# Have any European groups been historically uninterested in immigrating to America? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 26, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014 "2014-04-26T02:24:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/21 "2014-04-27T08:18:20Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Actually I think it’s a fair point that the English and Welsh would tend to emigrate to other parts of the British Empire - nothing to do with the war putting them off, it just makes more sense that you’d move somewhere that’s still part of ‘home’ than a foreign country, plus there were frequently incentives given for them to move to certain places (such as the £10 Pom, when, post WWII, Brits were encouraged to go to Australia with a cheap passage). It depended on the era. English immigration the the US continued more or less at the same level for a century after the revolution. Canada did not really take off until the second half of the nineteenth century, about the same time as the large scale immigrations to Australia began. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/22 "2014-04-27T10:02:18Z")
Russians of non-Jewish background are very rare in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/23 "2014-04-27T13:03:53Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > And Wikipedia’s page on [Sami American](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_American). Including people like Renée Zellweger, Balto the Human, and… Renée Zellweger. The article confirms my thoughts: probably more than a few immigrants with _some_ Sami ancestry, but hardly any full blooded or culturally Sami. Well, that’s lame… from the Sami in Alaska link on that page: > [@](#): > > Many Sami had arrived in Alaska to manage the reindeer in the 1930s. The Alaskan Sami were required to sell their herds to the government, and many left Alaska after doing so. So, we allowed some Sami to immigrate to Alaska so they could teach the Native Americans how to raise reindeer, and then we made it illegal for Sami to own reindeer. I also find myself wondering how many Native Americans there are in Europe. ---
**Author:** ![CatherineZeta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@CatherineZeta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatherineZeta)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/24 "2014-04-27T18:55:42Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > I also find myself wondering how many Native Americans there are in Europe. Honestly, this has never occurred to me- that’s a really good question. I googled it and couldn’t come up with much aside from slaves who were brought over from the New World and people like Pocohontas who married John Rolfe and moved (and unfortunately died shortly after) to England. The Yahoo Answers link I found had mostly gibberish answers, but the answer that most Native Americans in Europe are stationed there because they’re in the US military makes sense. I’m sure there are others who may have moved to Europe for other work related reasons and there are probably some (or most maybe) that pass as “white” so no one would have any idea what their background is. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/25 "2014-04-27T20:24:19Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > I can’t imagine there’s been many Sami migrants to the Americas. Before the second half of the 20th century they subsisted almost entirely on herding reindeers, so that tended to limit their options to where they were able to move on land. I was actually going to come in to post about the Sami, they essentially lived their indigenous lifestyle for so long they never had any major immigration anywhere in modern times, let alone to the United States. > [@middlemarch](#): > > Its a bit of an odd suggestion I’ll grant you - but how about the English and Welsh? > > Given the war of independence being essentially against an English controlled Britain would seem to put them off, while the growth of other parts of the British empire subsequently would seem to be far more accommodating. Well, arguably English is the biggest ancestry group in the United States. It actually ranks below German and I believe Irish in the census because most American whites aren’t really “German-American” or “Irish-American” but just some mutt mixture of white European ancestry. A lot of studies have suggested that the large portion of whites who simply identify “American” as their ancestry group are at least predominantly of English ancestry. For whatever reason people named Thompson, Richmond, Smith etc are more likely to just put “American” ancestry on a census while a guy just as American (say 5-6th generation) whose last name is “Schmidt” is more likely to put “German-American” out of same vague recognition of the fact that 180 years ago someone in his family was born in Germany. English immigration did of course change over the years. Prior to the Revolution you basically had two groups: religious separatists and profiteers/entrepreneurs. After the Revolution both of those had died down a lot (in fact religious tolerance had been much better back on the Isles for several generations at that point) and the unfriendly view towards anyone who might be loyal to the British Crown certainly gave the ones who just wanted to immigrate to America for profit motivations some pause. With Canada and Australia also being opened to colonization there were also alternatives within the Empire. But you did still have a steady stream of English, especially after the War of 1812 when open hostility with the Brits had mostly died down, who came to the United States in the 20th century to try and make something of themselves. Britain was notoriously difficult to build a life for yourself in as a lower class person. While 19th century American also eventually turned into the Gilded Age which was also not all that upwardly mobile, it’s really beyond dispute that there were more opportunities for economic advancement in America for a poor person than 19th century Britain. Andrew Carnegie for example (while Scottish) would never have become the wealthiest man in the world if he had stayed in the U.K., there was just no way a weaver’s son would have been able to move up the ranks of a railroad company (which is how Carnegie made his money and connections before pouring it all into the later businesses that made him uber wealthy.) If you weren’t proper middle class and hadn’t attended the right schools you never would have been made an executive with a 19th century British firm as Carnegie was in the United States. Immigration to America definitely favored the worse off, though. There’s a reason such a huge number of Irish moved to America, and even relatively speaking a large number of Scots (with the enclosure movement and various other troubles sparking them on.) Relative to their size as population groups on the British Isles, the English were indeed “underrepresented” as immigrants compared to the Irish. So too in Italy, we disproportionately got Southern Italians and even specifically Sicilians relative to the rest of Southern Italy because these were the poorest regions of Italy. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/26 "2014-04-27T22:04:40Z")
Most Europeans, both historically and still today, have been and still are uninterested in immigrating to America. The same can be said for most people in most of the world. Contrary to the self-flattering myth common amongst Americans themselves, most non-Americans have no particular interest in coming to live there. The sensible question would be, why is it that at certain points in history certain groups of people _have_ been interested in immigrating into America? Usually the answer has had to do with extreme poverty or oppression at home and the fact that America has often been one of the easiest countries for poor foreigners to get into. Once, this was because of its policy of welcoming and encouraging European immigration, and, for poor Mexicans today, it is simply because it is very close by. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/27 "2014-04-27T22:09:57Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > If you don’t count Louisiana. And [New France](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_France). I had never heard of New France until I was fiddling with my ex-husband’s genealogy to trace the spelling of his last name for the kids. Yes, the name had been anglesized. I couldn’t trace them beyond upper Lower Michigan, so I don’t know if they settled there originally or came down from Canada. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/28 "2014-04-27T22:16:36Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > I also find myself wondering how many Native Americans there are in Europe. Given that there are slightly more than 2.5 million Native Americans now and most are concentrated in the Midwestern and Western US, there really weren’t many to emigrate anywhere outside of North America, much less Europe. After all, disease and warfare almost eradicated the aboriginal population of the US and it has only begun to rise again in the last 50-75 years. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/29 "2014-04-27T22:30:33Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Most Europeans, both historically and still today, have been and still are uninterested in immigrating to America. The same can be said for most people in most of the world. Contrary to the self-flattering myth common amongst Americans themselves, most non-Americans have no particular interest in coming to live there. > > The sensible question would be, why is it that at certain points in history certain groups of people _have_ been interested in immigrating into America? Usually the answer has had to do with extreme poverty or oppression at home and the fact that America has often been one of the easiest countries for poor foreigners to get into. Once, this was because of its policy of welcoming and encouraging European immigration, and, for poor Mexicans today, it is simply because it is very close by. This is inaccurate on many levels. Numerous Europeans left the continent (especially those in Eastern Europe) as there were no economic opportunities for them if they had remained.In fact, if it wasn’t for immigration restrictions between the World Wars and afterward (as well as the wars themselves) there would probably be even more people of European descent than they are here already. Ireland for example has 6.4 million people total in the independent nation and the British occupied north. There are 56.7 million Americans who are of Irish descent. Even if we presume that many are mixed with Germanic, Italian and even African American stock, that still means that the Irish population of the US exceeds that of their native land by at least fivefold. Also, Norway has a population of a little over 5 million, but there are 4.5 million Americans of Norwegian descent. Clearly numerous people in Norway decided to leave as until the discovery of oil after WWII, the country was very poor and its agricultural base has never been robust enough support more than a minor population. Finally, many areas in the US have European and European-descendant communities which are among the largest outside of their native lands in the world. If traveling to the US was never of “interest” to Europeans, this would not have occurred or frankly have been possible. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/30 "2014-04-27T22:30:42Z")
> [@Neidhart](#): > > Russians of non-Jewish background are very rare in the U.S. I wouldn’t say so. They used to be fairly rare before 1990s or so (and usually from the pre-Russian-revolution background), but today there are a lot more of them. I know south Florida is teeming with (wealthy) Russians. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/31 "2014-04-27T23:18:07Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Well, arguably English is the biggest ancestry group in the United States. It actually ranks below German and I believe Irish in the census because most American whites aren’t really “German-American” or “Irish-American” but just some mutt mixture of white European ancestry. A lot of studies have suggested that the large portion of whites who simply identify “American” as their ancestry group are at least predominantly of English ancestry. For whatever reason people named Thompson, Richmond, Smith etc are more likely to just put “American” ancestry on a census while a guy just as American (say 5-6th generation) whose last name is “Schmidt” is more likely to put “German-American” out of same vague recognition of the fact that 180 years ago someone in his family was born in Germany. Well, if it’s census data, then it’s self-report. It goes (2000): [ol] [li]German[/li][li]Irish[/li][li]African/Black[/li][li]English[/li][li]American[/li][li]Mexican[/li][li]Italian[/li][li]Polish[/li][li]French[/li][li]Amerindian[/li][/ol] Last 3 are a little surprising. Less so when you look at percentages. “American” is reported less than half as much as German. It is most popular in the upper south - Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virgina. I presume it is also so in the rest of the south, just that the black population is larger. I have a suspicion (a WAG) that Scotch-Irish (or Scots-) actual ancestry is higher than 1.5%, but most people don’t even know what that is, and for most of them is indistinguishable from regular Irish except that they go to different churches and really don’t like each other in the old country. In a sense the census data is an inaccurate measure of people’s real ancestry. But it is also useful in that other people often assume your ancestry. Irish isn’t my biggest by percentage, but I might as well be wrapped in green if you go by my name and that’s what people assume and how you might be reacted to. Whereas a Schmidt may not be seen as German unless your first name is also Hans (it doesn’t help that many German and Yiddish names are identical). ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/32 "2014-04-28T00:19:42Z")
> [@Neidhart](#): > > Russians of non-Jewish background are very rare in the U.S. Not at all. I worked in Soviet refugee resettlement in the early 90s. The vast majority of the households we resettled were Jewish in that at least one adult in the household was Jewish, but about half were married to non-Jews, mostly ethnic Russians and sometimes Ukrainians. Chicago was one of the largest resettlement destinations, but dwarfed by NYC. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/33 "2014-04-28T14:09:16Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > One of those Bohemians liked the New World so much, he named a [symphony](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Symphony) after it. There’s also a famous rhapsody. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/34 "2014-04-28T14:17:29Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Czechs (not to be confused with Slovaks) Texas had several major waves of Czech immigrants in the 19th century. They affected everything from the cuisine to the music to the beer. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/35 "2014-04-28T14:22:22Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > [Very useful website for Italian names](http://www.gens.info/italia/it/turismo-viaggi-e-tradizioni-italia): it has distribution of Italian surnames in both Italy and the US. It’s not in English but it’s easy to figure out. Neat-o! My northern-Italian great-something-grandpa caught a Neapolitan wife on his way out of the country, they stopped in Barcelona on their way to Argentina and stayed. Previous searches I’d tried on their lastname brought up almost no results, that one does. Most in Emilia Romagna and quite a few in Lombardia (so, yep, Northern Italy). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/36 "2014-04-28T14:28:28Z")
I wonder how much of the differences is due to differences in population at origin. I mean, logically you’ll get more people if you count “people of English origin” than if you count “people whose ancestors were from Yorkshire”, right? Not because Yorkshire is a part of England, but because it is smaller than England - the being part of it just makes this size relationship easier to see. Some of the populations that have been mentioned as “rare” aren’t exactly very big. A pair picked at random: for current data grabbed out of Wiki, population of Sicily above 5M; total Sami population in northern-European countries aprox 133K. So if the same % of Sami and Sicilians had emigrated to the US, and the population ratio between the two groups had remained constant, you’d still expect to have about 37 times as many Sicilian-Americans as Sami-Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/37 "2014-04-28T15:00:54Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Some of the populations that have been mentioned as “rare” aren’t exactly very big. A pair picked at random: for current data grabbed out of Wiki, population of Sicily above 5M; total Sami population in northern-European countries aprox 133K. So if the same % of Sami and Sicilians had emigrated to the US, and the population ratio between the two groups had remained constant, you’d still expect to have about 37 times as many Sicilian-Americans as Sami-Americans. Quite. So given that we know 945 people identify as Sami American according to Wikipedia, what exactly would you estimate that ratio to be? ---
**Author:** ![Caffeine.addict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f475e1/32.png) [@Caffeine.addict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caffeine.addict)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/38 "2014-04-28T15:12:34Z")
> [@kiz](#): > > You were more apt to emigrate if you lived in southern Italy. The north was, and still is, the more wealthy portion of the country; except for those few who emigrated to South America, there was no economic incentive to move. An old friend of mine was part Italian/Swiss…I remember him saying his grandparents were considered a minority within the greater Italian emigrant community because they weren’t from the south. > > The rule of emigrant thumb: If you didn’t have an economic or other overwhelming reason to emigrate, chances are you stayed put. Northern Italy wasn’t that rich in the 1860s. There was heavy immigration from the Veneto to Brazil and Argentina. The region my father’s from was settled by Italians from the Veneto. Even after quite a few generations, in some of the small towns, most of the family names are Italian. According to the Wikipedia article on Italo Brazilians, Up to [30%](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Brazilian) of the immigrants to Brazil were from the Veneto. I’ve noticed when I’m there that the Italian food is very different. It is more polenta based, and they don’t use much red sauce. The pizza isn’t very good either. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/39 "2014-04-28T15:13:44Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > …“American” is reported less than half as much as German. It is most popular in the upper south - Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virgina… I have a suspicion (a WAG) that Scotch-Irish (or Scots-) actual ancestry is higher than 1.5%, but most people don’t even know what that is, and for most of them is indistinguishable from regular Irish except that they go to different churches and really don’t like each other in the old country. > > In a sense the census data is an inaccurate measure of people’s real ancestry. But it is also useful in that other people often assume your ancestry… It’s interesting to consider how people perceive their ancestry and what goes into this perception. For example, some of my ancestors were “Pennsylvania Dutch” Germans and I live in the mid-Atlantic states where Penna Dutch culture is visible to some extent (most don’t speak the language, but cultural practices such as barnstars remain widespread), so it is at least somewhat meaningful to self-identify as German. If I moved to California, German ancestry would become less meaningful there. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014/40 "2014-04-28T15:36:58Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > No Northern Italians in the New World? Pick up a Buenos Aires or Montevideo phone book. Otherwise, Sicilians and Southern Italians were (are) poorer and therefore came in more prominent numbers, but people don’t exactly differentiate on the census. Lots of Northerners in California, too. My nona had a very stereotypical Ligurian name that doesn’t even show up in the top X US surnames, but mostly appears in Argentina and CA Central Valley. You may have heard of e.g. Domingo (Domenico) Ghirardelli, of chocolate fame. > > [Very useful website for Italian names](http://www.gens.info/italia/it/turismo-viaggi-e-tradizioni-italia): it has distribution of Italian surnames in both Italy and the US. It’s not in English but it’s easy to figure out. > Ha! Nice site. Confirms what I already knew. My mother’s family is from Naples and settled in NYC. Along with most of those with the same name. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-european-groups-been-historically-uninterested-in-immigrating-to-america/687014.md?page=3)