Just like bits of fabric are intertwined to make new textiles, Queens Immigrants continue to share common threads that together make a wonderful final product. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen
These students and staff members of Queensborough Community College show off Queens’ diverse heritages. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen
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A World Of Difference
We are a nation of immigrants, with most of us able to trace back the countries our families hailed from – whether it was two centuries or two weeks ago.
As we have shown in this special edition, we have unique ancestry, each with our own history, reasons for immigrating, patterns of migration, troubles and triumphs. Our ability to look past our individual differences and to unite as one – with many smaller flags under one main flag – is a strength that has grown from post-Colonial America through today.
After all, how many of our cars have the flag of one nation as a bumper sticker but an American flag on the antenna? How many of us seek to learn the language of our grandparents as a way of connecting with ancestry that my have been lost along the way? How many of us seek out pilgrimages to the lands our families once called home?
How different is that behavior from the people who today wave a flag of their mother country in one hand and Old Glory in the other?
Isn’t it incredible how similar we are, despite the world of differences that makes us each unique?
