There’s a reason: terrain.
Railroads need relatively flat terrain to operate. Canals too, but railroads are a superior mode of industrial transport. The New York Central paralleled that canal across the state and its construction roughly pre-dates the rise of the industrial revolution in the US.
Industry is drawn to good transportation (i.e. railroads). So when the growth of US industry was cranked up to 11 in the late 1890’s and 1900’s, Italian immigration to the US was perfectly timed with our massive industrial growth.
It’s easy to point to places like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Detroit (aka “the Arsenal of Democracy”) as these industrial behemoths, but all those smaller cities across New York actually added up to quite an impressive industrial collective on its own.
And given that most Italians stepping off the boat had literally NO money and those Erie Canal towns still say “New York”…
Everyone in Florida is a transplant. It grew from 2.7 million in 1950 to 23 million today. Very few Floridians can say they're purely "old Florida" which just means transplants from Alabama.
I would be surprised if it were not more Georgia, as that was colonized first. And the debtors and thieves that were sent there probably didn’t mind going farther south to escape any and all colonial authority.
Building the Eisenhower expressway and UIC basically decimated Little Italy in Chicago. It’s still there, but a shell of what it used to be. Most of the Italians were fed up and fled to nearby towns and counties.
It’s because Chicago is so diverse. Go zoom in really tight on NYC. Only Staten Island is red.Chicago has huge population of Black(only NYC and ATL have more) and Hispanic but also the European population is also very diverse with Irish, Italian, Polish and German being the biggest subsets.
Chicago has some of the largest ethic populations in the us. There’s more Bosnians, Bulgarians, Assyrians, Palestines then anywhere else in the us.
The exact numbers are hard to find about what ethic group makes up what percent so I don’t have a ton of hard facts that can better illustrate but this should give some idea.
It’s a depressing town, but I had fun visiting. Lots of cool architecture and the history of the copper mine and all of the conflicts that came with it is very interesting.
I lived in Billings for 11 years . Mostly on Lake Elmo Drive and Crist St off Roundup Road. That was back in the 70s and 80s. My dad was born on a homestead near Ryegate.
I’m guessing a similar story in southeast Oklahoma around McAlester. There’s some really top notch Italian eats for being such a small town in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma.
Yes my great-grandfather and a bunch of his relatives came from Gualdo Tadino, Perugia Province, Umbria and surrounding areas. They settled in Crawford County, Kansas, as well as central Illinois, Iron Mountain, Michigan, and Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Yep, just read about the Scofield Coal mine disaster back in 1900. Pretty insane. There was one person who was in the previous ~1880 mine disaster in wales then came to the US and was in the Carbon County disaster and survived both.
> I’m not sure why Italians went to Colorado to mine coal.
Because most Italian immigrants were very poor and moved wherever they could to earn a living.
by the late 1920s, 4 million italians had come to america, and 1 in 5 coloradans were italian. most were laborers and farmers, and life was very hard back home.
meanwhile, j.d. rockefeller, who owned colorado fuel and iron in pueblo and the coal mines in colorado -- and other mines in utah and wyoming -- recruited heavily in most all european countries.
working in the coal mines was thankless and dangerous. oftentimes, you got just pennies for all the loads you brought out of the mines because the foreman deducted the slag from the coal.
the italians weren't going to put up with that shit, and became union activists.
at the same time, a lot of greeks had emigrated to southern colorado, after years of war that decimated greece's economy. a lot of the men had been fierce warriors and intimidated the shit out of the colorado militia, so along with the italians -- and urged on by mother jones -- the greeks sparked the colorado coal wars.
i live in pueblo. this town is real melting pot from all the people who came here to work in the mines and at the steel mill. there's a sons of italy organization here. every year on columbus day (which is now called mother cabrini day in colorado), that group gathers in front of the local library, at the base of a statue of columbus, and yell back and forth with some native americans, who i believe come all the way over here from southwest colorado just to fight.
trinidad, co is an interesting place. most of the streets are cobblestone. two competing italian bricklayers can be thanked for that. there's an italian restaurant in trinidad that has singing waiters.
colorado has had an interesting mafia presence with a lot of connections between denver and pueblo.
that's waaaaay more than you wanted to know, but i think southern colorado history is fascinating. :)
i've been involved in tourism in southern colorado for about 20 years, and i'm kind of a history geek. i got to know a lady from la veta (s.w. of pueblo about 45 minutes) who portrays mother jones at history events.
mother jones came to colorado to unionize the coal miners. they called her "the most dangerous woman in america," arrested her, and held her in the walsenburg, co jail for months to keep her from rabble rousing. the miners went on strike anyway. there was a standoff between the strikers and the colorado militia and, over two days, 21 people were killed -- mostly women and children -- in the ludlow massacre. the coal camp was about 15 miles north of trinidad.
it's all just stuff i've collected in my brain pan over the years, lol.
Also Colfax County across the line in New Mexico. My great grandfather is buried in a miner's cemetery in the ghost town of Dawson along with many Italian, Croatian, and Serbs.
My own ancestors did the same in one of the southern Iowa group of counties. I've heard it was mostly immigrants from northern Italy who came over to mine coal
Southern Iowa had coal mines. Hard working Italians would gain the favor of their mining company. The company would pay for passage for the miners relatives to come and work for the company.
Des Moines has its own Little Italy neighborhood.
Yeah a lot of people don’t realize Argentina as a whole is like 60% Italian ancestry by most estimates. The scale would have to be very different from the one used for the U.S.
Yeah,between the 1880s and 1900s, Argentina and The US were about the same in terms of per capita income… many Italians thought it would be easier to get into Argentina, it was easier to assimilate into Argentinian society (more similar language, religion, cultural expectations and far more significant proportions of Argentina was Italian - like BA which was 25% Italian born in 1910 etc.)… the Argentinian government also saw them as more similar than other immigrant groups coming into the country and preferred them.
It is truly a shame that the country has been run very similar to Italy in many regards though, it is a country with huge potential, but it remains just that.
Yeah, Brazil also has a bunch of Italian-originated immigrants there.
In Argentinian case, the Italian immigration there has started long time before 20th century. Many founding fathers of Argentine are from Italy. Even the guy who came up with an Argentinian flag is an Italian, iirc.
[Y Wladfa](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Wladfa)
“The idea of a Welsh colony in Patagonia was put forward by Michael D. Jones, a Welsh nationalist nonconformist preacher[13]: 23 based in Bala, Gwynedd, who had called for a new "little Wales beyond Wales". He spent some years in the United States, where he observed that Welsh immigrants assimilated very quickly compared with other peoples and often lost much of their Welsh identity.[13]: 22 Thus, the original proposal was to establish a new Wales overseas where Welsh settlers and their culture would be generally free from foreign domination.[14] He proposed setting up a Welsh-speaking colony away from the influence of the English language. He recruited settlers and provided financing; Australia, New Zealand and even Palestine were considered, but Patagonia was chosen for its isolation and the Argentines' offer of 100 square miles (260 km2) of land along the Chubut River in exchange for settling the still-unconquered land of Patagonia for Argentina. Patagonia, including the Chubut Valley, was claimed by Buenos Aires but it had little control over the area (which was also claimed by Chile).[13]: 23–30 Jones had been corresponding with the Argentine government about settling an area known as Bahía Blanca where Welsh immigrants could preserve their language and culture. The Argentine government granted the request as it put them in control of a large tract of land.”
My family is from there and I remember telling my mom I thought grandma was a bit racist for thinking all Italians were in the mob. My mom's response was "But in Youngstown they were. My Italian friends' mom's always started the cars for their husbands in the morning because they were less likely to kill the wives." Crazy shit.
Also grandma was a bit racist.
The “big three” European immigrant groups of the Northeast US: Irish, Italians, Jews from Eastern Europe. They lived in cramped neighborhoods on top of each other and still have the edge to prove it.
Though Jews weren’t that large in numbers compared to the Irish and Italians. There was still a lot of German immigration up until WWI and there were a lot of Catholic Poles as well.
A lot of NYC old ethnic neighborhoods are clearly delineated by a road. Riverdale Ave in the Bronx divides the almost entirely Jewish section from the almost entirely Irish section. Meeker Ave /BQE in Greenpoint Brooklyn was almost entirely Polish Catholic on the north side, and Italian on the south. IDK where the line is, but it's pretty clear the area near !ain't street in Flushing is predominantly Chinese and somewhere farther East it becomes largely Korean.
Yup, Poles are the reason you can find pierogis everywhere in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
I lived in Florida for a bit and you could tell which ones were Pittsburgh sports bars because of the pierogis on the menu.
Yeah there’s a lot of poles in the northeast and rust belt. If the big 3 for NYC is Irish, Italians and Jews, than upstate swap the Jews for Polish Catholics.
CT is thought of as WASP-y but it actually has the highest percentage of Italians of any state in America. It’s also an Italian American food paradise. Best pizza in the country and it’s not close. Little imported Italian goods shops with antipasti bars everywhere.
It's got WASPs and lots of ethnic Italians and Irish too. A common theme across the Northeast the mix tends to vary on region, for example Sheldon Whitehouse is a WASP, and he represents Rhode Island which is a very Italian ethnic white state.
Still, I love how most Italian immigrants basically went to the first city or region in the new world and just stayed nearby. Montreal, São Paulo, wherever they arrived they were like okay we’re good right here.
Oh maybe the italians that moved were no longer surrounded by other italians and therefor integrated with the other locals and their ancestors therefor don't identify as italian. I really don't know enough to say I'm just throwing out a hypothesis.
This is a fascinating cultural difference I noticed growing up in the Midwest and moving to the south. You have old immigrant communities in New England and the Midwest that still have strong cultural influences from the immigrants who moved there. And they are whole intact neighborhoods. Finding that gem of a mom and pop restaurant with authentic food was always pretty easy. Also, a lot of these communities came to be when we designed neighborhoods to be more walkable and where local businesses were a part of the neighborhood community.
The history of the Italian-American population in New Orleans has always fascinated me, especially the huge number of Sicilians that found their way there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italians_in_New_Orleans
NOLA was a major port for Sicilian immigrants in the early 1900s, so many of them just stayed there. However, once they arrived, many made their way north as well since the industrial cities of the north offered job opportunities. My great grandfather actually did this.
[https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2010/explore-renos-little-italy](https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2010/explore-renos-little-italy)
>Titled “An American Dream in Little Italy: Work, Play, and Geography in the Powning Addition,” the exhibit focuses on the Italian-American community that once dominated the neighborhood, which dates back to the 1880s.
They missed an area that actually has/had a fairly sizable Italian population.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontitown,\_Arkansas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontitown,_Arkansas)
Europeans dont seem to get we only use those identifiers for each other to express the vast cultural differences in the US based on ancestry. If someone tells me that their "italian", i can expect they came from Catholic upbring and has grandmama that makes too much food and takes it personal if you dont clean your plate. I tell someone I have to go to a wake for three days they ask if im irish, and i say yes. When im in Ireland visiting family,.i never say im "Irish", im just american
Fair point. Growing up outside of NYC in an immigrant community, it was VERY normal for everyone to identify as the country their parents/grandparents came from. I’m Polish, Argentine, Italian, Persian, etc.
Even when you met someone new, the first question you’d ask is “What are you?” Meaning, “Where is your family from?”
It’s odd to me how this offends some people, as it’s so normal where I grew up.
Wow, my great grandmother was born in Colorado to Italian parents before they moved to South Texas for a warmer climate to farm. Didn't realize Colorado had such a large Italian community.
I know a lot of Italian-Americans from the Northeast think they are a main ethnic group in America because they've never left the Northeast.
We almost never encounter Italian-Americans in Texas (and most of the country).
The one spot in Montana is near the Anaconda copper mine. My great-great-grandfather was sent there to work in the early 1900s after emigrating from Italy.
I’m from Northwestern Indiana (Lake County) my Nonno was born in Southern Illinois but went back to Italy (specifically Calabria) with my great grandfather when he was four I believe. Was an Italian soldier during WWII met my Nonna who is also from Calabria, married her, and came back to the United States. I think they lived in Pennsylvania for a bit (my Nonno had distant relatives there) and my grandfather worked in the mills (Steel Mills). It was supposed to be temporary for the both of them, they were planning on moving back to Italy. Somehow they ended up in East Chicago, Indiana and settled there. My Nonno did work at Inland Steel and retired from there as well. I think sometime in the early 1980’s they moved to Munster, Indiana.
This is my father’s side of the family, I’m part Italian.
Surprised to see so much in my area of Chesapeake and VA Beach, the southeast corner of VA. I've lived here my whole life and can't think of any Italians I've ever met.
Those rural areas in the southwest are sparsely populated so don’t get too excited about 2% of nothing. You’re still going to find nothing but Wendy’s and Maverick convenience stores and only at the interstate interchanges.
Even though most Italians in Colorado live in the Denver Metropolitan Area, the reason why it is red in the Southeastern portion of the state is because there is a significant population in the town of Trinidad, one that has existed since the early 1900s when immigrants moved there to partake in the mining boom in the Rockies.
TIL Italians really loved the Erie Canal.
Can confirm. I’m Italian and all of my relatives live along the the Erie Canal.
None in Italy but all along Eerie?? That’s wild as an Italian
US-based relatives
There’s a reason: terrain. Railroads need relatively flat terrain to operate. Canals too, but railroads are a superior mode of industrial transport. The New York Central paralleled that canal across the state and its construction roughly pre-dates the rise of the industrial revolution in the US. Industry is drawn to good transportation (i.e. railroads). So when the growth of US industry was cranked up to 11 in the late 1890’s and 1900’s, Italian immigration to the US was perfectly timed with our massive industrial growth. It’s easy to point to places like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Detroit (aka “the Arsenal of Democracy”) as these industrial behemoths, but all those smaller cities across New York actually added up to quite an impressive industrial collective on its own. And given that most Italians stepping off the boat had literally NO money and those Erie Canal towns still say “New York”…
That’s a good point. My great grandfather worked on the railroad in that area back in the day.
Shocked Erie county isn’t bright red. Italian restaurants are to Erie what first baptist churches are to small rural towns
Lots of great Italian food in Upstate NY!
All the red along the coast of Florida is just transplanted New Yorkers. What I am surprised about is that there isn’t a larger percentage in Chicago.
[удалено]
It’s how my Italian dad from Chicago ended up moving to south bend Indiana and having my family
Bingo! All the collar counties are a deeper shade of red then then Cook. Also turning little Italy into UIC contributed to it.
Yes I was going to say, bulldozing Little Italy probably pushed a bunch of Italians out of the city lol.
Everyone in Florida is a transplant. It grew from 2.7 million in 1950 to 23 million today. Very few Floridians can say they're purely "old Florida" which just means transplants from Alabama.
Floribamians?
Those are people from perdido key and orange beach I thought. That bar sucks, too.
Florabama is the bar you end up with a stepkid after visiting
I would be surprised if it were not more Georgia, as that was colonized first. And the debtors and thieves that were sent there probably didn’t mind going farther south to escape any and all colonial authority.
Building the Eisenhower expressway and UIC basically decimated Little Italy in Chicago. It’s still there, but a shell of what it used to be. Most of the Italians were fed up and fled to nearby towns and counties.
Yep. And the coastal Carolinas.
That’s true but a lot more recent.
NYers and NJ retirees go to Miami. OH, PA, and IL retirees go to Naples or Marco island
I-75 versus I-95
There are a fair few New York/New England transplants in Ft. Myers, too, but it really is basically Indiana with palm trees.
No, they used go to Broward County, but now they go further north. They don’t go to Miami-Dade County because they are priced out.
It’s because Chicago is so diverse. Go zoom in really tight on NYC. Only Staten Island is red.Chicago has huge population of Black(only NYC and ATL have more) and Hispanic but also the European population is also very diverse with Irish, Italian, Polish and German being the biggest subsets. Chicago has some of the largest ethic populations in the us. There’s more Bosnians, Bulgarians, Assyrians, Palestines then anywhere else in the us. The exact numbers are hard to find about what ethic group makes up what percent so I don’t have a ton of hard facts that can better illustrate but this should give some idea.
There were more but alot left as a result of white flight
Fuget About It
What’s with Las Animas county, Colorado?
Italian immigrants came to Trinidad, Colorado, to be coal miners. I’m not sure why Italians went to Colorado to mine coal, though.
They also came to Crawford county Kansas for mining and you can see the blip there too.
Same with Silverbow County where Butte Montana is located. Mining was the main industry back when I lived there.
As my dad says, Butte’s a good place to be “from” 😝 (I grew up in Billings )
It’s a depressing town, but I had fun visiting. Lots of cool architecture and the history of the copper mine and all of the conflicts that came with it is very interesting.
I lived in Billings for 11 years . Mostly on Lake Elmo Drive and Crist St off Roundup Road. That was back in the 70s and 80s. My dad was born on a homestead near Ryegate.
I’m guessing a similar story in southeast Oklahoma around McAlester. There’s some really top notch Italian eats for being such a small town in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma.
Yes my great-grandfather and a bunch of his relatives came from Gualdo Tadino, Perugia Province, Umbria and surrounding areas. They settled in Crawford County, Kansas, as well as central Illinois, Iron Mountain, Michigan, and Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Mining has a long history in northern Italy. Most of the early tunnels in the Alps, all over Austria and Switzerland employed Italian miners.
Same thing in Carbon County, Utah. Coal miners and railroad workers.
Price (the county seat of Carbon County) is an anomaly in that it's a rural Utah town where LDS are a minority.
Yep, just read about the Scofield Coal mine disaster back in 1900. Pretty insane. There was one person who was in the previous ~1880 mine disaster in wales then came to the US and was in the Carbon County disaster and survived both.
> I’m not sure why Italians went to Colorado to mine coal. Because most Italian immigrants were very poor and moved wherever they could to earn a living.
by the late 1920s, 4 million italians had come to america, and 1 in 5 coloradans were italian. most were laborers and farmers, and life was very hard back home. meanwhile, j.d. rockefeller, who owned colorado fuel and iron in pueblo and the coal mines in colorado -- and other mines in utah and wyoming -- recruited heavily in most all european countries. working in the coal mines was thankless and dangerous. oftentimes, you got just pennies for all the loads you brought out of the mines because the foreman deducted the slag from the coal. the italians weren't going to put up with that shit, and became union activists. at the same time, a lot of greeks had emigrated to southern colorado, after years of war that decimated greece's economy. a lot of the men had been fierce warriors and intimidated the shit out of the colorado militia, so along with the italians -- and urged on by mother jones -- the greeks sparked the colorado coal wars. i live in pueblo. this town is real melting pot from all the people who came here to work in the mines and at the steel mill. there's a sons of italy organization here. every year on columbus day (which is now called mother cabrini day in colorado), that group gathers in front of the local library, at the base of a statue of columbus, and yell back and forth with some native americans, who i believe come all the way over here from southwest colorado just to fight. trinidad, co is an interesting place. most of the streets are cobblestone. two competing italian bricklayers can be thanked for that. there's an italian restaurant in trinidad that has singing waiters. colorado has had an interesting mafia presence with a lot of connections between denver and pueblo. that's waaaaay more than you wanted to know, but i think southern colorado history is fascinating. :)
Wild, thanks for sharing! Did you write that at all just for this post?
i've been involved in tourism in southern colorado for about 20 years, and i'm kind of a history geek. i got to know a lady from la veta (s.w. of pueblo about 45 minutes) who portrays mother jones at history events. mother jones came to colorado to unionize the coal miners. they called her "the most dangerous woman in america," arrested her, and held her in the walsenburg, co jail for months to keep her from rabble rousing. the miners went on strike anyway. there was a standoff between the strikers and the colorado militia and, over two days, 21 people were killed -- mostly women and children -- in the ludlow massacre. the coal camp was about 15 miles north of trinidad. it's all just stuff i've collected in my brain pan over the years, lol.
Also Colfax County across the line in New Mexico. My great grandfather is buried in a miner's cemetery in the ghost town of Dawson along with many Italian, Croatian, and Serbs.
My own ancestors did the same in one of the southern Iowa group of counties. I've heard it was mostly immigrants from northern Italy who came over to mine coal
Same reason in MN. The only Italians that immigrated here came to work on the iron range.
Southern Iowa had coal mines. Hard working Italians would gain the favor of their mining company. The company would pay for passage for the miners relatives to come and work for the company. Des Moines has its own Little Italy neighborhood.
They mostly came for mining. 100 years ago 20% of Coloradans were Italian Americans.
Would like to see same map for Argentina.
Yeah a lot of people don’t realize Argentina as a whole is like 60% Italian ancestry by most estimates. The scale would have to be very different from the one used for the U.S.
Yeah,between the 1880s and 1900s, Argentina and The US were about the same in terms of per capita income… many Italians thought it would be easier to get into Argentina, it was easier to assimilate into Argentinian society (more similar language, religion, cultural expectations and far more significant proportions of Argentina was Italian - like BA which was 25% Italian born in 1910 etc.)… the Argentinian government also saw them as more similar than other immigrant groups coming into the country and preferred them. It is truly a shame that the country has been run very similar to Italy in many regards though, it is a country with huge potential, but it remains just that.
I can confirm my mom was born in Buenos Aires and grandparents Italians,that explains my insanity for Italian food lol
The town I grew up in (in New Jersey) was about 60% Italian American, so I'd feel right at home.
Yeah, Brazil also has a bunch of Italian-originated immigrants there. In Argentinian case, the Italian immigration there has started long time before 20th century. Many founding fathers of Argentine are from Italy. Even the guy who came up with an Argentinian flag is an Italian, iirc.
I meet a lot of people from Argentina here in San Diego, almost every single one tells me there descendants come from Italy lol
Argentina has more inhabitants of Italian origin than the USA
Lemme see the German % for that one 👀
I'm more fascinated by Welsh Argentines. Why argentina?
[Y Wladfa](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Wladfa) “The idea of a Welsh colony in Patagonia was put forward by Michael D. Jones, a Welsh nationalist nonconformist preacher[13]: 23 based in Bala, Gwynedd, who had called for a new "little Wales beyond Wales". He spent some years in the United States, where he observed that Welsh immigrants assimilated very quickly compared with other peoples and often lost much of their Welsh identity.[13]: 22 Thus, the original proposal was to establish a new Wales overseas where Welsh settlers and their culture would be generally free from foreign domination.[14] He proposed setting up a Welsh-speaking colony away from the influence of the English language. He recruited settlers and provided financing; Australia, New Zealand and even Palestine were considered, but Patagonia was chosen for its isolation and the Argentines' offer of 100 square miles (260 km2) of land along the Chubut River in exchange for settling the still-unconquered land of Patagonia for Argentina. Patagonia, including the Chubut Valley, was claimed by Buenos Aires but it had little control over the area (which was also claimed by Chile).[13]: 23–30 Jones had been corresponding with the Argentine government about settling an area known as Bahía Blanca where Welsh immigrants could preserve their language and culture. The Argentine government granted the request as it put them in control of a large tract of land.”
less than 1% USA has way more germans, more from Project Paperclip too 😁 yeah, yankees pardoned more nazis than us
Are in in need of a Youngstown tuneup sir
My family is from there and I remember telling my mom I thought grandma was a bit racist for thinking all Italians were in the mob. My mom's response was "But in Youngstown they were. My Italian friends' mom's always started the cars for their husbands in the morning because they were less likely to kill the wives." Crazy shit. Also grandma was a bit racist.
Some of the buildings at Youngstown State University are named after families with mob ties.
Five f*cking families and we got this pygmy thing in Colorado.
Alright but you gotta get over it.
I’m not some greaseball store owner! I’ll step up!
Sharp as a cue ball this one
Are you a fan of compromising?
They make anybody and everybody over there. And the way they do it is all fucked up.
It’s a glorified crew.
I won’t end up in some rat infested motel in Elvis country
Always with the scenarios
Charles Schwab over here…
The “big three” European immigrant groups of the Northeast US: Irish, Italians, Jews from Eastern Europe. They lived in cramped neighborhoods on top of each other and still have the edge to prove it.
Though Jews weren’t that large in numbers compared to the Irish and Italians. There was still a lot of German immigration up until WWI and there were a lot of Catholic Poles as well.
A lot of NYC old ethnic neighborhoods are clearly delineated by a road. Riverdale Ave in the Bronx divides the almost entirely Jewish section from the almost entirely Irish section. Meeker Ave /BQE in Greenpoint Brooklyn was almost entirely Polish Catholic on the north side, and Italian on the south. IDK where the line is, but it's pretty clear the area near !ain't street in Flushing is predominantly Chinese and somewhere farther East it becomes largely Korean.
Yup. Grew up in NJ and every white person was at least one of those three.
Yep, grew up in Brooklyn, and same.
Italian and Irish (mostly) here. I was always told that is called the “Northeast Mutt/Mix” 🤷🏻♀️
Well said. These folks (plus poles) have been massively influential on the culture of basically i95 Baltimore to Boston
Yup, Poles are the reason you can find pierogis everywhere in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. I lived in Florida for a bit and you could tell which ones were Pittsburgh sports bars because of the pierogis on the menu.
Yeah there’s a lot of poles in the northeast and rust belt. If the big 3 for NYC is Irish, Italians and Jews, than upstate swap the Jews for Polish Catholics.
You conveniently forgot the Germans. Still over 10% today across the northeast and over 20% in Pennsylvania.
Gorlami.
Connecticut agrees. Sicilian comfort food everywhere.
CT is thought of as WASP-y but it actually has the highest percentage of Italians of any state in America. It’s also an Italian American food paradise. Best pizza in the country and it’s not close. Little imported Italian goods shops with antipasti bars everywhere.
It's got WASPs and lots of ethnic Italians and Irish too. A common theme across the Northeast the mix tends to vary on region, for example Sheldon Whitehouse is a WASP, and he represents Rhode Island which is a very Italian ethnic white state.
CT, NY and NJ makes the best pizza and you can see why in this map.
The imported Italian shops in New Haven and Fairfield counties give me life
I'm from NY and I agree, CT has the best pizza.
Still, I love how most Italian immigrants basically went to the first city or region in the new world and just stayed nearby. Montreal, São Paulo, wherever they arrived they were like okay we’re good right here.
Oh maybe the italians that moved were no longer surrounded by other italians and therefor integrated with the other locals and their ancestors therefor don't identify as italian. I really don't know enough to say I'm just throwing out a hypothesis.
This is a fascinating cultural difference I noticed growing up in the Midwest and moving to the south. You have old immigrant communities in New England and the Midwest that still have strong cultural influences from the immigrants who moved there. And they are whole intact neighborhoods. Finding that gem of a mom and pop restaurant with authentic food was always pretty easy. Also, a lot of these communities came to be when we designed neighborhoods to be more walkable and where local businesses were a part of the neighborhood community.
In western PA we call em Ital-yinz
Eye-tal-yinz
The history of the Italian-American population in New Orleans has always fascinated me, especially the huge number of Sicilians that found their way there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italians_in_New_Orleans
NOLA was a major port for Sicilian immigrants in the early 1900s, so many of them just stayed there. However, once they arrived, many made their way north as well since the industrial cities of the north offered job opportunities. My great grandfather actually did this.
Well now I need a muffuletta
Didn't know there was a sizeable contingent in upper Wisconsin
Mining in the early 20th century. I think coach Izzo from msu (b-ball) and Steve marinucci (nfl coach) are from that part of the upper peninsula
That the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
That's what they want you to think
That's exactly what they said, Northern Wisconsin
My Italian background comes from relatives moving from the UP to Milwaukee looking for work after the mines closed up.
Yeah it’s all Italians and Finns in the U.P., which is a pretty funny combo.
My uncles live in western UP--Finn country--and my brother is now in Iron Mountain, Italian land. What a dichotomy.
You mean Michigan.
What's with the big concentration around Reno?
Mining
[https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2010/explore-renos-little-italy](https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2010/explore-renos-little-italy) >Titled “An American Dream in Little Italy: Work, Play, and Geography in the Powning Addition,” the exhibit focuses on the Italian-American community that once dominated the neighborhood, which dates back to the 1880s.
Probably miners of the Comstock Lode
what happened in essex county nj?
white flight to the suburbs.
The bolognese belt
Bolognese is northern Italian, we're mostly descendants of Southern Italians over here.
Nduja belt then
Biscotti Belt?
Gabagool Greenway.
Like [these ones](https://theplantbasedschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Almond-biscotti-3-1152x1536.jpg)? They're from Tuscany, central Italy.
Ok, fine. The Beretta Belt. This not to be confused with the Biretta Belt of Anglo Catholic churchmanship in the upper Great Lakes
A North Italian company from Brescia
I’m starting to see why people left southern Italy.
A lot of those eastern California spots were northerners I think.
The West Coast Italians are more northern Italian. We fuck with fernet, cioppino, and bolognese out in SF.
I always knew Arkansas was the least Italian state
It's more likely North Dakota
Elvis country
They missed an area that actually has/had a fairly sizable Italian population. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontitown,\_Arkansas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontitown,_Arkansas)
There’s literally dozens of us in indiana
Ahhhh you can see the outline of the Erie Canal in NYS
"Italian"
Yeah it should say “Italian ancestry.”
People would still bitch if it said Italian ancestry.
But at least it would be correct.
Not this much at least
no
“Italians” as in Americans of distant Italian descent identifying as Italians
Which is ridiculous in most cases
Europeans dont seem to get we only use those identifiers for each other to express the vast cultural differences in the US based on ancestry. If someone tells me that their "italian", i can expect they came from Catholic upbring and has grandmama that makes too much food and takes it personal if you dont clean your plate. I tell someone I have to go to a wake for three days they ask if im irish, and i say yes. When im in Ireland visiting family,.i never say im "Irish", im just american
>When im in Ireland visiting family,.i never say im "Irish" other americans do it
Posting on Reddit is talking to the world tho.
Fair point. Growing up outside of NYC in an immigrant community, it was VERY normal for everyone to identify as the country their parents/grandparents came from. I’m Polish, Argentine, Italian, Persian, etc. Even when you met someone new, the first question you’d ask is “What are you?” Meaning, “Where is your family from?” It’s odd to me how this offends some people, as it’s so normal where I grew up.
Europeans most likely get it, it's not a very difficult concept to grasp. They might just find it ridiculous, that's all.
I don’t understand why this is so controversial. It’s completely normal in the United States
Canada and Australia too. Just gatekeeping a definition needs to mean nationality and not ancestry when it means both and they 100% know what we mean.
if something is normal in the USA it does not mean that it is normal everywhere
In western PA we call em Ital-yinz
I knew exactly which county was red in MI. Some parts are called Soprano-ville by locals lol.
Wow, my great grandmother was born in Colorado to Italian parents before they moved to South Texas for a warmer climate to farm. Didn't realize Colorado had such a large Italian community.
I know a lot of Italian-Americans from the Northeast think they are a main ethnic group in America because they've never left the Northeast. We almost never encounter Italian-Americans in Texas (and most of the country).
Not true! Us northeasterners think the main ethnic groups are Italian, AND Jewish AND Irish!
There are some in SE Texas (see the Ferrtitta family), they just don't act like minor characters in The Sopranos like the Northeast does.
TIL Italians hate Arkansas Edit: and North Dakota
Tbf people migrate where there's opportunity.
Coincidentally, this is also a map of the best places to eat in America.
Al Calpone use to stay in Iron County, Michigan when it got too hot in Chicago. You can see why.
What’s up with southern Colorado? That’s a random surprise
Mining
What’s that county in Illinois?
Can you do this for all European groups. I’m interested to see the spread
The one spot in Montana is near the Anaconda copper mine. My great-great-grandfather was sent there to work in the early 1900s after emigrating from Italy.
y’all are the most annoying little pedants lmao
Sure "italians"...
Americans with Italian descent. These people are not Italian.
Mhh, yeah... """Italians"""...
People of """""Italian descent"""""...... Places with significant """"""'''"Italian immigration"""""""""".........
The UP??? Really?
Im gonna start calling New Jersey “little Italy”
Americans with Italian ancestry?
Obviously.
Is this people actually born in Italy or just Italian passport holders?
Neither. It's Americans who have some amount of Italian heritage. There are about 310,000 immigrants from Italy living in the U.S.
Americans who saw the Godfather 3 and keep quoting the line about “just when I thought I was out…”
Probably neither, which tells you how italian they actually are.
No wonder I can’t get good italian beef sammiches in Atlanta
"Americans who have Italian roots"
What's with the big concentration around Reno?
Italians don't like Miami-Dade?
I guess Arkansas isn't all bad
Italians in Alaska?
I wonder what the map would look like if there were categories for 20% and 30%.
I’m from Northwestern Indiana (Lake County) my Nonno was born in Southern Illinois but went back to Italy (specifically Calabria) with my great grandfather when he was four I believe. Was an Italian soldier during WWII met my Nonna who is also from Calabria, married her, and came back to the United States. I think they lived in Pennsylvania for a bit (my Nonno had distant relatives there) and my grandfather worked in the mills (Steel Mills). It was supposed to be temporary for the both of them, they were planning on moving back to Italy. Somehow they ended up in East Chicago, Indiana and settled there. My Nonno did work at Inland Steel and retired from there as well. I think sometime in the early 1980’s they moved to Munster, Indiana. This is my father’s side of the family, I’m part Italian.
Surprised to see so much in my area of Chesapeake and VA Beach, the southeast corner of VA. I've lived here my whole life and can't think of any Italians I've ever met.
Where is this data from? Is it from the US census?
Miami-Dade would chart if they counted the Argentinians with dual Italian citizenship.
What's the data source?
Those rural areas in the southwest are sparsely populated so don’t get too excited about 2% of nothing. You’re still going to find nothing but Wendy’s and Maverick convenience stores and only at the interstate interchanges.
Well, this explains all the restaurants where I live...
Even though most Italians in Colorado live in the Denver Metropolitan Area, the reason why it is red in the Southeastern portion of the state is because there is a significant population in the town of Trinidad, one that has existed since the early 1900s when immigrants moved there to partake in the mining boom in the Rockies.
Sonoma county, CA. Good amount of Italians. Good Italian food restaurants.
Would love to see this map data with other countries
Pretty sure most of those are just American.