One of America’s more recent immigrants, the Nepali, Tibetan and Bhutanese, have shaped a piece of America in their own image in Jackson Heights, Queens.
In a land offering amenities and freedom absent in the societies they came from, they have fused two apposite worlds: America and the shangrilaic but poor Himalaya. The result is a Himalayan vortex, replete with momo, dal bhat and ema datse eateries (haven for New Yorker foodies), Buddhist monasteries and Hindu temples, and a way of caring for their fellow men and women.
This portrayal of the Himalayan immigrants makes a case for a brand of diversity against the growing clamour for greater insularity and exclusionism.