By Andrew Tilghman

HE STREETS AND STORES ALONG THE NO. 7 SUBWAY ROUTE are filled with the faces of the newest New Yorkers, hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have uprooted their lives and landed in the heart of Queens.

Step off at any stop and you will find several polyglot neighborhoods stirring with the sights and sounds of new arrivals from places such as Colombia, India and China, to name just a few. Absorbing these disparate cultures, Queens is redefined by their religions, languages, traditions and ways of life.

Some 400,000 people take the train every day — most of them multilingual, most of them new Americans, most of them still straddling the cultural chasm between America and the deeply rooted traditions of their homelands.

A ride on the No. 7 train is a short one: no more than 40 minutes. But along this trail, countless cultures converge. Take, for instance, Bowne Street in Flushing, where you can find a synagogue, an Afghani mosque, a Korean Presbyterian Church and a Sikh temple — all within a stone’s throw of each other.

In Sunnyside, recent Turkish émigrés have converted a storefront into a mosque, one of many places across the city where the Islamic call to prayer sounds five times a day. In East Elmhurst and Corona, a vast barrio latino is ground-zero for the city’s growing South American culture. This is just one of many places where Spanish has become the dominant language.

In Jackson Heights, South Asian teenagers who are primarily from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, party to the sounds of Bhangra music, a blend of traditional Punjabi folk tunes mixed with hip-hop American trends. The sounds of man-made drumbeats from the East infuse with digitized simulations from the West.

The No. 7 train has become a symbol of modern immigration. The train's role in the history of American immigration was recognized last year when the federal government named it one of 16 "Millennium Trails," putting the subway line in the same category with such auspicious paths as the one Lewis and Clark blazed across the West. During a previous tide of immigration, at the turn of the 20^th century, the No. 7 train served the throngs of Irish, Italians and eastern Europeans who came through Ellis Island. Many of them poured out of the shantytowns of Manhattan’s Lower East Side and moved to the row houses of Queens.

History suggests that the children of these new immigrants will slowly merge with the mainstream acculturated Americans. Some of these immigrants are known as "the 1.5 Generation": those who were born abroad but arrived here before adolescence. For them, the cross-cultural currents in Queens instill an urban-American heritage they share with no one except others like themselves.

The people who live and work in western Queens are the vanguard of the ongoing American experiment. As in years past, some are driven here by political or religious problems in their native countries. But these days, most new arrivals probably come here for economic reasons — to share in America's great wealth at the dawn of a new millennium. Some might come here as doctors, bankers and high-tech specialists. Others start out here as busboys, taxi drivers or nannies. Either way, they are likely to harbor the same hopes for the future that have motivated humanity's mobility for centuries.

If you take a ride on the No. 7 train to visit these bustling commercial strips and the quiet, tree-lined side streets, you are certain to find that — OK, let's just say it — the American Dream is alive and well.