U.S. Ethnic Distribution
• Regional Distribution of Ethnicities
– Consider role of geography in distribution
– Distance Decay Theory
• Closest place that meets their needs
• Example: Mexicans in border states in southwest
– Immigrant Gateway States
• Mostly coastal or border states
• Nearest shore to origin of immigrants
– Example: East Asians to California
Hispanics
• Border states with Mexico
– California, Texas, New Mexico
– 50% of all Hispanics in California and Texas
alone
– Most are Mexicans, some Central Americans
– Anomaly: Illinois has high number of
Mexicans due to meat packing industry in
Chicago
• New York – Puerto Ricans
• Florida - Cubans
African Americans
• Still highly clustered in the South
• Great Migration 1900 to 1950s
– Large number of African Americans moved
north and west to find factory work
– 95% of African Americans in South in 1900,
but only about 50% today
– Today still 1/3 of population of population of
Mississippi and ¼ population of many other
southern states
– 12% of all U.S. residents
Asians
• 40% of population of Hawaii
• ½ of all Asian Americans live in California
– 12% of California’s population
• Chinese largest group – 23% of all Asian
Americans, most in California
• Indians 19%, most in New York
• Filipinos 18%
• Korean, Vietnamese 10%
• Japanese 7%
Native Americans
• Native Alaskans – Inuit (Eskimo)
– 13% of Alaska’s population
• Lower 48 states
– Most live on reservations
– Largest Navajo of Arizona and New Mexico
• “The Big Reservation” – most of NE Arizona
– Also Sioux of Montana and Dakotas
• 10% of South Dakota’s population
– Oklahoma – Cherokee
– New Mexico 10% Native American
Ethnicities in Cities
• Highly clustered within cities
– European ethnic neighborhoods
– Later generations moved out, assimilated
• Chicago
– African Americans on south and west sides
– Hispanics on northwest and southwest sides
• Los Angeles
– African Americans – south
– Hispanics – east
– Asians – north and outer east areas
African American Migration
• Forced Migration from Africa
– Labor needed for plantation agriculture in
warm/wet climate areas
– Native Americans died from European
diseases
• Triangular Slave Trade
– Ships from Europe with cloth and trade goods
– Traded for slaves and gold in west Africa
– Traded slaves for sugar and rum in Caribbean
Slave ship:
Many Africans
died in the long
journey across
the Atlantic
known as the
“Middle
Passage.”
In the New
World most
went to the
Caribbean and
Brazil, only
about 10%
were taken to
the U.S. South.
The Great Migration
• After slavery abolished in 1865 most freed
slaves became sharecroppers
– Rented land from whites, heavy debts
– Reduced demand for farm labor – machinery
• 1910-1920 first large migration north
– Went to New York up today’s route I-95
– Went to Detroit and Cleveland up Rte 61/66
• 1940-1950s second wave, now to west
– Went from Texas to California for WWII jobs
Race Differs from Ethnicity
• Race and ethnicity are often confused
– Race refers to biological features, appearance
– Ethnicity refers to cultural characteristics
– Race is the basis for racism, the belief that
one race is superior to another
– Both race and ethnicity can be the basis for
discrimination (unequal treatment)
• The “Separate but Equal” doctrine
– Segregation: the spatial separation of races
– Plessey vs. Ferguson case -
Race Relations in the U.S.
• The “Separate but Equal” doctrine
– Segregation: the spatial separation of races
– Plessey vs. Ferguson case 1896
• Supreme Court permitted separate train cars for
African Americans, led to separate schools and
public facilities, even separate neighborhoods
• Jim Crow Laws, until the Civil Rights Movement
– Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KS
• Supreme Court ruled that separate schools were
inherently unequal, segregation was unconstitutional
• Desegregation or integration, “white flight”,
expansion of black ghettos
Example of Baltimore during desegregation:
White flight and the expansion of the African American ghetto.
The term “ghetto” was used to refer to poor Jewish
segregated settlements in Europe.
It was later adopted in the United States as a term for poor
African American neighborhoods.
Ethnicities into Nation States
• Nationality: a group of people who share legal
attachment and personal allegiance to a
particular country
• Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nationality,
or to a nation
• Self-determination: the right to govern
themselves
– Many ethnicities seek self-determination
• Nation-States: a country whose territory
corresponds to that of a particular ethnicity and
has been transformed into a nationality
– Past 200 years creation of many nation-states
Multinational States
• Soviet Union – the largest multinational
state
– 15 republics based on 15 largest ethnicities
– All are now independent countries
•
•
•
•
•
3 Baltic states
3 European states
5 Central Asian states
3 Caucasus states
Russia now the largest multinational state
– Still 21 national republics based on largest ethnicities
– Recognizes 121 separate ethnicities, now 12% of Russia
Combining and Dividing
Ethnicities
• Partition of South Asia
– India: Hinduy
– Pakistan: Moslem
• Split into East and West Pakistan by India
• East Pakistan later renamed Bangladesh in 1971
– Named after Bengali, largest ethnicity
– Kashmir and Punjab
• Disputed between India and Pakistan
• Religious unrest, violence, Moslem majority
• Sikhs the majority in Punjab want their own state
Sri Lanka
• Formerly Ceylon, island nation off India’s east
coast, known for tea
• Sinhalese 74% of population, Buddhists, speak
IndoEuropean lanaguage, southern part of
island
• Tamils 18% of population, Hindus, speak Tamil,
a Dravidian language, northern part of island
– Tamil Tigers, rebel group, 60,000 died so far
– Recent truce after Tamil leader killed, peace?
Southwest Asia
• Afghanistan
– Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, and others
• First Soviet Union then United States trying to control civil war
between ethnicities for power
• Iran
– Shiite Moslem, revolution 1979
• Persecution of non-Moslems
• Iran-Iraq war, U.S. backed Iraq, anti-U.S. sentiment
• Iraq
– U.S. role in Middle East, oil, Gulf and Iraq Wars
– Kurds seek self-determination, hoped U.S. would help
• Kurdish population in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria
Ethnic Cleansing
• More powerful ethnic group forcibly
removes a less powerful group in order to
create an ethnically homogenous region
– Not just soldiers, but whole populations
• Examples
– African ethnic conflicts – see map
– Balkan Peninsula – see map
Balkanization
• Breaking apart along ethnic lines
– Threat to peace in multi-ethnic regions
– Named for Balkan peninsula
– Often involves ethnic cleansing
• Break-up of former Yugoslavia
– Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Serbs and Croats tried to annex areas with their
ethnicities, ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Moslems
– Kosovo
• Serbs tried to remove the ethnic Albanian majority