This is about where I live, Sunnyside Queens, an area of United States that over the last 10-years has been judged repeatedly as having the most cultures, languages, religions, and peoples in one geographical area of any other place on earth. This is about what, in my opinion, has truly made this country exceptional, great, and a place that compels people from all over the world to want to come here, to make a better life for themselves, to have a chance to succeed when they and their families never could have in their home countries. After all, why would a young South African want to move to the United States to make something of himself, to become a starry-eyed tech-bro? Why would a man from Kenya want to come here, and have his son become POTUS. Why would the successful woman with a number tattooed on her arm want to escape to the United States and take up residence in a small-town on Lake Erie, by herself, not knowing the language, the culture, the people?

Sunnyside, well, this place is amazing. In 2022, there were approximately 126,000 people in an area that takes up about a half-square mile of space. All these people in such a small space. Part of the three neighborhoods of Sunnyside, Woodside, and Jackson Heights – together making up, as I said earlier, the most diverse place on the planet. Here is what it is like living in this neighborhood of mine… Within a literal, easy 15-minute walk around my apartment… In my opinion, this is what makes the Unites States unique in the world, as shinning hill, a democracy that inspires the best of people from all over the world...

There are two Turkish grocery stores and two restaurants, three Japanese restaurants and a grocery store. An incredibly good Romanian bakery and two Romanian restaurants. Three Himalayan/Nepalese restaurants and two stores. An Egyptian restaurant. Two Thai restaurants (with lots of stores and places of business in Woodside). Multiple Peruvian, Salvadorian, Colombian, Mexican, Paraguayan restaurants and bakeries. A very nice mom-n-pop Korean restaurant. A great Indian restaurant, with another “Indian Chinese” restaurant – the kind of Chinese food served in India, and it ain’t the same as American Chinese! I don’t like it. Italian restaurants owned by Italian natives – really good! Lots of Irish, not just from Irish families who immigrated generations ago, but more recent immigrants from Ireland (like my neighbors), with their own bakeries and a really great deli, and more Irish pubs than you can shake a stick at (oh the Fish-and-Chips at The Lewery!). Really great hipster coffee houses, perfect New York bagel places, and places I really just don’t know what they are. Every summer, the week of the “Taste of Sunnyside” restaurant crawl is spectacular. All within a 15-minute walk, with most just around the corner from my place.

Then, there is the brand spanking new-city of Long Island City neighborhood (Queens) with glass skyscrapers, incredible views of Manhattan, with upscale everything, and young adults (a strong presence of Asian young people, children of parents immigrating here decades ago to make sure their children had a chance in the world) filling the little apartments in all the new gleaming glass skyscrapers. (MOMA’s PS 1 art gallery is there, too.) I can walk there within 15-minutes.

There are four store-front Muslim mosques. A Jewish synagogue at the end of my block. An incredibly huge Korean Presbyterian church, with another big one a couple blocks away, and three more store-front Korean churches. An Episcopal mission. A Reformed Church. Two Roman Catholic churches. Several storefront Hispanic churches. A Romanian Orthodox church. Two hipster Evangelical churches meeting in schools. A large Jehovah Witnesses Assembly Hall (not a small Meeting Hall), with streams of mostly black (African American, West Indian, Haitian, Dominican) and Hispanic members. With Hindu, Buddhist, and Roman Catholic religious stores.

The neighborhood park, a block from me (only a block large), is full of kids on the playground with parents wearing all manner of dress, speaking all manner of languages, and all playing together. They play – they don’t care that they don’t quite understand each other’s words. They learn. The teenagers play basketball and handball. The older men play cards and chess. The Hispanic women have an outdoor Zumba class. The younger singles – straight, gay, and anyone’s guess – have their dogs in the dog-run. Older couples sit on the benches surrounding the park watching the world go by.

Fridays, the Muslim men wear their clothing for services. Women in full burkas – and I mean full. The Nepalese have their own dress. On Romanian Orthodox religious holidays, their best traditional dress. Indian women in absolutely beautiful saris.

I am not exaggerating about any of this. Other’s living in Queens will back me up. This is my everyday life.

This is an immigrant place. The only way this place, this New York City, works is because of the immigrants working alongside the generations and generations of past immigrants who made their way through Ellis Island in New York harbour – the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free – all of these who make up what we know as the United States, located on the North American continent and islands around the world. This is what makes us great!

I well understand the arguments against insecure boarders, and I agree. The government has the right and obligation to secure the boards. Are there illegal immigrants here, who have let their education or travel or tourist visas expire? Yes, like a couple Irish people I know. Are there a lot more Hispanic immigrants who came through our southern boarder over the last few years, unsuspectedly bussed here by the governor of one of our boarder states? Yes. I ministered to some of them when they attended the local Episcopal church in Astoria, Queens, where I was the long-term supply priest a couple years ago. Sometimes, while trying to simply live, they sleep in my neighborhood park overnight before they move on trying to find work. There are a couple who are obviously mentally ill. Who knows what kind of trauma they experienced walking a continent trying to escape violence and poverty, yearning to be free. Are there gangs infiltrating some other neighborhoods and spreading violence and fear (though, fortunately, not mine)? Yes, and the policy and ICE and the FBI are after them, and catch them, and deport them.

Sunnyside is an amazing neighborhood. People living together, side-by-side, shopping together, eating together, playing together, learning together, praying side-by-side. Yes, there are problems. How could there not be? Sometimes just tolerating each other. Sometimes, worse. There is all manner of prejudices and hatreds. How could there not be – we are all humans, and that is part of being human, as sad as it is. But, we live in peace. We are so much more, together.