This is the first percentage-over-decade overview I’ve seen; it’s interesting to learn that the US’s immigrant makeup was higher for over 50 years (1870s-1920s) than it is currently.
Demographically, it’s worth noting that Pew is dealing with a pretty limited source of data: “German” was a generic bucket for all kinds of nations and ethnic groups that we now consider distinct, but were bucketed together because of Prussia, Austria-Hungary, etc. By modern standards this would be like the US identifying Guatemalans as “Mexican” due to the former’s proximity to the latter.
This is the first percentage-over-decade overview I’ve seen; it’s interesting to learn that the US’s immigrant makeup was higher for over 50 years (1870s-1920s) than it is currently.
Demographically, it’s worth noting that Pew is dealing with a pretty limited source of data: “German” was a generic bucket for all kinds of nations and ethnic groups that we now consider distinct, but were bucketed together because of Prussia, Austria-Hungary, etc. By modern standards this would be like the US identifying Guatemalans as “Mexican” due to the former’s proximity to the latter.