NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s aggressive policies on immigration helped win him the New Hampshire Republican primary Tuesday night, but back in Jamaica, Queens, and the melting pot of a neighborhood where he grew up, his views are causing a lot of head scratching.

And, among some, distress.

Trump has made waves by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, saying he’ll build a wall along the Mexican border, and pledging to bar Muslims from moving to the United States.

What perplexes many here, in a center of diversity, is how he came to have such anti-immigrant views.

Just a couple of blocks from Trump’s childhood home, along the main drag of Hillside Avenue, storefronts reflect a blending of cultures in a neighborhood where only a third of the residents are white, according to the city’s health department. About 38 percent are foreign born.

A restaurant serves pizza and curries. A Chinese restaurant is named to invite Muslims – Halal Dynasty.

Amin Sharif and Tahir Ansari said they were trying to promote greater understanding of Muslims as they passed out copies of the Quran outside the 179th Street subway station.

The word Allah “is a universal name for God and does not refer to an exclusively ‘Islamic’ God,” said their pamphlet.

Muslims are not the enemy, Sharif insisted. He noted that the first country to recognize the United States after its independence from Britain was Morocco – a Muslim nation.

“We’re Americans, and we want what’s best for America,” Sharif said, resenting any implication that he does not. 

“What Trump is saying is bad for the country,” Ansari chimed in. “It’s dividing us when we’re facing threats from abroad.”

Trump’s view of the Jamaica section of Queens while growing up was different than what he might see there today.

He lived, until he was sent off to military school at age 13, in an enclave apart from the rest of the neighborhood and an area that still has a different feel from the cacophony of cultures on Hillside Avenue.

Turn the corner from Hillside Avenue’s tree-less commercial strip at Midland Parkway, and there is a brick monument marking the entrance to Jamaica Estates, a tree-lined enclave of Tudor-style homes. Signs warn that the neighborhood is patrolled by private security.

Not far away is a two-story, brick mansion with white columns that neighbors say is the house where Trump’s father, Fred, raised the family.

Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Drumpf, had his name misspelled Trumpf by immigration officers, according to last year’s biography, “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success.” His son Fred shortened the family name and made a fortune building housing for returning World War II veterans.

Fred Trump instilled in Donald and his other children a work ethic and required them to have jobs, according to the biography. But, when it snowed, a chauffeured limousine took Donald around on his paper route.

Donald Trump’s views have attracted some followers in his old neighborhood. He is saying what needs to be said, according to David Rivkin, who was digging out his car near Trump’s former home after a recent snow.

But it’s the minority opinion these days in Jamaica.

About ten blocks from Trump’s old home is a brick building with a jade-colored dome and pillars.

It was just after the third of five daily calls to prayer on a recent weekday at the Masjid Al-Mamoor Jamaica Muslim Center, and only a handful of people were still knelt in prayer. Among them was Zawad Ahmed, 20, one of the leaders of the center’s youth group.

“What I find scary is there are so many Americans who responding to what he’s saying,” Ahmed said. “It makes me feel isolated.” 

Near the center’s entrance, a poster advertises Friday night programs for college, high school and junior high students.

“Thank Allah, It’s Friday,” it says.

Leading a visitor to a basement restroom, Ahmed quips, “People think we’re down here making bombs.”

Ahmed moved to the United Stastes from Bangledesh at age 10. He works as an assistant to autism therapists.

He said those who have concerns about the faith should, “Ask a Muslim.”

He acknowledged that’s easier to do here, in Queens, than in most parts of the country. 

“Here, chances are your lawyer or your doctor is a Muslim,” he said. “Or, if not, your cab driver or your Uber driver.

State Assemblyman David Weprin, who grew up a few blocks from the Trumps’ home, said the neighborhood then was far less diverse. Back then, it was mostly composed of Italians, Irish and Jews, he said in a phone interview, although they were still immigrants or descendants of immigrants.

More recently the Bangledeshi population in New York, concentrated in neighborhoods such as Jamaica, swelled from 5,000 to 28,000 in the 1990s, then reached 57,000 in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Weprin said he grew up with different feelings about immigration than Donald Trump. For example, he supports a path to citizenship for those now living illegally in the United States.

“We are richer for it,” he said of immigration.

Weprin, at 59, is a decade Trump’s junior, and he doesn’t remember much about the future billionaire and presidential nominee growing up.

He doesn’t really know how they came to have such different beliefs, but he suspects that Trump is playing to the crowd.

“He’s running for the Republican nomination. He’s reading the polls, and he’s saying what’s going to help him in the polls,” said Weprin, a delegate for Democratic contender Hillary Clinton.

The Trump campaign did not respond to an inquiry. 

Even back in Jamaica Estates, residents of Midland Parkway are uncomfortable discussing Trump.

A woman speaking through the intercom at his old home said she had nothing to say.

A man wearing a yarmulke at a neighboring home closed his door when asked about the street’s famous son.

“He hasn’t been in the neighborhood for 40 years,” the man said, as if to say that Trump doesn’t represent the views of the neighborhood.

Another man, in his 20s, hurrying past Trump’s former home on his way to a martial arts class, described himself as a conservative and said he finds merit in the points that Trump makes about illegal immigration, or the possibility of terrorists blending in with Syrian refugees.

“But so many of the things he says, are so stupid,” he said. “I’m undecided in him.”

Kery Murakami is the Washington, D.C., reporter for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at kmurakami@cnhi.com