Here is a map showing the ethnic origin of Americans. What do you think?

[Julie4]

I wonder whether the American complexe relationship with France is not partly due to this.

[WindAtMyBack]

I've seen these maps a lot. These are pluralities, which might be a small minority of the population. Just 10-20% of the population can be a plurality.

I've known for a long time that German was the most common ancestry. In the north central US you can even hear what sounds somewhat like a German accent.

In the French south, it's more than an accent, there are still a lot of French speakers there. Their ancestry was largely French Canadians who moved to the French territory of Louisiana after England took over French Canada.

It's changed over the last 30 years, but in the past the major beer breweries were located in Wisconsin by Germanic immigrants. There was also a large German population in Cincinnati which also had a lot of breweries. Many still exist.

These ancestries are self reported though. There is really no other way to do it. There are official numbers on immigrants and where they are from. But there are no official numbers on emigrants, how many children the immigrants had, the ancestry of their spouse, etc.

I've never understood what "American" means. But I suspect it's because a lot of people don't know their ancestry so they just pick "American".

You also have to consider the time when they immigrated. For example there was a surge of German immigrants in the mid-1800s. But Germany then was not the same as Germany now. So how do you define "German"? A more modern example is Yugoslavia. If someone immigrated from Yugoslavia 40 years ago, that country does not even exist now. If someone came from Sarajevo in 1980 or 2010, it's the same place, but two different countries. That type of thing has been extremely common over the years. The official immigration numbers list both places in many cases.

Then there is a question of a Japanese couple moving to Spain, then having "pure" Japanese children in Spain, who in turn move to the US. Are they Japanese or Spanish? I think the official records would show them as Spanish.

[KostasKouvalis]

Non Pologne o Portugues?

And I'm confused about "Amerique". From the map I'm assuming they mean Redneck/Hillbilly, but even those are descended from Europeans as there is no "American" ethnicity. I'm surprised there are no Hollandeis in Pensylvania. What about the famous Pensylvania Dutch aka the Amish. There's also Hollandais in Wisconsin. I'm guessing Indien-amerique means Indian tepee.

Pourquoi non Indian 7-11, Arabique o Asiatique-pacifique.

What complex relationship? French influence in America is very minimal. And I think everyone has a complex relationship with America these days.

[KostasKouvalis]

Why they make Puerto Rico the same color as African-American? That's gonnz confuse a lot of people

Oh and thanks to Trump we can add White South African soon

[RavVid]

Afrikaners are Dutch.

[KostasKouvalis]

@RavVid Why don't they speak Dutch then?

[RavVid]

They used to when they were called Boers. The language was Afrikaans, sometimes called Cape Dutch or Kitchen Dutch. Its about 90% Dutch.

Afrikaaners are pretty blunt and like the Dutch don't say sorry out of politeness. A lot of people perceive them as arrogant.

What I don't know is how Boers became Afrikaaners. Boer derives from farmer so maybe they mostly stopped farming and dropped Boer consequently. There has 125 years since the Boer Wars and that is long enough for a language to start going into disuse.

It is the same people though

[avery58]

People talk a lot of shit about diversity nowadays, but I think it's one of things that makes our country interesting. I know we're not the only diverse country though, but you can pretty much find any kind of person here. As long as there is an American identity regardless of background, I think it's cool.

[purplepoppy]

If you look at people across the UK you can see physical differences that reflect their ancestoral origins. I wonder if the same thing applies to that map, do the French ones still look French, the German ones still look German.

[Orion84]

I realize this map is assembled using census data, but I question how reliable & accurate it is.

Not that I'm suggesting it's wrong, exactly, but more incomplete. Given the intermingling of ethicities in the US, I just find it difficult to believe that large portions of the country can be categorized by a single ethnic group.

Personally, I have anscestors of German, English, Irish, Dutch, Native Anerican, and French ethnicities/origins. Saying that I'm of German descent would only tell a fraction of the tale. Sure, it is my largest percentage, but that is still less than 50% of my genetic heritage.

I suspect the same is true for large portions of the population, which seems to suggest that this chart is merely a portion of the story, and not representative of the whole truth.

[DryGermanGuy]

Going by the actual immigrant numbers, that majority German background in this map can’t be right. English and Irish outnumbered Germans by far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_immigration_to_the_Americas

[Julie4]

The figures on the map come from the US Census Bureau.

[DryGermanGuy]

I am guessing this data is mostly based on the self-identifying kind, then. „My grandmother told me we are German.“ 🤷‍♂️

[lightbulb27]

There are some subsantial german areas, often they are off in the country farming. more than others, I doubt that.

[DryGermanGuy]

Sure, the Texas Germans or Pennsylvania Mennonites/Amish. But of course they are a way smaller group than the people coming from English or Spanish speaking countries.

[Benutzername1]

The Wikipedia site you sent shows the number of migration into the USA. The map on the other hand shows the ethnic backround in the USA in the year 2000. It shows that people with german background make up the largest single group with roughly 15% (~43 Million) followed by th irish with roughly 11% (~31 Million). There is a complementary graph for the map. Sadly i can't include the link but i found it on the Wikipedia page: "Deutschamerikaner" (German Wikipedia because the English one doesn't include it)

[Benutzername1]

Even the immigration data in the Wikipedia article is a bit tricky. Not only did now as german ethnic background unterstood people not emigrate from Germany, but also from the partly ethnically german Country Austria-Hungary. Between 1820 and 1978 (immigration before the wasn't significant before that, less than 3 Million in total whereas in that time period over 34 Million) over 4,3 Million emigrated from Austria-Hungary. To put that into context, in the same time immigrants from Germany made the biggest group with nearly 7 Million people. Followed by Italy with roughly 5,3 Million, Great Britan (4,9 Million) and Ireland (4,7 Million). Austria Hungary is 5th in that list (not all of them had "german ethnicity")

[Benutzername1]

Even if the germans weren't the biggest group, the map could be possible because the map is coloured county by county. But the countys physical size on a map doesn't represent how many people live there. 2 out of the 3 states with biggest population don't have German as the biggest group. Also worthy to mention that the biggest group in a county doesn't mean majority. It's not unlikely that a countys population has a german background of around 20%.

[Benutzername1]

This map fails to show the actual numbers of ethnic backround, just where the big ethnic groups have large percentage of the countys population. A slightly better map in my opinion would be the represent each county with a dot the size proportionally to their population. This doesn't fix not representing any other group than the biggest.
Sry for the expended reply.

[Benutzername1]

The ranking by immigrants is restricted to European country's. (Those are mentioned in the Wikipedia articel)

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

@Benutzername1
Now that is much more interesting, thanks for digging !

[AviatorTom]

It does show the diversity of Americans, whose ancestors come from many different countries. However, it's misleading. Fir example, the entire midwest did not come from Germany (Allemand), though that is where most German immigrants settled. Each county is a hodgepodge of ancestral countries, wher the most common is still, in most cases, a minority of the county's total population.

[DryGermanGuy]

Germans were only between 5-10% of the immigrants, so I don’t get that map data at all.

[Benutzername1]

@DryGermanGuy it's not about how many immigrated, but about how many there are currently.

[Lliam]

It's in French and the print is too small for me to see clearly.

I assume it is showing the majorities in different regions, but the majority doesn't reflect the mix of ethnicities in those regions.

Also, I don't think there are many pure bloods. Many Americans have a mix of ethnicities in their ancestries.

[Zack-Bann]

What’s funny is that you can make one such map for every country
Go back far enough and we’ve all “migrated” to where we live now


And yet so many people cling to nationalism as if the random flag above their house makes them of a different species to others


It doesn’t

[Joshydavid25]

Interesting.. Not surprising at all.. Although if the Americas were "discovered" by The Spanish and the English and for a short time France took over, how the hell is the German population so deep? LOL.. And I'm guessing the "Americans" are the Native Americans..

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Americains in this map are US people I believe, Indien d'Amérique (dated term) or Amérindien is the name used in french to talk about Native Americans.

[Joshydavid25]

@Maybe_Maybe_not Yeah I saw the "American Indian" part.. I don't know if they use it as a broad term to describe Indians all over the America's or if they differentiate Native Americans and Amerindians.. Also, who are the "Americans".. supposed to be..

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Oh yes, who are the Americans, that's a very good question lol

[RavVid]

Quite fascinating. German is more prevalent than in expected and English a lot less prevalent.

[Julie4]

Germany has outrageous dominance 😂 and the English seem to be there second ethnicity. They're just the two biggest enemies in French history.😂😂😂

[RavVid]

I remember you didn't appreciate my forebear being at Waterloo! :) :) :)

Angles and Saxon were Germanic peoples of course that adopted a lot of French words.

After seeing the map I am unsure we can properly consider the US as part of the Anglosphere or not.

[MisterWack]

We all came from somewhere, either colonists brought us over or we came from all over the world. Didn’t just happen overnight.

I find this map intriguing.

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Following DryGermanGuy, I can't believe this map, it basically says that US comes from Germany lol. Needs more investigation here !

[Julie4]

So go and complain to the US government about these figures lol

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

LET'S GO

[Benutzername1]

This disbelief might be higly unreasonable. There is a complementary Graph for this map (Sadly i can't include the link but i found it on the Wikipedia page: "Deutschamerikaner" (German Wikipedia because the English one doesn't include it). It shows that German ethnic backround is the single biggest group with over 15% (over 42 Million) of the population.

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Yup, I read what you wrote in another thread, data interpretation is tricky so thanks for clarifying a few points 👌🏼

[exitseven]

I am colorblind so it was hard to read this map but it illustrates that the country is still pretty divided geographically.

[BCA6010]

I don't think this has any impact on American sentiment towards France at all.

[katiesmuff]

Certainly an interesting map and sure works for my families origin.

[Dargil]

Left out Scots-Irish and the Five Civilized Tribes

[andreasderjuengere]

Apparently, ''America'' does not have many locals.

[Anonymous]

It's not complete, because it doesn't show Slavic population (for example Russian in the Alaska), Polish people, Czechs, Bulgarians, etc.

[TallAnon]

Technically we all originate from Africa if you go back far enough

[SotiCoto]

I think it is too french.

[Dongie]

Is there only Irish and Italian for European?

[Dongie]

Hehe, the I Italians are gathered up around jersey and new York. You forgot Las Vegas.

[beefcakebradybatson]

You mean there's also FRENCH trailer trash?