Ethnic diversity: North vs. South

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by AlphaGamUGAAlum

You all talking about historic immigration patterns are kind of completely ignoring the entire Gulf Coast and Florida. While Florida might be culturally debatable, coastal Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana are both southern and not-as-WASPy.

With regard to the Gulf Coast, that falls, I think (though I stand to be corrected), under the distinction I was making between recent, or later-wave, immigration patterns and those that occured, say, over a century ago. And I excepted immigration of Latin Americans from my general statement.

As for Florida, I think it is indeed arguable that many of the immigration patterns in the last century have made Florida less traditionally Southern.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

With regard to the Gulf Coast, that falls, I think (though I stand to be corrected), under the distinction I was making between recent, or later-wave, immigration patterns and those that occured, say, over a century ago. And I excepted immigration of Latin Americans from my general statement.

As for Florida, I think it is indeed arguable that many of the immigration patterns in the last century have made Florida less traditionally Southern.

I think the culture of the Gulf Coast remains other than "wasp-y" and I thought you were sort of saying that the earlier the immigrants settled the more likely they were to have given up the non- white, anglo-saxon protestant parts of their identity, and I think we agree that the earliest immigrants on the Gulf were not WASPs.

The coast is kind of its own thing. It's Southern and historically more Catholic and culturally/historically as influenced by French and Spanish influences as it would have been by Anglo-Irish-Scots. (Nobody is giving up Thibadeaux is favor of Thomas, or whatever.)

But other than LSU, the coast culture probably isn't that well represented in SEC Greek Life overall. It's too diluted by the WASPiness.

[alum]

Originally Posted by SECdomination

While FL still has many of the standard WASP names (people even jokingly say my full name with a British accent), the diversity comes from the Jewish population in the state schools.
There's probably a fairly large percentage of -steins that join IFC or NPC groups.

Now I want to see the NM Lists of the flagship Florida schools to see if that is accurate.

[kdonline]

Originally Posted by alum

Now I want to see the NM Lists of the flagship Florida schools to see if that is accurate.

"Flagship schools" - let's take UF/FSU..
You'll still find traditionally Jewish women pledging the traditionally Jewish sororities... but rarely any crossover.

But if you talk FIU, the NPC sororities are probably 95% hispanic; many of them were born in other countries but moved as young children.. or they're first generation Americans.

[PenguinTrax]

Originally Posted by kdonline

"Flagship schools" - let's take UF/FSU..
You'll still find traditionally Jewish women pledging the traditionally Jewish sororities... but rarely any crossover.

But if you talk FIU, the NPC sororities are probably 95% hispanic; many of them were born in other countries but moved as young children.. or they're first generation Americans.

Actually, this is not quite true at FSU. SDT has only been on campus a couple of years and they are only about 50-60% Jewish. There are other groups on campus with high percentages of Jewish members, especially AChiO which has traditionally been the 'nondenominational' choice for non-Christian members.

[AXIDplace4me]

Both sides of my family have been in the states before they were states. circa 1650s. We really don't have much of an idea except for educated guesses of where our family came from. We have one last name in the family that we believe has been changed from a German last name, but we really don't know. Most of my family started in the north and migrated south early on. My dad's family is from western NC and eastern TN while mom's family is from SC. I am sure the spelling and even the pronunciation of our names has changed since the 1600s.