What attracts most foreigners to certain American states or cities? Certain people from South and East Asia, Africa, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Australia & New Zealand.
What attracts Black people to Atlanta? Or Irish people to Boston? Or East Asian people to San Francisco?
Forgive me, if I’m going on stereotypes, I’m a British guy.
21 comments
>What attracts Black people to Atlanta? Or Irish people to Boston? Or East Asian people to San Francisco?
That’s…where the boat landed.
What is it with these questions that can be answered by just reading a history book?
Usually followed by a weak-sauce “well, I wanted to ask actual Americas.”
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States?wprov=sfti1
Have at it, OP.
most of the black people in Atlanta are not foreigners lol
I’ve read 10 book on migration patterns to the US and within. It’s a big topic but…
So Black people were in the South because of slavery. We put them there. Many moved to Midwest cities to work in factories there later on. Before that, after the civil war some moved West and did things like being a cowboy. Quite a few also moved just past the South for the jobs in DC.
Irish people in Boston? There was a lot of work there, shipyards, tunnels being built, etc. Sometimes companies actively recruited. Example. Welsh people went to Penn because they were miners and Penn mining companies needed miners. Those Penn companies recruited in Wales for miners. [Many White people refused to work along side Black people so mining jobs weren’t a great fit, so despite having workers, they weren’t the right color.]
San Francisco was founded before there was even good access to the west coast. When they traveled from the east coast to SF, people literally took a ship to Panama, went over land sometimes walking or by donkey, then got on another ship and finished the trip. Maybe Asian people went by boat to San Fran because of jobs. They also were brought (like people from all over the world) by the gold rush. But they were great laborers and worked in mining, agriculture, and the railroad.
But lots of it is once your know a cousin, an uncle that went to one spot, it means you might too. A community of your nationality is more welcoming than having none at all.
So what’s starts out as a practical decision — “there are jobs there and I got my passage paid” years later would be another generation of immigrants “my mother’s brother is there so I can live there until I get a job and get my own place”. So it sort of fills up with a certain nation’s immigrants because of word of mouth and a place to stay with familiar people — either your own family or from your country. But the VAST majority number of immigrants come here and go to a place where family was.
>What attracts Black people to Atlanta?
Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement was in and started in Atlanta and generally throughout Georgia.
That and many ancestors of slavery was in Georgia so they stayed there as their families did. Generations of people tend to stay in the same place.
Atlanta and the surrounding greater Atlanta area is great for all groups of people. Not just Black people but it has a large Korean, Japanese, German, African (usually Nigerian) and Middle Eastern (lots of people from India and Iran) people too.
Helps that it’s a major dense city with the largest international airport in the world by number of flights and passengers.
“I’m British & I don’t know why there are a lot of Irish in the North East USA”
….really?
Your schools are a lot better than that. Heck I’d even bet a dollar you learned about the Triangle Trade better than we did, as well.
Settlement and migration. A lot of it has to do where large groups of people in certain populations landed once they immigrated to the States. A lot of SE Asian people landed in California & the Gulf of Mexico, which are 2 areas you still see large populations of SE Asians. Many of those families came here decades ago and are now on their 3rd or 4th generations in those areas.
The South has always had a large Black population quite frankly b/c of slavery. There were something
Ike 4m slaves before the Civil War so the largest concentration of Black people where there. There was The Great Migration in the early to mid 20th century as a lot of Black families started heading to areas where the laws weren’t quite so oppressive. But then there’s been a reverse Great Migration since the ‘70s, as a lot of Black people — many of whom now had secondary education, some money in their pockets, & good job prospects — have moved to the South.
A lot has to do with entry points… Asians came into the US by crossing the Pacific Ocean into California. And many worked in the surrounding area during the Gold Rush.
The South had high concentrations of African-Americans due to slavery, but as industrialization began happening, and Atlanta grew, it attracted people looking for better jobs that the rural sharecropping, etc.
As for cities of highest concentration of different races, I think Chicago is a pretty good mix… the city itself (pop: approx 2.7m) is almost equally 1/3 white, 1/3 African-American, 1/3 Latino. Within the white community, there is a diverse mix of Irish ancestry, Italian ancestry, German ancestry, a large Greek community, lots of more recent Eastern European immigration. Most of the Latino population is from Mexico, but there are also many from throughout the rest of South and Central America, Puerto Rico.
Just left Seattle after a week. Definitely diverse. Miami is also another very diverse city.
Majority of large cities have people from all over the globe
As several people said a lot of black people are in Atlanta because their families have been there for generations due to slavery. Additionally there has been a migration back from the north due to the opportunities and cheap housing, like for example my stepdad moved from New Jersey to Atlanta because everyone was telling him it’s the place to be for black people (and this was in the 80s).
Not exactly the race-based answer you requested, but I recently read that Queens, NY is the most ethnically and linguistically diverse place on the planet.
Jersey City is one of the most diverse cities in US.
Queens NY, where I grew up, is one of the most diverse places, if not the most diverse, in the world. Every one of my friends is different and often speak another language.
>Black people to Atlanta?
Atlanta is basically the capital of the South. Black people live in the South because of slavery.
>Irish people to Boston?
The Irish live all over the Northeast coast. I’m not sure there are more of them in Boston than elsewhere.
>East Asian people to San Francisco?
Look at a globe.
I’m not really sure what your question is, but the most linguistically diverse city in the world is New York City. It is believed that 800 languages are spoken in all 5 boroughs.
Are Irish people another race now?
Coastal Alaska is pretty diverse and multi-ethnic. You have an area that’s had native peoples here for tens of thousands of years. That’s followed by the conflict and colonial period. You still have tons of maritime trade and seasonal work plus tourism in some places, leading to an area with a high mobility.
Jersey City is the most diverse city in America.
When I was a kid, we just had one race: Americans. But no one wants us all to get along, lest we start asking questions like “What are you doing with our tax money?” and “What are you doing for the voters?” So, they make sure to separate us into races and keep us all angry at each other to distract us.
Basically every large metro area like NYC, LA, SF, Chicago, Houston.
People come based on historical migration patterns and later groups gravitate towards where they’re going to find others like them.
The Greater New York area, Los Angeles-Orange County metropolitan area, the area around DC and parts of Maryland, and the greater Dallas area are all extremely diverse.
Slavery made southern locales like Atlanta very black. The potato famine made Boston very Irish. The Gold Rush made San Francisco fairly well Chinese (it also brought them to places you might not expect, like Montana, but I imagine the harsh conditions and racism drove them away).