Ethnic Geography
The Human Mosaic
Chapter 9
Examples of ethnic enclaves in the
United States
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North Boston
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Mounted statue of American hero Paul Revere
is in an Italian neighborhood
Most businesses have Italian names
Women lean out of upper-story windows
conversing —Naples-style — to neighbors
across the street
Italian-dominated outdoor vegetable market
Pilgrimage to the site where the American
Revolution began has become a trip to Little
Italy
Examples of ethnic enclaves in the
United States
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Wilber, Nebraska, bills itself “The
Czech Capital of Nebraska”
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Holds an annual “National Czech
Festival”
Authentic food, and locally made
handicraft are offered for sale
Many shops are decorated in Czech
motif and ethnic music is played on the
streets
The festival draws thousands of visitors
each year
Examples of ethnic enclaves in the
United States
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Other ethnic festivals held in Nebraska
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Newman Grove—”Norwegian Days”
Bridgeport—”the Greek Festival”
Dannebrog—the Danish “Grundlovs Fest”
McCook—”German Heritage Days”
Stromsburg—the “Swedish Festival” O’Neal—
the “St. Patrick’s Day Celebration”
Several Indian tribal “powwows” are held in
other cities
Examples of ethnic enclaves in the
United States
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An ethnic crazy-quilt pattern exists
in both urban and rural areas of the
United States
Same kind of pattern exists in
Canada, Russia, China, and many
other countries
Problems encountered when
defining ethnic group
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Controversy has surround attempts to
formulate an accepted definition
Word ethnic derived from Greek word
ethnos meaning “people” or “nation”
For this text defined as people of common
ancestry and cultural tradition, living as a
minority in a larger society, or host
culture
Strong feeling of group identity, of
belonging characterizes ethnicity
Problems encountered when
defining ethnic group

Membership in an ethnic group is
involuntary
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He or she must be born into the group
Often individuals choose to discard
their ethnicity
Problems encountered when
defining ethnic group

Main problem is different groups base
their identities on different traits
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The Jews—primarily means religion
The Amish—both folk culture and religion
African-Americans—skin color
Swiss-Americans—national origin
German-Americans—ancestral language
Cuban-Americans—mainly anti-Castro, and
anti-Marxist sentiment
Problems encountered when
defining ethnic group
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Politics can also help provide the
basis for the we/they dichotomy
that underlies ethnicity
Role of ethnic groups
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Keepers of distinctive cultural traditions
Focal point of various kinds of social
interaction
Provide group identity, friendships, and
marriage partners
Also provides a recreational outlet,
business success, and a political power
base
Can give rise to suspicion, friction,
distrust, clannishness, and even violence
How ethnic minorities can be
changed by their host culture
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Acculturation — an ethnic group adopts
enough of the host society’s ways to be
able to function economically and socially
Assimilation — a complete blending with
the host culture
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Involves loss of all distinctive ethnic traits
American host culture now includes many
descendants of —Germans, Scots, Irish,
French, Swedes, and Welsh
Intermarriage is perhaps the most effective
assimilatory device
How ethnic minorities can be
changed by their host culture
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In reality few ethnic groups have
been assimilated in the so-called
“melting-pot”
It was assumed all ethnic groups would
eventually be assimilated
 The last 25 years has witnessed a
resurgence of ethnic identity in the United
States, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere
 Ethnicity easily made the transition from
folk to popular culture
 Popular culture reveals a vivid ethnic
component
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Ethnic geography
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The study of ethnic geography is
the study of spatial and ecological
aspects of ethnicity
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Ethnic groups often practice unique
adaptive strategies
Normally occupy clearly defined areas—
urban and rural
Culture regions
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Ethnic regions
Cultural diffusion and ethnicity
Ethnic ecology
Ethnic cultural integration
Ethnic landscapes
Culture groups typically occupy
compact territories
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Ethnic formal culture regions can be
mapped
Geographers rely on diverse data
Surnames in telephone directories
 Census totals for mother tongue
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Each method will produce a slightly
different map
Such regions exist in most countries
Ethnic formal culture regions
Culture groups typically occupy
compact territories
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Two distinct geographical types of ethnic
regions exist
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Ethnic minorities who reside in ancient home
territories
 Lands where their ancestors lived back into
prehistoric times
 Became ethnic when their territory was
annexed into a larger independent state
 Examples — Basques of Spain, Navajo Indians
of American Southwest
 Place and region provide a basic element in
their ethnic identity
Culture groups typically occupy
compact territories
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Two distinct geographical types of
ethnic regions exist
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Results from migration when people
move great distances
Emotional attachment tends to be weaker
toward new homeland
 Only after many generations pass do
descendants of immigrants develop strong
bonds to region and place
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Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Ethnic homelands
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Cover large areas, often over-lapping state and
provincial borders
Have sizable populations
Residents seek or enjoy some measure of
political autonomy or self-rule
Populations usually exhibit a strong sense of
attachment to the region
Most homelands belong to indigenous ethnic
groups
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Ethnic homelands
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Possess special, venerated places that serve to
symbolize and celebrate the region — shrines to
the special identity of the group
Combines the attributes of both formal and
functional culture regions
Regarded by some as incompletely developed
nation-states
Because of sex, age, and geographical segregation
tend to strengthen ethnicity
Long occupation helps people develop modes of
life, behavior, tastes, and relationships regarded
as the correct ones
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Examples of ethnic homelands in North
America
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Acadiana — Louisiana French increasingly
identified with the Cajun people and recognized as
a perceptual region
Spanish-American — highland New Mexico,
Colorado, and South Texas
Navajo Reservation — New Mexico and Arizona
French-Canadian — centered on valley of lower St.
Lawrence River in Quebec
Some include Deseret— Mormon homeland in the
Great Basin of the Intermontane West
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Some ethnic homelands have experienced
decline and decay
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Pennsylvania “Dutch” — weakened to almost
extinction by assimilation
Southern “Black Belt” — diminished by collapse of
plantation-sharecrop system resulting in outmigration to urban areas
Mormon absorption into the American cultural
mainstream
Non-ethnic immigration has damaged the
Spanish-American homeland
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Most vigorous homelands are the
French-Canadians and South Texas
Mexican-Americans
Ethnic substrate
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Occurs when a people in a homeland are
assimilated into the host culture and a
geographical residue remains
The resultant culture region retains some
distinctiveness
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Ethnic substrate
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Geographers often find traces of an
ancient, vanished ethnicity in a region
Italian province of Tuscany owes both its
name and some uniqueness to the Etruscan
people who ceased as an ethnic group 2,000
years ago
 Massive German presence in American
Heartland helped shape cultural character of
the Midwest, which can be said to have a
German ethnic substrate
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Ethnic Island: Westby, Wisconsin
Ethnic Island: Westby, Wisconsin
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This small town is
in America’s
ethnically diverse
rural heartland.
Westby was a
Norwegian pioneer
and the town’s
population is
primarily
Norwegian.
Ethnic Island: Westby, Wisconsin
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Although traditional
events such as the fall
lutefisk dinner and the
May 17th Norwegian
Independence Day
celebration are
celebrated, this
ethnic group has
essentially
assimilated with the
host culture.
Note the various
popular cultural
organizations and
activities in this
community.
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Ethnic islands in North America
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Small dots in the countryside
Usually occupy less area than a county
Much smaller than a homeland-serve as
home to only several hundred or several
thousand people
More numerous than homelands or
substrates
Many found in large areas of rural North
America
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Ethnic islands in North America
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Crazy-quilt pattern found in some areas of
Midwest
Germans form the largest group found in ethnic
islands—southeastern Pennsylvania and in
Wisconsin
Scandinavians — primarily Swedes and
Norwegians —came mainly to Minnesota, the
eastern Dakotas, and western Wisconsin
Ukrainians settled mainly in the Canadian Prairie
Provinces
Slavic groups — mainly Poles and Czechs —
established scattered colonies in the Midwest and
Texas
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Ethnic islands develop because “a minority
group will tend to utilize space in such a way
as to minimize the interaction distance
between group members”
The desire is to facilitate contacts within the
community and minimize exposure to the
outside world
The ideal shape of an ethnic island is circular
or hexagonal
People are drawn to rural places where
others of the same ethnic background are
found
Ethnic culture regions in rural
North America
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Survive from one generation to the
next because most land is inherited
Sale of land is typically confined within
the ethnic group, helping to preserve
its identity
Social stigma is often attached to sale
of land to outsiders
Small size makes populations more
susceptible to acculturation and
assimilation
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and
ghettos
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Formal ethnic culture regions occur
in cities throughout the world
Minority people tend to create
ethnic residential quarters
Ethnic neighborhood — a voluntary
community where people of like
origin reside by choice showing a
desire to maintain group
cohesiveness
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and
ghettos
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Benefits of the ethnic neighborhood
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Common use of language
Nearby kin
Stores and services specially tailored to
a certain group’s tastes
Presence of factories relying on
ethnically based division of labor
Institutions important to the group —
churches and lodges
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and
ghettos
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The ghetto — traditionally been used to
describe an area within the city where a
certain ethnic group is forced to live
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An involuntary community and as much a
functional culture region as a formal one
Discrimination decides whether a ethnic group
lives in a ghetto or voluntarily forms its own
neighborhood
American society discriminates more against
blacks and Asians
Jewish Ghetto: Salzburg, Austria
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The name of this
street is
Judengasse – Jew
Street.
Here, as in many
European cities,
Jews were forced
to live in a specific
walled and gated
area.
Jewish Ghetto: Salzburg, Austria
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Judengasse had 3000
residents by 1610.
Virtually all of
Salzburg’s Jewish
population succumbed
to the Nazi Holocaust.
The term ghetto
derives from the
Jewish quarter by the
Ghetto Novo or New
Foundry in Venice.
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and
ghettos
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Study of Cleveland, Ohio, by John Kain
Blacks are confined to a ghetto by
discriminatory housing practices
 Blacks more highly segregated
residentially than white ethnic groups
 Italians, Poles, Jews, Appalachian folk,
and other white ethnic groups occupy
neighborhoods rather than ghettos
 These other white ethnic groups disperse
to suburbs more readily than AfricanAmericans
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Urban ethnic neighborhoods and
ghettos
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Ethnic clustering survives relocation from
neighborhoods to suburbs
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Example of the Chinese in the San Gabriel
Valley near Los Angeles
In ancient times, conquerors often forced
vanquished native people to live in
ghettos
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Religious minorities usually received similar
treatment
Sometimes walls were built around ghettos
Islamic cities had Christian districts
Medieval European cities had Jewish ghettos
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and
ghettos
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North American cities are more ethnically
diverse than any other urban centers in
the world
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Ethnic neighborhoods became typical after
about 1840
Immigrant groups clustered together instead
of dispersing
Ethnic groups generally came from different
parts of Europe than those who moved to rural
areas
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and
ghettos
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North American cities are more ethnically
diverse than any other urban centers in
the world
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Catholic Irish, Italians, Poles, and East
European Jews became the main urban ethnic
groups
Other non-European groups later came to
urban areas — French-Canadians, southern
blacks, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian whites,
Amerindians
Other ethnic migrants
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As immigration laws changed, the ethnic
variety in North American cities grew
even greater
Asia, rather than Europe, is now the
principal source continent for immigrants
in the United States and Canada
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Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese comprise
the most numerous immigrant groups
Asia supplied 37 percent of all legal immigrant
to United states in mid-1990s
Japanese ancestry forms the largest nationalorigin group in Hawaii
Chinatown: Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada
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A key link in a pattern
of chain migration,
Victoria’s Chinatown is
Canada’s oldest, the
earliest gold-seekers
coming by boat via
San Francisco in 1858.
Between 1861 and
1884, nearly 16000
Chinese railroad
workers funneled
through Victoria to the
mainland.
Chinatown: Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada
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Discrimation
concentrated the
community and by
1910, Chinatown was
the nation’s largest,
comprising six city
blocks and 3000
Chinese.
Second to Vancouver
until 1950, it now
ranks eighth.
Decline followed the
1923-47 prohibition of
Chinese immigration.
Chinatown: Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada
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However, in the
1980s, it became the
first to undergo a
comprehensive
rehabilitation program
and to have a Chinese
arch. The Tong Ji Men
– Gate of Harmonious
Interest, replete with
Animist, Buddhist and
Taoist motifs,
symbolizes Canadian
multiculturalism.
Other ethnic migrants
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Many West Coast cities have
acquired sizable Asiatic populations
Vancouver
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Eleven percent Asian in 1981
Has absorbed more immigrants,
particularly from Hong Kong
Other ethnic migrants
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Latin America, including Caribbean
countries, has surpassed Europe as a
source of
immigrants to North America
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East Coast cities have large numbers from the
West Indies
Miami has become a West Indies/Caribbean
city As early as the 1970s, New York City was
receiving large numbers of immigrants from
the Dominican Republic and Jamaica
Image of Canada and the United States
as predominantly “European” may change
Other ethnic migrants
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We need to be reminded not all
emigrant ethnic groups live in North
America
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About 28 million ethnic Chinese reside
outside China and Taiwan
Most live in Southeast Asian countries
 Indonesia has over 7 million
 Thailand has nearly 6 million
 Malaysia has more than 5 million
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Other ethnic migrants
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We need to be reminded not all
emigrant ethnic groups live in North
America
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Auckland, New Zealand, has the largest
Polynesian population of any city in the
world
Germany, The United Kingdom, Italy,
and Spain are home to millions of
Africans, Turks, and Asians
Ethnic Neighborhood:
Sao Paulo, Brazil
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This torii marks
entry to Liberdade,
a Japanese
community.
Japanese were
initially recruited
to work on coffee
fazendas and by
1924, 34,000 had
been subsidized by
the Sao Paulo
state government.
Ethnic Neighborhood:
Sao Paulo, Brazil
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After 1920, emigration
was subsidized by
Japan and arrivals
peaked in 1933 with
25,000.
Highly successful
farmers, especially in
market gardening,
many eventually
moved into cities to
form distinctly
Japanese
communities.
Other ethnic migrants
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Urban ethnic neighborhoods tend to be
transitory
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Ethnic groups remain while undergoing
acculturation
Central-city ethnic neighborhoods experience a
life cycle
Often one group is replace by a later-arriving
one
Example of Boston’s West End
 Mainly an Irish area in the nineteenth century
 At the beginning of the twentieth century Jews
replaced the Irish
 Poles and Italians replaced Jews in the late
1930s
Other ethnic migrants
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Urban ethnic neighborhoods tend to be
transitory
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In Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood Central
Americans replaced Cubans
Chicago’s Adams area provides an almost
complete history of American migratory
pattern
 First came the Germans and Irish
 Next Greeks, Poles, French Canadians,
Czechs, and Russian Jews
 Soon the Italians pressed those listed above
 The Italians were challenged by Chicanos and
a small group of Puerto Ricans
Other ethnic migrants
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Urban ethnic neighborhoods tend to
be transitory
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Older groups often established new
ethnic neighborhoods in suburban
areas
Ethnic mix and national character
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Any country is the sum of its
cultural parts
Each country has its own unique
mixes of national origin and ethnic
groups that help shape national
character
Russia has less diversity and a
largely different array of minorities
than the United States
Ethnic mix and national character
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Canada is also strikingly different
from the United States
Far higher proportions of English, French,
Scots, and Ukrainians
 Far fewer Germans, Africans, and
Hispanics
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Ethnic mix and national character
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Most persons in the United States
claiming German origin have in fact
been acculturated and assimilated
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They have become part of the host
culture
Massive absorption into the
mainstream culture
Major factor in shaping a national
character distinct from that of Canada