I have noticed that all the Chinese people that I have ever met are originally from South China and speak the Cantonese dialect.
I have lived in various places DC, FL, Pittsburgh and Chicago and I have always wondered why?
We got an intern where I work and she is from Northern China and I asked her about this. She also said that everyone she has met here in the states speaks the southern dialect.
Is this regional? Is it that Southern China was more economically depressed so more immigrants from that area came? Or is it because Hong Kong and Macau were European and thus made the immigration easier?
Or is it just that I haven’t lived in the places where Northern Chinese moved to?
There was much more emigration from the south. Proximity to seaports and historic overseas links must have played a role, as well as economic hardship.
IIRC, a large portion of the migration from China to N Am during the gold mining/railroad building era came through Canton and HK. People also went to S Am from those places. OTOH, if you go to SE Asia - Saigon, Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Manila - you’ll often find more Fujianese than Cantonese, though there are regional variations (eg, lots of Chiu Chow in Thailand).
yep, the original immigration to the US during the gold rush/railroad period was from Canton Province (present day Guangdong).
Thus in the Bay Area you will find 3rd or 4th generation Chinese that only speak a local Cantonese dialect such as Toisan (sp?) or Chiuchow.
The next immigration wave from China came in 1949.
Then you had a flow of Chinese from Taiwan in the 1970’s 80’s. LA’s Monterey Park was known as little Taipei.
Starting from the 1980’s, the Mainland Chinese who came for study started to work and immigrate.
So, that’s why there are a lot of Cantonese decendants in the US