The borough’s diversity is apparent just by looking down Union Street in Flushing. Tribune photo by Ira Cohen

No two immigrant lives are the same.

We all came here for our own reasons - a new life, a new hope, an American Dream.

And we all landed here in Queens, the most ethnically diverse borough in New York.

As you walk around this borough of nations, be sure to keep you eyes open and your ears perked. You will see the symbols of cultures that may be foreign to you. You will hear languages you do not recognize. You will smell cuisine from a foreign land.
You may even think, just for a moment, that you have slipped into another world.

And you might have. For Queens is like another world unto itself. With all the people, the languages, the skin tones and the artistic endeavors, the cultures blend, the faces become familiar, the aromas and languages common.

We are immigrants. We are diverse. We are Queens.

We are unique individuals - no two the same - who make this an individual land unlike any other. Our immigrant lives are the heartbeat of this borough and make it the shining example of tolerance, acceptance and equality that Lady Liberty, standing in our harbor, has long espoused:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.