WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600
and they speak almost 150 different languages.

00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:04.404
No racial or ethnic group is a majority here.

00:00:04.404 --> 00:00:08.108
There may be other neighborhoods

00:00:08.108 --> 00:00:10.176
with even more foreign-born residents,

00:00:10.176 --> 00:00:13.646
but only here do we find so many different cultures,

00:00:13.646 --> 00:00:17.851
nationalities, and ethnicities all in one place.

00:00:17.851 --> 00:00:19.853
I know that, you know, I'm from Madras,

00:00:19.853 --> 00:00:21.287
the southern part of India.

00:00:21.287 --> 00:00:25.025
My parents live there and my grandparents live there.

00:00:25.025 --> 00:00:26.226
My mum's from South Korea.

00:00:26.226 --> 00:00:32.032
And on my father's side, I am German, Irish, English,

00:00:32.032 --> 00:00:34.167
and I think a little bit of Native American,

00:00:34.167 --> 00:00:36.136
but that part I'm not sure.

00:00:36.136 --> 00:00:37.470
My great-grandfather was Puerto Rican

00:00:37.470 --> 00:00:40.106
and his parents were Puerto Rican and so on and so forth.

00:00:40.106 --> 00:00:44.177
So, as far as I know, we've always been Puerto Rican.

00:00:44.177 --> 00:00:46.713
And I feel connected to that. And I ... when I look in the mirror I see that

00:00:46.713 --> 00:00:49.182
and I see my grandmother and my great-grandmother.

00:00:49.182 --> 00:00:51.184
It's something that I cherish and it's something

00:00:51.184 --> 00:00:54.020
that I'm very protective of.

00:00:54.020 --> 00:00:56.523
So you have Eastern Europeans.

00:00:56.523 --> 00:00:57.290
You have Hispanics.

00:00:57.290 --> 00:00:58.324
You have Turkish.

00:00:58.324 --> 00:00:59.993
You have Arabic.

00:00:59.993 --> 00:01:00.727
I like that.

00:01:00.727 --> 00:01:03.396
I like that very much.

00:01:03.396 --> 00:01:11.538
A 2001 study measured diversity using a simple idea.

00:01:11.538 --> 00:01:14.407
How likely is it that two randomly selected people have

00:01:14.407 --> 00:01:16.242
different backgrounds?

00:01:16.242 --> 00:01:20.180
In their study, Queens scored highest in the United States.

00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:23.416
As the most diverse community in the most diverse country

00:01:23.416 --> 00:01:26.553
in the world, it's a fair claim.

00:01:26.553 --> 00:01:28.822
But even if there is no way to prove

00:01:28.822 --> 00:01:31.925
that it's the most diverse place in the world, Queens, New York,