United States. At the scale of New York,
we can see how identities change so that we are no longer
simply Hispanic (as the Census enumerates us); we are
Puerto Rican or Mexican or Dominican from a certain
neighborhood.
The point is that the people in New York are much
more diverse than the box on census forms labeled
“Hispanic” would suggest. In a chapter called “Chang-
ing Latinization of New York City,” geographer Inés
Miyares highlights the importance of Caribbean cul-
ture to New York. The majority of New York's 2.2 mil-
lion “Hispanics” are Puerto Ricans and Dominicans
(together accounting for over 65 percent of Hispanics
in the city). As the majority Hispanic culture, Puerto
Ricans and Dominicans have had a profound impact on
New York's cultural landscape.
Since the overwhelming majority of New York City's
population lives in apartments as opposed to houses, it is
often diffi cult to discern the presence of an ethnic group by
looking at residential housescapes. However every neigh-
borhood has a principal commercial street, and this is
often converted into an ethnic main street. It is commonly
through business signs that immigrants make their pres-
ence known. Names of businesses refl ect place names from
the home country or key cultural artifacts. Colors of the
national fl ag are common in store awnings, and the fl ags
themselves and national crests abound in store décor. Key
religious symbols are also common. Immigrants are so
prevalent and diverse that coethnic proprietors use many
kinds of visual clues to attract potential customers.
Throughout the process, new immigrants need not
change the facades of apartment buildings to refl ect their
culture. Instead, many new immigrants focus their atten-
tion on the streetscapes, creating businesses to serve their
community and refl ect their culture.
The Caribbean presence in the city is so strong that
some people think that new Hispanic migrants to New
York City simply have to adapt to Caribbean cultural
