Author Ed Morales, proudly displaying his Nuyorican roots, submits a most eloquent reflection on New York’s historical role in the Western Hemispheric island chain — economically and culturally:

As is the case in the Caribbean, New York repeats itself in slightly different versions on each island, each borough. Its rivers make strangers of Bronxites and Brooklynites. It is diverse almost beyond comprehension. Its architectural face changes daily. Its symbols unite all faiths and political points of view, albeit sometimes in a messy way.

New York is also a place whose hybrid culture is constantly being changed by the tides of humanity that flow through it, from borough to borough, even neighborhood to neighborhood. And the islands of the Caribbean have always played a critical role in that process.

New York’s Caribbean roots go back to the days of New Amsterdam and the Dutch trading empire. Peter Stuyvesant, the famous last mayor of the Dutch colony, came to the job after serving as the commander of Dutch political and military operations in the Caribbean, based in Curaçao.

And in “The Island at the Center of the World,” Russell Shorto reminds us, “Manhattan began its rise as an international port not in the 18th century, as the Port of New York, but in the 1630’s, as a cog in the circle of trade moving from the Netherlands to western Africa to Brazil and the Caribbean, then to New Amsterdam, and so back to Europe.”

That Caribbean influence withered, as the English ousted the Dutch and the Americans threw out the English, followed by the great European immigrations of the 19th century. But after the Spanish-American war of 1898, which made the United States the dominant power in the Caribbean, an influx of immigrants — from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba and Puerto Rico — rekindled New York’s island spirit.

I am convinced that when my forebears came to this city, they felt that spirit lurking. Maybe not while shivering atop tenement rooftops while sticking out their tongues to catch their first mysterious snowflake. Maybe not the first time they heard the el rumbling over their heads and thought that the sky was falling.

But I do know how comfortable they must have felt when the tide was running and the wind flew in from the sea and the tang of salt flooded the air. I know because that is how I feel.

Through geography, politics, and socioeconomic fluctuations, New York was destined from the start to be anything but homogenous.