Which state/city did u choose to immigrate to and why?

18 comments

1. Much Thanks to anyone who takes the time to respond! Personally most of my ancestors emigrated here during the “Great Wave” of immigration in the 1880s/90s, and ended up in New Jersey simply because it’s right next to where the boats sailed to, which was New York harbor. These days we travel being easier than ever, people coming to this country now have much more choices of where to go for many more reasons. Did you already have family here? Did you land a job? Did you decide on a whim? Or did you move somewhere with an already established cultural community which you belong to? Very curious to any and all reasons!

2. It mainly had to do with where they had connections/other distant relatives. When my family came from Spain just before the civil war, they went to California because they had cousins there. After they settled a bit they moved elsewhere. I think most people move near established communities of their own heritage, if possible.

3. Obligatory “not a ___” but I worked and lived around a ton of people who were. The most important thing is community, then things like school or because they learned about it and wanted to live there. My stepdad’s mom chose to come to NE Tennessee because she liked the song On Top of Old Smokey. She was astounded and delighted to discover the Smoky Mountains were real. But generally people want to know they can find a doctor who speaks their language, a shop that sells food they’re used to, and people to socialize with and ease the feeling of culture shock and homesickness. If I were to immigrate to another country, I wouldn’t pick the equivalent of NE Tennessee. I’d pick the equivalent of Chinatown.

4. New Orleans Louisiana because there’s no City on earth like it. 💕

5. Not me but my husband is the child of Mexican immigrants. They moved to Bakersfield, CA because housing was cheap and they could get jobs there.

6. 🛫🛬

7. Maine.

   It was for my ex wife’s job. I followed her to Rhode Island, then Ohio, then Maine so she could get her current position as a tenured professor. So I made the move with her. I stay here because I like it and have my own job here now and the kids are here and neither one of us wants to upset their lives any more than they already have been.

   My moves have all been for school or work. I went to college out of my home state, I moved to Chicago because I got a great job there and it’s relatively close to my family. Then after that it was following my wife.

   Edit: I’m an idiot. I missed the first generation part of the question. I was just going off the title. So ignore my response. My family has been here at least 4 generations on both sides.

8. My parents chose the place they lived because that’s where the military put them. My dad was recruited into military as a non-citizen due to circumstances that I’m not aware of. I don’t know how that worked but that was a thing at the time (he is elderly now), and I don’t know if that’s still a thing today since I know nothing about military stuff nor did he really talk to me about the situation. So we ended up where we were because that’s where the base was.

9. My parents moved to NYC in the 90s because thats where 99% of Soviets Jews were going to at the time.

   The pull factors were mostly that the USSR was a fucking dump and it wasent fun to be a Jew there. My mom’s side of the family mostly didnt give a shit about the Jewish part and just wanted to leave the USSR but my Dads’s side of the family were fervent Zionists hence why he moved to Israel first, fought in a couple of wars there and then moved to the US.

10. Not me, but a friend of mine who I met in high school was born in the DRC and grew up moving countries every few years before his family finally settled down in the suburbs of the small rural Pennsylvanian town where I lived. I always wondered how he ended up there of all places; turns out it was just the first place in America where his dad could find a job that paid well enough to move his whole family over.

11. My parents went where the most money was and I lived in 5 states growing up

12. San Francisco, California. No particular reason, just a feeling.

13. Couldn’t tell you why my parents immigrated to the first state we lived in, but we ended up in Texas for a while because we had relatives there

14. My parents chose New Jersey because we had relatives here so we had a support network in place. I find that most of us immigrants settle in cities where we have family or friends nearby.

15. Michigan, my parents found jobs there (originally from Toronto, ON)

16. We moved to where my Dad’s job was. First to a big city suburbs and then to BFE Pennsylvania.

17. Pittsburgh, Orlando, Jackson Ms, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Newark. All due to work transfering me, the only (at the time) unmarried and childless person on the team.

18. Georgia, specifically because that’s where my American spouse lived.