Newcomer in North Beach

I stepped onto Columbus Avenue with a simple idea of what to expect from the North Beach neighborhood; a neighborhood nicknamed "Little Italy" seems fairly open and shut as far as first impressions go, right?
The red, white, and green stickers that wrapped around the street posts guided me through Italian restaurants and European bakeries, and voices of romantic languages mixed together through the air as i wandered around soaking up this "old-world" neighborhood.
My outsider perspective of the "Italian community" was validated upon my first conversations with shop workers and residents, most of which would shoo me off to Molinari's, a North Beach deli that has been around for over a hundred years, or Caffe Trieste, a North Beach landmark know for it's traditional Italian roots. Many people seemed to think that I wanted to keep the "Italian" label on the neighborhood, and attempted to shy away from my questions.
But not all of them got away: Through my interviews I discovered that this colorful community is entire rainbow of cultures, ethnicities, and people.
I found that through talking to people who weren't Italian, that this community is made up of a lot of other people too: the accents that came through during my interviews, the individual histories i got from the residents, and just opening my eyes to realize that amongst all the Italian aspects of the neighborhood were several other cultures intertwined and connected, side by side. Who would have thought you'd see a Thai restaurant in "Little Italy"? Or that you'd find a taqueria next door to a rustic-looking delicatessen?
I realized that what makes North Beach a neighborhood of its own isn't the fact that it's historically Italian, but that it is a melting pot of culture. This mordern North Beach is a place to be explored, and I am excited to see more of the traditional celebration of its Italian community as well as experience what else it has to offer to the urban San Francisco of today.