Flushing is a neighborhood located in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood has long served a cultural mix of residents including Chinese, Korean, and Hispanic ethnicities, and there’s a wide range of culturally diverse storefront signs in Flushing. In Flushing, we can see a lot of bilingual signs where the Chinese and English languages are both being used in most storefront signs. However, compared with the English words on the signs, Chinese characters are the main part. This is because over half of the populations in Flushing are Chinese immigrants, and Chinese- speaking residents, so the store signs are looking to target the majority. Some images below show examples of storefront signs with mainly Chinese characters on them. The most visible aspect of the sign is the Chinese character on the top, and it only provides the business name and the location details in English. Also, the font size of the Chinese characters is larger than the English details. Other signs only present the address and telephone number labeled in English with the name entirely in Chinese. 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. The business owners tried to attract more Chinese-speaking residents than other ethnic backgrounds. Some signs use the color red and yellow because they are significant in Chinese culture, the Chinese flag is entirely consistent with red and yellow. Red symbolizes luck, and happiness and yellow symbolize power. The use of those two colors is reflected in the signs here in Flushing, making Chinese culture more visually present.
Besides Chinese culture, the second largest ethnic group in the community are Koreans. 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. The signs here are bilingual with both Korean characters and English words. The color white is a popular theme in Korean signs and is the fundamental color of the South Korean flag. From the storefront signs, it provides Korean characters in large font with only a few English details taking up little space on the bottom of the signs.
