Ethnic diversity: North vs. South

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by Taualumna

Question: Are people in the south less likely to identify with their non-British Isles ancestry than people in other parts of the US? Or is it just immigration patterns?

I don't know about that. My Illinois-born grandfather's parents and older siblings came over on the boat from Germany - but my grandpa didn't have any spesific German customs or anything...I don't even think he knew more than 20 German words. Well, he probably did "back in the day", but his family assimilated quickly.

[VandalSquirrel]

I would think that the presence of HBCUs would affect statistical measurements at schools in the south. Out west (not on the coast) our system is sometimes as diverse as the local population, but many schools have thriving Latino Greek orgs. or MCGLOs.

As for names, my last name is Frisian technically, but was considered German when disembarking the boat (due to where the boat came from), and it is actually Dutch. I think we all know about the issues at Ellis island with the word Deutsch and Dutch. But that is all somewhat pointless, since it says WASP in the box that says "race or color" on my birth certificate (not making that up).

[Taualumna]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I don't know about that. My Illinois-born grandfather's parents and older siblings came over on the boat from Germany - but my grandpa didn't have any spesific German customs or anything...I don't even think he knew more than 20 German words. Well, he probably did "back in the day", but his family assimilated quickly.

Was this around WWI? Lots of people of German descent hid their German-ness at that time. Here in Canada, the of Berlin, Ontario even changed its name to Kitchener.