There are many linguistic landscapes that exist in New York City. Most linguistic landscapes in New York are created for the ethnic population which resides within them. For this linguistic landscapes project, I explored an area of Queens called “Flushing”. Flushing is a neighborhood located in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Downtown Flushing is the largest urban center in Queens and home to the second-largest Chinatown in New York City. The area is home to numerous ethnic groups including Chinese, Korean, and Hispanic with a total population of 180,607. There’s a wide range of culturally diverse storefront signs that reflect the different groups within the neighborhood in Flushing. Some major themes about the linguistic landscape of Flushing include monolingual and bilingual signs that show cultural diversity, color themes, various delicious foods, and heavy density signs.
First, let’s talk about signs written in mostly Chinese. We can see a lot of monolingual signs written in the Chinese language around Flushing because of the heavily populated Chinese culture that thrives in the area. There is a total population of 180,607 in Flushing where 69% is Asian and 16% Hispanic. Mainland Chinese immigrants are the majority of the Asian ethnic group. This provides that over half of the populations in Flushing are Chinese immigrants, and Chinese- speaking residents, so the store signs are looking to attract the majority. Figure 2 shows store signs of “Kaifeng Snaking”, “Taiwanese cuisine”, “Guizhou Noodles” in Chinese characters only because it will be more visible to be seen by Chinese speaking customers. The business owners tried to attract more Chinese-speaking residents than other ethnic backgrounds.
Bilingual signs are very common on Main street and Roosevelt Avenue. We can see a lot of bilingual signs where both Chinese and English languages are being used in most storefront signs. However, compared with the English words on the signs, Chinese characters are the main part. Figure 3 shows the business name of “Industrial And Commercial Bank of China”, in English. The most visible aspect of the sign is the Chinese character on the top and the font size of the Chinese characters is larger than the English. Figure 4 shows a fast food restaurant “Popeyes” has the name in English, but “Popeyes” uses both Chinese and English at the right of the restaurant to attract more customers. According to these, we can see that the Chinese language is more dominant and heavily used in Flushing compared to the English language. This is because there are more Chineses speaking residents near the area so the stores in that area provide services more towards the Chinese community.
In some areas of Flushing, the establishment of Korean signs are very common, especially on Union Street (the next street over from Main Street) and Northern Boulevard. Since Chinese is the largest and Korean is the second-largest ethnic group in the community. With a current total Korean population of 64,107, 36% of Flushing’s population, the number of Korean immigrants is ever increasing. The signs here are bilingual with both Korean characters and English words. On the storefront signs(Figure 5), we can see Korean characters in large fonts and place right in the center of the sign with a few English details at the bottom of the signs. Most of the posters on the door are in Korean and only the FedEx poster is in English. This shows that businesses in the area are towards serving Korean-speaking residents.
Flushing also has stores with signs that appeal to non-Asians in the community, specifically for Hispanic ethnic groups. According to the immigrant population, 17% speak the Spanish language. Figure 6 shows storefront signs with Spanish words that describe the types of food they provide in the store. English is only used for the store name “Latin Bakery & Restaurant”. The use of Spanish monolingual and bilingual signs is to attract people with a Hispanic or Latino background. Hispanic residents are the minority population compared to Chinese and Korean residents living in Flushing. Like the Chinese people together form Chinatown and Korean communities form Koreatown, Hispanic communities exist as well but are less well-known.
Each store uses different color themes to advertise the service being provided and to try to differentiate themselves from their neighboring businesses. The colors red and yellow are widely used in these signs because they are significant in Chinese culture, red symbolizes luck and happiness, and yellow symbolizes power. Also, the Chinese flag is entirely consistent with red and yellow. The use of those two colors in the signs makes Chinese culture more visually present in Flushing. For Korean storefront signs(Figure 7), the color white is a popular theme because it is the main color of the South Korean flag. White symbolizes purity, innocence, and peace in Korean culture. The white theme used in these signs may be a way of establishing its culture in Flushing. Similar to Chinese signs, Hispanic signs used colors of yellow and red. Spain’s flag is also made up of yellow and red, you can see the flag of Spain in Figure 8. However, the two colors have different meanings in Spanish culture. The colors represent the Spanish tradition of bullfighting, where red represents the blood spilled by the bull whereas yellow represents the sand in the bullfighting arena. Therefore, the use of red and yellow in storefront signs brings out the Hispanic culture in Flushing.
There are many businesses operating in one building, and the number of signs is heavy and dense. Figure 9 shows a building that has twelfth signs posted on the storefront and doesn’t know which one to look at first. Because of the increasing number of new businesses every year, the space in Flushing is expensive and limited, so several businesses are operating in the same buildings, but on different floors or different rooms. Therefore, you can see plenty of small shops, restaurants, and service signs are very close to each other in a cramped area. However, the heavy density of the signs does not have to be viewed negatively because it contributed to the tight-knit community within Flushing. Also, small businesses created more jobs for people in Flushing. Flushing is a busy location with hundreds of small businesses operating every day.
There are many signs about what type of food it serves in restaurants. You can find different Chinese, Korean, Japanese, American, Hispanic restaurant signs in Flushing. One of the main reasons most visitors coming to Flushing is to eat delicious foods. The New World Mall Food Court (Figure 10) is famous for its diversity of Chinese and other Asian cuisines, and you can eat many Asian foods at a cheap price and all different specialties available in one spot. The food court sign is attracting families, teens, and other people in the neighborhood for food. Figure 12 shows the sign of different foods, like” Taiwan beef noodle”, “stinky tofu”, and “gourmet bian dang”. For American food, there are Popeyes, MacDonald, Dunkin Donuts(Figure 11), and more.
Flushing has a cultural mix of residents including Chinese, Korean, and Hispanic ethnicities. There’s a wide range of culturally diverse storefront signs that reflect the different groups within the neighborhood in Flushing. Color themes are used to advertise the service and to differentiate businesses. The heavy density of signs contributes to the diverse community within Flushing.
