Why early immigrants chose the place they chose?
Posted by creative_kiddo@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 56 comments
Like “oh, you are Scandinavian, you must love cold weather in Minnesota as well. Good fishing as well.”.
“Are you Italian from Sicily, who is tired of fresh olives and sunny weather? Try New Jersey!”.
“Oh, you are introverted and hardworking German, what are your thoughts on completely boring Midwest?”
“So, if you are Irish, you must love the most English looking town in the whole country - Boston. And the region most of you will be living in will be called “New England!”. How about dat?”
“Oh so you are Polish family from a village. You must love living in one the largest cities in the world - Chicago”.
What’s the story behind your family? Why did they choose this place…
MrLongWalk@reddit
If you genuinely think that’s how it worked this isnt a conversation worth having
Few-Guarantee2850@reddit
Why are you commenting if it's not a conversation worth having? To hear the sound of your own voice?
MrLongWalk@reddit
to let OP know what a schmuck they're being
bmadisonthrowaway@reddit
I do think that in some level, this can be part of the equation, to an extent. I grew up in a part of Louisiana that has a lot of Vietnamese immigration. It has humid, tropical weather not too dissimilar to Southeast Asia, and jobs in the seafood industry that a lot of Vietnamese immigrants were already equipped to do.
I don't think anyone in Vietnam looked at a map of the US and chose southern Louisiana on purpose for only those reasons, but it's probably part of why there is more Vietnamese immigration to the New Orleans area than to Kansas.
(Note that there are obviously a lot of immigration scenarios that don't involve this at all, for example I know there are a lot of Somalians in Minneapolis for whatever reason, Arabs in the Detroit metro, etc.)
o93mink@reddit
Charles II owed a bunch of money to Sir William Penn, so he gave a bunch of land in America to Penn’s weird son and told him to take his Quaker friends with him, so he did and they landed near Philadelphia and divvied up some farms.
bmadisonthrowaway@reddit
I recently found out why the King of Prussia was so important they named a mall/part of PA after him, and it turned out to be interesting as hell. (Or actually very boring, but I like 18th century European history.)
TsundereLoliDragon@reddit
The area was named after the inn I think. Still a great name though.
bmadisonthrowaway@reddit
Apparently at the time this area was being settled by white people, it was a big deal that the Prussian King of the time had the ability to be the King of Prussia as opposed to the King in Prussia, and this all meant something very important about the prospects for eventual German unification.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
Weird that this is one of the more factual reasons in the thread. That choice lead to certain immigrants in that region.
o93mink@reddit
🤷♂️
The_Awful-Truth@reddit
A lot of immigration to the USA happened in waves. and the immigrants tended to settle wherever there was economic opportunity at that particular time. Nearly two million Irish immigrated to the United States in the decade after the potato famines of the 1840s, and settled in the places that were expanding economically at the time--New England and the Southeast. A similar number of Germans immigrated in the 1880s and mostly settled in the Midwest, where there was available land and a resulting network of German speakers in the towns and cities. More Italians, however, arrived in the early 20th century, many of them single men looking for work, and gravitated toward the large cities of the northeast where, again, they established neighborhoods that were inviting destinations for later immigrants.
Chicago1871@reddit
They usually stay with relatives at first.
Finger_Trapz@reddit
A handful of reasons:
Avilola@reddit
This post is silly. First of all, most of the city stereotypes you listed didn’t exist when people immigrated. Additionally, they left their country for basically the same reason every other immigrant in the history of the world did—hope for a better life. Just because Europe is doing well now, that doesn’t mean that was always the case. Famine, war, religious persecution, economic uncertainty… history has given people plenty of reasons to try their hand elsewhere.
Kitchen-Lie-7894@reddit
S. St Louis was heavily populated by Germans. Americans being what we are, we called them Scrubby Dutch. Deutsch, Dutch...Now St Louis has the largest contingent of Bosnians outside of Europe.
machagogo@reddit
Ellis Island years of operation 1892-1954
Italian great migration 1880's-1930's
Ellis Island Location?
New Jersey and New York depending on part of the island you are on.
Hmm. Wonder why Italians went to NY and NJ... Ellis
Redbubble89@reddit
Both parents went to local colleges in the DC area and both happened to be English/Scottish.
2muchtequila@reddit
It depends on the time period we're talking about.
In some cases you had nationalities immigrate to areas that had similar climates and agriculture to their former homeland. You have a lot of scandinavian descendants in Northern areas to this day. Minnesota and Washington state had large communities of them.
Other times people simply went where the work was at that time or where land was cheap.
Other times people got off the boat and stayed put in the city they initially landed in.
Often you would have chain migration, where someone from a town ended up in a certain part of America, and they wrote home to say how great it was, so more people from that area came, and so on. One thing I found interesting was there was a non-trivial amount of reverse migration. Where people would come to America assuming it was going to be great, decide they didn't like it here, and move back to their home country.
Also, at least out West, government social safety nets were pretty much non-existent. So in industry towns where you had a large concentration of recent immigrant workers different nationalities would band together to form their own lodges or community organizations. So if a guy working in the mines was killed, his lodge would be able to provide some level of emergency funding for his widow so she wouldn't immediately be out on the street.
There was also a lot of complaining from what were then called Native Americans, meaning white protestant English descendants, that all these foreigners were moving here and refusing to learn english or integrate into American society. It turns out that if you go 30 years speaking German and you move to another country without being able to speak english, you might want to start off living around a bunch of other German people who can understand what you're saying. The "Native Americans" hated that and were pretty much as nationalistically hostile as you would expect.
AtheneSchmidt@reddit
On my German side, I had great...then a couple more greats, grandfather & uncles who jumped on a train and decided to settle when they couldn't afford more train fare. They ended up in Kansas.
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Kingsolomanhere@reddit
Are you 13?
bmadisonthrowaway@reddit
This is Reddit, so probably.
beardedscot@reddit
People went where the work and people they knew were. If I am still in the old country and I hear someone went to x location in the US for work, etc., I will probably head there because if I can't connect with that person, there may be others with whom I can connect. Similarly, if I know someone in the US, I'll head to where they are. Also, the fact that some demographics were courted for specific skills caused them to settle in certain areas, such as Welsh and English miners settled in mining areas, etc.
Teacher-Investor@reddit
Ellis Island is now a museum, and the tour they give is great. There's a huge interactive world map on the floor that shows waves of migration, where people were migrating from, and where they ended up.
A lot of people ended up where they are by mistake! People would arrive at Ellis Island not speaking a word of English. The customs workers would do their best, but if someone showed up with a note that simply said "Houston" because they wanted to go to Houston St. in Manhattan, it was just as likely that they would be directed to a train headed for Houston, TX.
MassOrnament@reddit
Well, keep in mind that many Americans have ancestors who emigrated from a lot of different places. Mine came from just about every country in Northern and Western Europe, some as early as the 1600s and some as recent as the 1900s. It would take me a long time to tell you where all of my ancestors settled and why.
TK1129@reddit
Dad’s grandparents were all from Ireland and came to the US in the early 20 century. A lot of ships departed Ireland for New York. They landed said there’s work here this is fine and stayed. My mom’s dad immigrated from Sicily in the early 30s as a kid with his family. None of them spoke English but there were already pockets of Italians speaking in a Sicilian dialect here and available work so why leave?
Benitobox86@reddit
My family on both sides came to California because they had family here already so they were able to get sponsored. My dad worked the fields in San José before it became Silicon Valley.
MaryOutside@reddit
My grandfather left his village in Cyprus and worked in Alexandria for a while, then came over to the States where his older brother was working in the Western Pennsylvania steel mills. There was a community of Greek speakers. My grandmother came over from her little village in Greece. She has some family working on the steel mills in Western Pennsylvania. There was a community of Greek speakers there, and she met a guy and got married. They opened a restaurant and had some kids. One of them met a great lady.
That lady's grandmother had moved up to Chicago from Mexico to find work. She met a guy and got married, had some kids. My mom's grandfather moved from the tip of Scotland to New Foundland and worked on boats for a while before making it to Brooklyn to work in a factory. He met a cool lady and they had some kids.
My dad met my mom when they were both working in Pittsburgh. That's where we still are.
For my family, it was going where the work, faith, and language communities were. Geography not so much.
manicmilkk@reddit
uhhhh, idk. my ancestors crossed over in the late 1600s/early 1700s. because there was a lot of room to farm? that’s my best guess lol
Cheap_Coffee@reddit
Cod fishing. What would be New England was a location for cod fishing by the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese as early as the 16th century....
Oh, you meant more recent immigrants
KR1735@reddit
My grandpa came to Minnesota because that's where his older brothers already were. His brothers came to the place where there were already a ton of Swedes.
And I presume the Swedes came to Minnesota because it was land that other settlers didn't want due to weather and/or other factors. And they figured "What's wrong with this? It feels like home." If you look at the distribution of Swedish and Norwegian Americans, it's all in cold areas. So there has to be something to that.
The lake part is interesting. I'm not sure how much there is to that. But in Minnesota, the Scandinavians are most prominent in the north and the east part of the state. That's where most of our lakes are. The southwest part of the state is flatter with more fields and relatively fewer lakes, and there's more German influence there.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
It was really just a bit of timing. So many had come to the Midwest for jobs (because Sweden itself got so populated due to well, a bunch of reasons) and then the homestead act gave away free land for anyone that would go farm it. They were in the right spot at the right time.
Gold_Telephone_7192@reddit
Mostly they gravitated towards cities because that’s where the work was, and then after the first wave, subsequent waves would go where there was already a population of immigrants of their nationality/ethnicity.
Appropriate-Fold-485@reddit
See also: The Great Migration shows the same phenomenon when many Black people moved out of the South.
arcticsummertime@reddit
My ancestors ended up in New England because it was right next to Québec. Guess they were lazy and didn’t wanna go far idk
bmadisonthrowaway@reddit
A mix of where the port cities are, what places are easy to get to from where the immigrants arrived. And with each progressive wave of immigration, where there are already people like you who can help you get set up with housing, a job, and other resources.
If there's a Swedish guy in Chicago who can sell you a Minnesota farm, in Swedish, and a railroad directly out to where that farm is, with a ticket booker who can set it all up without you needing to speak any English, if you're Swedish you will go to Minnesota by way of Chicago.
The NYC metro/large East Coast cities have a lot of Irish and Italian immigration history because those were the easiest port cities to arrive at from Europe. New Orleans has a solid mix of those groups, as well.
The West Coast has a lot of Asian immigration for similar reasons - most direct ports from Guangzhou, Tokyo, Seoul, etc.
Miami is the closest US city to Cuba, and Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California are the closest areas of the US to Mexico and Central America. (Not to mention that in the case of a lot of Latine immigrants, the border actually crossed them.)
Conchobair@reddit
My family went where there was free land.
Sailor_NEWENGLAND@reddit
They came to American cities for work mostly..even my Canadian grandparents moved from New Brunswick to Connecticut in the late 1930’s because work in New Brunswick at the time was scarce
Esselon@reddit
A lot of early people went to areas where there was work to be found or land to be settled for the taking. You're massively oversimplifying things as well. I'm from New England where there's a sizeable Polish/Eastern European population. There's tons in Michigan as well. The Irish settled in places other than Boston. In fact the Irish diaspora was so huge that there's far more Irish-Americans than native Irish.
Most cities have a number of immigrant groups present in their historical timeline. Sure there's lots of Italians in New Jersey, but there's a lot of Italians all over the country.
After a while immigrant groups tend to follow where there are enclaves, they have people who will help with language, paperwork, transitions, etc. as well as knowing there's going to be places to get their local groceries and the like.
lostparrothead@reddit
My ancestors moved here for work then my parts moved for work.
Unreasonably-Clutch@reddit
The German and Swiss ancestors chose the Midwest for its good farm land. The French chose an outpost on the frontier for fur trapping and defending a waterway from the British.
smugbox@reddit
My maternal grandparents moved to NYC for their med school residency and moved to Long Island when they were settled into their careers
My dad’s side is mostly English and it looks like they all came here in the 18th and 19th centuries and idk what their deal was because that was a very long time ago
Revivaled-Jam849@reddit
Why early immigrants chose the place they chose?
“Are you Italian from Sicily, who is tired of fresh olives and sunny weather? Try New Jersey!”.
“So, if you are Irish, you must love the most English looking town in the whole country - Boston. And the region most of you will be living in will be called “New England!”. How about dat?”
There are reasons to NOT settle in a certain place and I am familiar with the Irish and Italians, so I'll comment on them.
Being Catholic didn't give you a good time in the South during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Klan did lynch Italian Americans and were anti-Catholic. So the Irish wouldn't want to go there either.
You also should understand logistics, as these immigrants were pretty poor. So living near where you came in was a lot more realistic than traveling to the middle of the country. How exactly are poor Irish or Italians supposed to go to Minnesota or California? Not a wonder then of why so many Italians in NY and Jersey.
Ahjumawi@reddit
Most people went where they had some connection, either family or from their town or village, or where they found a job.
littlemsshiny@reddit
My family settled somewhere where they had friends and family who previously immigrated.
SemiOldCRPGs@reddit
Because there was WORK THERE! When the major port for immigration was New York and there are no railroads yet, you go where you can get work and settle.
As to both my maternal and paternal families, we got here early, early. Anywhere other than the Tidewater area of Virginia was wilderness. 1640, the seven brothers from dad's line, hit the shore and immediately headed for the mountains. A big chunk of people with that family name are still in the immediate area they settled. Mom's family hit in 1680 and immediately moved up the Delmarva peninsula and immediately settled down as fishermen, crabbers and oystermen. Again, fair chunk of that family is still in or around the town they helped found.
Husband's families backgrounds are mostly from the mid-1800's and were miners. They went to where the iron mines and steel mills were and are still there.
Technical_Plum2239@reddit
There are so many reasons why. People don't realize that so many immigrants came over because labor brokers advertised and subsidized their trip.
Then once some of a certain town, state, etc are their, words gets out and more people come.
British came to New England in 1620 to start a new life because they were religious zealots. Irish came a couple hundred years later. We had lots of textile mills in Mass and Eastern Conn. That also brought Poles, Finns, French Canadians.
So basically mining, mills, factories, road building, quarry men, etc came to areas where they had work, often lured by the company themselves so they could get cheap labor.
Soundwave-1976@reddit
One side was escaping religious persecution, moved to New England. The other came with the Spanish into NM. Couple hundred years later my dad moved to NM to get away from his family and the rest is biology.
thatsad_guy@reddit
They went where they could get work and live the lives they wanted.
Adept_Thanks_6993@reddit
My grandfather came to New York after the camps were liberated because relatives here sponsored him and there was existing community infrastructure.
dr_strange-love@reddit
First wave immigrants ended up in certain areas for very specific and contextual reasons like "land here was cheap" or "they don't persecute us as much over here". Subsequent waves settled in the same places because the first wave had set up a community that was welcoming to them.
hobokobo1028@reddit
Left because of famine/war and gravitated to people that shared their culture/language.
Germans leaving Germany searched out other Germans that had already arrived. The Irish sought out other Irish, etc.
DubiousTactics@reddit
Well one great great grandparent got in trouble with the Mafia in Italy, so he fled to America. He then realized that the mafia was also in New York City, so he kept fleeing west until he ended up in San Francisco.
Asparagus9000@reddit
Sometimes it's just a matter of timing.
Each decade had a "best place for immigrants". Or at least a rumor that it was the best place.
And then that coincides with when that particular country has a lot of people moving to the US.
OhThrowed@reddit
When my ancestors came over, none of those stereotypes existed.
NoneOfThisMatters_XO@reddit
Wow what a closed minded post…